Denied credit during his lifetime, Lionel Lukin has since been acknowledged as 'the first who built a Life Boat'. To commemorate the inventor's 250th birthday last May, assistant public relations officer Robin Sharp relates the struggle for recognition of the man who invented 'that principle of safety'.During 1991, lifeboats launched times, saving 1,308 lives. Strange may seem, a Dunmow coachbuilder who would have been 250 years old 18 May 1992 - made a significant contribution to these impressive statistics.

Lionel Lukin's tombstone atHythe, Kent describes him as 'the first who built a Life Boat...the original inventor of that principle of safety'. Behind epitaph (reputedly by Lukin himself), is the story of a struggle for public recognition.

Lukin spent his schooldays Dunmow before being apprenticed local coachmaker. Having later set flourishing business in London's Acre, he became Master of the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers.

Lukin certainly possessed a fertile mind, inventing amongst other things an adjustable reclining bed for invalids.

But the invention for which he is remembered is the 'unimmergible boat', forerunner of the lifeboat.

Lukin was intrigued by the concept of an unsinkable boat. Tradition says tested models on Doctor's Pond, Dunmow and a plaque there acknowledges him as 'inventor of the first unsinkable lifeboat'. In fact, the term lifeboat' itself had not been invented at time and Lukin's intention was 'an improvement in the construction boats...which will neither overset in violent gales, nor sink if they should filled with water'.

In 1784, Lukin converted a 20ft Norwegian yawl, adding a cork belt projecting from the gunwales covered in a protective sheath. Inside, watertight containers at bow and stern and cork blocks increased buoyancy. To keep the upright, a cast-iron keel was added.

Experiment successfully completed trials on the Thames.

On 2 November 1785, Lukin obtained a patent for his invention and approached the Royal Navy, suggesting that the design be adopted for ships' boats. There was no positive response. He then lent the Experiment to a Ramsgate pilot for rough weather testing.

He never saw it again, hearing only that it had crossed the Channel several times before being seized in a foreign port as a smuggler.

Undaunted, Lukin constructed the Witch. Although manywere impressed by its qualities, there was still no encouraging reaction. However, in 1788 Archdeacon John Sharp, trustee of a Northumberland charity, asked Lukin to convert a coble for sea rescue at Bamburgh.

Following the loss of the Adventure with all hands at the mouth of the Tyne in 1789, local businessmen had offered a two-guinea prize for the best designed life-preserving craft. William Wouldhave won, but his entry was considered worthy ofbut one guinea. Another competitor, boatbuilder Henry Greathead, was commissioned to construct a boat combining Wouldhave's design with his own. Completed in 1790, Greathead's 'lifeboat', The Original, served for 50 years. More orders followed.

In a pamphlet published in 1807,Lukin asserted that Greathead's boat was 'to all the essential principles of safety, precisely according to my patent'.

The correspondence column of 'The Gentleman's Magazine' carried heated exchanges between Lukin and W.A. Hails of Newcastle over rival claims for 'lifeboat inventor' and merits of relative designs. It particularly rankled that Greathead received £1,200 from Parliament, the Royal Society of Art's gold medal and widespread recognition.

Lukin had nothing.

However, one of Greathead's lifeboats, at Lowestoft, was disliked by its crew. While visiting Lowestoft, Lukin was shown a broad-beamed, lug-rigged craft, used locally for salvage work.

Based on this, a 40ft boat was built in Lowestoft under Lukin's supervision for the Suffolk Humane Society.

The Frances Ann was launched in November 1807 and performed impressively in adverse conditions. With three masts, lug sails plus twelve short oars, this was the first sailing lifeboat to be built and it saved 300 lives during 42 years service at Lowestoft.

Lukin's belief that 'all lifeboats should be built of the form most approved by...seamen on the coast where they are to be used' was a precept adopted later by the RNLI.

He played little further part in lifeboat development but kept an interest.

Learning of the proposed formation of a 'Shipwreck Institution' (subsequently the RNLI), Lukin wrote in February 1824, offering help. No response is recorded, but at 82 perhaps Lukin was considered too old for an active role.

Lukin died on 16 February 1834 and is buried in St Leonard's churchyard, Hythe. Denied credit during his lifetime, his tomb stands as a monument to 'the builder of the first lifeboat'. Among other accolades, a stamp was issued by the Post Office in 1985, commemorating the bicentenary of Lukin's patent.

While he may not have set out to invent a 'lifeboat' as such, Lukin's idea forms a vital link in a chain extending to today's Fast Afloat Boats 3 and 4, continuing the RNLI's proud tradition which has already resulted in the saving of over 122,000 lives. A fitting tribute to the man who planned an 'unimmergible boat'..