MILESTONE IN HISTORY OF THE JOURNAL' RNU magazine's 500th issueLONDON lay beneath a blanket of snow and the normal clatter of carriages pulling up outside 20 John Street, Adelphi (just off The Strand) was muffled by its glistening white softness.

Inside, a fire burned brightly in the committee room, where Mr Thomas Wilson MP, gazed down the highly polished table at the assembled company.

Most wore Naval uniform, their insignia denoting their rank of captain. Two were gentlemen, one a bewhiskered colonel.

The young man with the firm square jaw and mutton chop whiskers, Richard Lewis, sitting to Wilson's left, was reading the correspondence, as befitted his duties as Secretary of the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck.

"A letter, Sir, from Captain John Washington RN, dated January 6, 1852 (two days previously). "He submits for consideration by the committee the desirableness of publishing periodically a sort of Life Boat journal, similar to this specimen, which accompanies his letter." ASSENT Wilson, the Member of Parliament for the City of London, already in his eighties, but an alert and influential chairman of the Institution's management committee, passed the Washington document around the table amid murmurings of assent.

The minutes of that meeting, now carefully preserved in the archives of the RNLI, record: "The committee, having examined the same, the further consideration of the subject was postponed till the next meeting." A month later, on February 5, 1852, the decision to proceed with Washington's idea was approved: "provided its cost to the Institution does not exceed £50 a year." This historic decision was taken beneath the benign gaze of His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, newly invited to be president of the Institution and taking the chair of his first meeting of its management committee since accepting the office.

Capt (later Rear-Admiral) John Washington, who a year earlier had successfully chaired the committee set up under the Duke's patronage to find a new design of lifeboat (the competition between boat designers was his idea), was appointed to lead a small subcommittee to get the journal project started.

Within three weeks the first issue had been printed and published (along the lines of Washington's original draft), dated March 1, 1852 and priced IVid.

The 16-page first issue opened with a review of lifeboat cover around the coast of the British Isles and gave as justification for having a journal at all, "the general want of information on the whole subject" (of shipwreck and lifeboats).

DESIGN It was intended that the journal, to be sold at a cost placing it within the reach of every boatman around Britain, should: "materially advance the great cause we advocate, namely, the improvement of lifeboats, their management, and all other means for the preservation of life from shipwreck." The journal would set out to disseminate information about lifeboat design, new lifeboats and lifeboat stations, reports of the local committees and associations springing up around the country, details of medals awarded for acts of bravery during lifeboat services, a complete register of wrecks on the shores of the United Kingdom and to act as an open forum by encouraging "all correspondence bearing on the subject of saving life from shipwreck".

The first issue also paid tribute to the Coastguard service, called for expert tribunals to determine the cause of wrecks, with a "sea coroner" to be appointed also, gave details of the trials of a newly designed lifeboat, listed all known wrecks around the coast for the year 1852 and reported on activities at lifeboat stations from Ramsgate to Llanelly.

The inaugural issue also listed "the principal cases in which Rewards have been granted for saving life by the National Shipwreck Institution, during the year 1851." The first entry was for January 2. "The emigrant barque Edmund, wrecked 19th Nov., at Kilkee, on the coast of Clare; 116 out of 216 persons saved by the Coastguard men of the Kilkee Station.

A silver medal to each of the six men, and a reward of £12. To Mr Richard Russell JP, and his butler, whoalso gallantly exerted themselves on the occasion, a silver medal each." A special general meeting of the Institution took place at 20 John Street on Thursday, July 1, 1852.

It had been called to give the final seal of approval to changes in the rules by which the Institution was governed and it was followed by a committee meeting at which Capt Washington gave notice of a proposal "to combine the offices of Secretary, Inspector of Lifeboats and Editor of the Life Boat journal in one person, who is to be a sailor by profession, and at a salary of £150 a year." In the event, this proposal was withdrawn at the next committee meeting, in July, at which it was agreed, instead, to offer Capt John Ross Ward the combined job of Life Boat Inspector and Editor.

Ward accepted this offer, with the proviso that Washington continue to contribute to and revise the journal, while he, Ward, was the nominal Editor only.

In March, 1853, Washington gave up his editorial duties, blaming pressure of business and the job was handed over to Richard Lewis and John Ward to share.

It was also agreed at that time to publish the journal quarterly, instead of monthly.

The two men divided their duties in respect of THE LIFEBOAT, Lewis looking after the general editing andadministration, Ward supplying the technical input.

In January, 1855, following the Institution's decision to adopt a different name, the publication changed its subtitle from 'Journal of the National Shipwreck Institution' to 'Journal of the Lifeboat Institution' (it was not until May 1, 1889 that the word Royal was added).

The next major change in the journal's history came in 1883, when Richard Lewis died and John Ross Ward resigned as Inspector of Lifeboats.

Charles Dibdin, prime mover behind the Civil Service Lifeboat Fund, joined the RNLI as its Secretary, following Lewis's death and continued in office and as Editor of the journal until his own death in 1910.

The style and content of the Institution's official organ was by now well established and it continued in the same mould well into the 20th century.

The advent of George Shee (later Sir George) as Secretary and Editor, following Dibdin's death, heralded the introduction of some subtle changes in the journal's general content.

PHOTOGRAPHS The official reports and lengthy technical articles were now sharing the publication's pages with profiles of lifeboat coxswains, reports written in a lighter vein of fund raising incidents or visits to lifeboat stations by eminent men of the day and the introduction and growing use of black and white photographs to illustrate its pages.

Also during this period, advertisements began to appear in THE LIFEBOAT as the journal began to reach a wider audience.

The price, which after the early optimism of IVzd had stabilised at 3d had remained unaltered for the best part of 60 years until November, 1918 when, amid all the euphoria at the end of the First World War, the journal's price was quietly doubled to 6d.

Sir George Shee retired in 1931, to be succeeded by Lt Col C. R. Satterthwaite, his deputy for the previous six years and at the same time Charles Vince, since 1920 the assistant secretary for publicity (forerunner of today's public relations officer), took charge of the RNLI's public relations and assumed the editorship of THE LIFEBOAT Unlike any of his predecessors, Vince was a trained journalist and this was reflected in a more modern approach to production of the journal—an attitude echoing the mood of the times.

When war broke out for a second time in the century, the journal's unbroken run of 88 years ended. Although the Institution had cut its size, to save paper, it was agreed in April, 1940 to suspend publication "in the interests of economy" for the duration of hostilities.

In the meantime, quarterly bulletins appeared, to keep the public informedof the lifeboat service's part in the war effort and it was not until the summer of 1947 that THE LIFEBOAT returned in its familiar format.

Charles Vince retired a year after the journal celebrated its centenary and was replaced by former press officer in service of the Government, Patrick Howarth.

Under his influence the journal underwent its most dramatic transformation.

Glossy pages were introduced in 1964, with the explanation that "both the type and the general layout are more in accordance with modern practice".

Further changes followed in January, 1971, with wider pages, to be followed two years later by adoption of the current size (aimed at improving the journal's advertising potential and giving more room for the display of editorial material, especially photographs).

From the spring of 1974 Patrick Howarth had as his assistant (and the effective) editor Joan Davies, who took over the editing of THE LIFEBOAT under her own name upon Howarth's retirement.

Miss Davies retired in 1984, to be replaced by Edward Wake-Walker, whose tenure of the editor's chair was only brief, his promotion to public relations officer in January this year prompting the arrival of the present incumbent.

Patrick Howarth had introduced Notes of the Quarter (later changed to RNLI News), a general round-up of lifeboat activities, personalities and anecdotes.

New Ways of Raising Money (now the Fund Raisers' section) and 100 Years ago (now Past and Present) were other features introduced during Howarth's editorship.

But although Howarth wove the initial threads of change into the pattern of THE LIFEBOAT'S history, it was Joan Davies who was the acknowledged artist in creating the modern journal.

Patrick Howarth himself, in a tribute to Miss Davies upon her retirement, commented: "It was only under Joan Davies's editorship that it became a magazine of evident high quality and absorbing general interest . . . she was the outstanding Editor of a magazine whose history goes back 133 years." HIGH REGARD For the future, the journal seems destined to continue its important role of chronicling the history of the RNLI as it happens, while at the same time having to appeal to a much wider audience than in earlier days.

The rapid growth of Shoreline membership will be reflected in the continuing expansion of the journal's own circulation, spreading news of the RNLI to more and more parts of the British Isles and beyond.

From those dim and distant days, when Captain John Washington's request that "a sort of Life Boat journal" be published periodically was given cautious assent by the RNLI's committee of management, THE LIFEBOAT has developed into one of the most highly respected and longest-lived journals in the country—itself a reflection of the high regard in which the RNLI is held throughout the United Kingdom and further afield..