The Life-boat journal was first published at a time of immense change for the Institution. In an extract from his book Riders of the Storm, Ian Cameron recounts some of the major events from that period of the RNLI's history.The Life-boat, the official journal of the Institution, was first published in 1852, with the aim of 'laying before the public all the information respecting the construction and establishment of Life-Boats, the number of Shipwrecks, the exertions made to save Life and Property, and the prizes and medals awarded to those who have been most active in that noble service'. It was priced at only iVsd, 'so as to place it within reach of every boatman around our shores', and for some 150 years it has provided the public with a record of acts of courage and fine seamanship that have seldom been equalled and never surpassed.

In 1853 the journal records that 'the Duke of Northumberland has committed the charge of his Life-Boats to the Institution'. In its early years, the Shipwreck Institution had often found that local communities were reluctant to hand over control of their lifeboats. This was because local people felt, with some justification, that they were better judges of the sort of rescue services their area needed than landlubbers in London. The Northumberland coast had always had a particularly proud record of local, privately run rescue services, predating Lukin's coble; and the fact that the Duke of Northumberland now had sufficient confidence in the Institution to give them control of his lifeboats encouraged other organisations to do the same. Slowly the Institution began to draw under its mantle the dozens of lifeboats and lifeboat stations that for years had been operating independently.

In its early years, the Shipwreck Institution had often found that local communities were reluctant to hand over control of their lifeboats.

In 1854, this assimilation was given momentum by a takeover. For some years, the Institution had operated in tandem with a sister charity, the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Benevolent Society. There had been a duplication of duties and confusion as to exactly what each organisation did. It was now agreed that the Institution should concentrate on bringing people safely ashore and thatthe Benevolent Society should concentrate on caring for them after they had been landed. As part of the deal, the Benevolent Society agreed to hand over its nine lifeboats and boathouses, and the Institution agreed to drop the word 'Shipwreck' from its title, becoming known then on simply as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Later that year, the Institution felt obliged to take what many people thought was a step in the wrong direction. It accepted an annual subsidy from the government - £2,000 from the Mercantile Marine Fund, to be administered by the Board of Trade. This money was needed to give stability to the Institution's programme of increasing and efficiently maintaining its fleet. The government, needless to say, expected a quid pro quo and was soon trying to exert an ever increasing degree of control. In particular, it insisted that all local RNLI committees should include at least one representative from the Board of Trade. This frequently led to friction. So as soon as the Institution felt it could do without the subsidy, which was in 1869, it thankfully terminated it and reverted to its original charitable status, which it has maintained ever since.

The year 1856 saw the building of 10 new lifeboats, including a veritable giant of a boat for the east coast. Big, heavy rescue boats had always been favoured by the people of East Anglia and the building of a huge 40-footer to replace the old, privately owned boat at Southwold is evidence that the Institution was, at last, tailoring its lifeboats to satisfy local needs. The same year saw the first major bequest to the RNLI. In his will, Captain Hamilton Fitzgerald RN left the Institution £10,000 (the equivalent in today's money of nearly £8m). It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this bequest, which more than doubled the Institution's annual income at a time when cash was badly needed- From then on a steadily increasing number of people remembered the RNLI in their wills and funds derived from legacies now amount to over 50% of the Institution's annual income.

In 1858. the Institution made another successful takeover, gaining control of the privately run lifeboats of the Norfolk Association. To quote the journal: This was a 'red-letter year', because the Norfolk Association had the management of all the boats on the Norfolk coast and it is well known that more lifeboat work is done there than in any other part of the coast of Great Britain and the experience of the men who worked these boats (would be] invaluable.

The boats handed over were at Cromer, Mundesley, Bacton, Palling, Winterton, Caister and Yarmouth.

In 1860, barometers were introduced in selected lifeboat stations. This came about largely through the efforts of Admiral Fitzroy (formerly Darwin's commanding officer on the Beagle), who was one of the first people to appreciate that instruments such as the barometer could help accurate weather forecasting and that accurate weather forecasting could reduce the risk of shipwreck. Fitzroy wrote a number of technical papers on this subject; and in 1859 his point was tragically proven when the Royal Charter was wrecked off Anglesey with the loss of some 450 lives, largely because her captain had no warning of the hurricane that for the previous 24 hours had been devastating southern England (see page 26 for an account of the Royal Charter disaster). It was hoped that the more general use of barometers and the warning of storms by the Meteorological Office would make people realise that getting the weather right could be a matter of life or death.

This article is an extract from Riders of the Storm, the story of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, by Ian Cameron, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson priced £20.

Readers of the Lifeboat can purchase Riders of the Storm at the special price of £15 inc p+p.

Please telephone 01903 828503 quoting reference HWROS..