100 years ago One hundred years ago THE LIFEBOAT was also looking back - another 50 years to what it termed: A Noteworthy Jubilee from THE LIFEBOAT of 1893 Fifty years ago, Le. on the 20th October, 1842 there was laid to rest in her early grave, among the stormy surroundings of her short life, one of the greatest heroines the world has ever known. After this lapse of time the story of Grace Darling's noble exploit is worth recalling.

From the narrative of the only cabin passenger who survived, published in the Spectator of the following week, we learn that the steamer Forfarshire, bound from Hull to Dundee, met with a violent storm off St Abb's Head on September 5th, and becoming unmanageable on account of leaking boilers, drifted into the Fame Islands, where she struck in the small hours of the morning...

After giving an account of the famous rescue The Lifeboat continued: Yet Grace Darling was of no athletic mould. William Howitt, who interviewed her a fewyears later, speaks of her as "not tall or handsome, her figure not striking." She was carried off by consumption in her twenty-sixth year. But sympathy gave her strength, and she must have been a skilful oarswoman, as it was entirely owing to her exertions that the coble was kept afloat while William Darling rescued those nine people.

It is nice to read in Hewitt's 'Visits to Remarkable Places," how little Grace's head was turned by her fame. Attentions and rewards were showered on her.

The Duke of Northumberland gave her at Alnwick a gold watch, the Royal National Life-Boat (then Shipwreck) Institution voted her and her father its silver medal, the Humane Society sent her a vote of thanks, its president a silver teapot. Seven hundred pounds were subscribed for her, and boat-loads of curious sightseers crowded the lighthouse tower. Her exploit was ridiculously dramatised in London, and she was offered 20L a night to appear in the play merely sitting in a boat. Yet Howitt found her a "little, simple, innocent young woman - a perfect Jeannie Deans - with the most gentle, amiable, quiet look, the sweetest smile - a thoroughly good creature - shunning public notice, even troubled at the visits of the curious" - sitting at her sewing with neatly-braided hair and plain print dress, wearing the Duke's watch and surrounded by masses of presents, chiefly books. She refused many offers of marriage, including one from the artist who came to take her portrait, because they were not quite the right thing. But the bridegroom who claimed her was Death.

She was buried in Banburgh Churchyard and a memorial shrine was erected there within sight of the lonely lighthouse where she lived and died..