Jn Sunday, 15 March 1789 a ship, the Adventure of Newcastle, began the process which led to today's lifeboats.

Adventure was wrecked at the mouth of the Tyne while thousands of onlookers watched helplessly from the nearby shore as her crew dropped from the rigging into the sea. The disaster led the members of a private club, known as the Gentlemen of the Lawe House, to advertise a competition in a local newspaper to design a boat that could be used for saving lives from shipwrecks in dangerous seas. The prize was two guineas.

A number of entries were received and as a result the Original, generally considered to be the first lifeboat, was built by Henry Greathead and entered service in 1790 Greathead was born in 1757, and after an apprenticeship in boat building embarked as a ship's carpenter bound for the West Indies, or so he thought. The ship was, in fact, to be wilfully wrecked on the Goodwin Sands to defraud the underwriters, but the shrewd Greathead managed to avoid the disaster. The captain then took the ship to the French coast near Calais. France was at war with England but Greathead' s loyalty in contacting Lloyds with news of the intended fraud gained him the respect of the French, who allowed him to return. Greathead intended to establish his own boat-building business in South Shields but was somewhat delayed, by five years. Her Majesty's Navy press-ganged him in Portsmouth, but despite the hardships he studied ship designs and made models to work on when he returned home.

In 1784, back at South Shields he contacted Lloyds, who, impressed with his designs, sent him a donation to start his long-awaited business. For many years he worked on the designs, trying to build a boat able to ride safely in rough seas, with continuous encouragement and advice from the underwriters.

His big break came in 1789 with the Adventure disaster, and the competition which followed. Two members of the adjudicating committee, Michael Rockwood and Nicholas Fairies, had modelled a boat in clay based on the designs which they had received and Greathead, by this stage a flourishing boatbuilder, was entrusted to build the vessel, with slight modifications. The Original was born.

Costing £76 9s 8d to build, she was 30ft long and 10ft beam, rising sharply at both bow and stern, where there were cases filled with cork.

These cases, a cork lining and a casing of cork along her gunwale, all served to give her buoyancy. There was no rudder but steering oars were provided at each end. Manned by a crew of 12, the Original was launched in 1790 and remained in service for 40 years, saving hundreds of lives near the mouth of the Tyne, until she was eventually wrecked with the loss of two of her crew. Greathead went from one success to another. He had been voted £ 1,200 by Parliament; Trinity House and Lloyds each awarded him 100 guineas; he received 50 guineas and a gold medal from the Society of Arts, and the Emperor of Russia gave him a diamond ring.

Within 14 years he had built 31 lifeboats, paid for largely by Lloyds and the second Duke of Northumberland, which were manned and administered through local enterprise.

Henry Greathead died in 1813 and his memorial says that he is' very generally... credited with designing and building the first lifeboat'.

However his success had caused considerable bad feeling, and arguments ensued that were to rage for many years.

A tombstone in Hythe, Kent, reads 'This Lionel Lukin was the first who built a lifeboat, and was the original inventor of that principle of safety, by which many lives and much property have been preserved from shipwreck'. Travel northwards to South Shields and you will find another which bears the words 'William Wouldhave, clerk of this church and inventor of that invaluable blessing to mankind, The Lifeboat'.

So here the mystery begins. Who really was responsible for inventing the lifeboat? Lukin was born in Essex in 1742 and was by trade a coach builder. However, he also designed boats to withstand dangerous seas and had received encouragement from the Prince of Wales, later King George IV. He had also patented his design for an 'unimmergible' boat, which had cork gunwales, watertight compartments in the boat, and hollow compartments in the bow and stern. An iron keel added to the weight and helped stability. In 1786 Lukin converted a coble which served for a number of years at Bamburgh.

Wouldhave, the other contender, was an eccentric parish clerk and singing teacher who had long been studying boat designs, particularly those with self-righting properties. His inspiration had come from a curved wooden dipper used to take water from a well. No matter how it was placed in the water the dipper always righted itself on surfacing.

His entry for the Lawe House competition caused him bitter disappointment. He won, but the judges decided to award him only half the prize money and Wouldhave threw down the guinea and walked away in disgust.

The three men and their designs remain the subject of considerable dispute, but of one thing there is no doubt - two centuries ago this year the Original began her life-saving work at South Shields and led, indirectly perhaps, to today's modern lifeboat service..