It’s a Saturday afternoon in Manchester, 1891. Thousands flock to the city’s streets to catch a glimpse of something they have never seen before: lifeboat crew members and their lifesaving craft. As the lifeboats – from the stations at Lytham St Annes and Southport – are paraded through the streets, purses and buckets are passed among the enthralled crowds for loose change. This is fundraising history in the making

One of the first ever charity street collections secured RNLI donations that day. And the donors weren’t wealthy philanthropists, but generous, ordinary people. That method of fundraising – collecting loose change – has continued to this day. But, over 120 years on, as society has changed, so have the ways and means.

The Manchester event was the first ever Lifeboat Saturday, organised by a local wealthy industrialist, Sir Charles Macara, in memory of a lifeboat disaster. Five years earlier, 27 lifeboatmen from Southport and St Annes died while trying to rescue sailors from the stricken vessel Mexico. Sir Charles was so concerned for the widows and children of the volunteers lost that he organised a collection for them. It raised £5,500 – a considerable sum at the time.

Following the success of the street collection, Sir Charles looked into the finances of the RNLI and realised that it relied heavily on the wealthy few. So he resolved to take RNLI fundraising to the people on the street. In the following years, Lifeboat Saturdays became annual events in Manchester, and the movement spread to other towns and cities. This laid the foundations of the charity’s voluntary fundraising as we know it.

Collecting loose change, often around an organised event or spectacle – or in places where people are shopping and spending money – is still central to ensuring we have enough lifesaving funds. Lifeboat Day is still one of the biggest annual fundraising days in London, with collectors shaking boxes and buckets on the streets and in train stations across the capital. Fundraising branch members in all of the UK and Republic of Ireland’s major cities manage to collect hundreds of thousands of pounds and euros every year. And on the coast, Flag Days and Lifeboat Weeks are some of the biggest events in local calendars.

But as society has changed, so have the ways and means in which we reach out to people.

For example, huge out-of-town supermarkets – once rare but so common today – have become a great place to fundraise. Last year, collections run by volunteers at Tesco stores across the UK raised over £430,000 for the RNLI.

It just shows how our fundraisers have always found a way to adapt to the way potential donors behave, and that has been particularly important inland, where the RNLI vies for donations with many other worthwhile charities.

Awareness of the RNLI in cities can be quite low, but fundraisers like Tom Ridyard have not let their location stop them. Tom is the Chairman of the Bolton Branch and has been raising funds for the RNLI for 30 years, having been a part of the now-closed Leigh Branch before moving to Bolton 20 years ago. For the past 3 years, Bolton Branch has raised well over £20,000 – a figure that Tom modestly puts down to people’s generosity. But it also has much to do with the enthusiasm and commitment to collecting shown by Tom and his fellow volunteers.

‘We do collections at all the supermarkets in the town as often as we are allowed and every year we stage a band concert in the town centre, which raises lots of money. We do at least three coffee mornings each year and we always do something in January. This year I brought out the old Whitby inshore lifeboat and stood with it in the snow in the town hall square!’ says Tom. ‘Here in Bolton it’s often raining or snowing. I think it lets people on the street really feel what it must be like for the lifeboat crew. They often say the crew deserve every penny.’

Tom and his fellow fundraisers also staged a re-enactment of the first ever Lifeboat Saturday. Over 60 fundraisers in Victorian costume paraded the Queen Victoria, a pulling and sailing lifeboat on service at Bembridge, Isle of Wight, in the late 19th century, through the streets of Manchester. Tom spread the word with a loudspeaker while the others pulled the boat through the town on its carriage. The day raised over £5,000.

Tom also has a busy schedule giving talks to other fundraising groups such as the Round Table and Rotary. But he is happiest when out on the street, meeting people and talking to them about the RNLI. ‘I always say to my team that the minute they stop enjoying it they should resign. But I for one intend to keep doing this for as long as I can stand up.’

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‘I intend to keep doing this for as long as I can stand up’

Tom Ridyard, right, pictured with Bolton Branch Treasurer Brian Thompson in front of the Albert Memorial in Manchester, where RNLI street fundraising began. This picture features in the The Lifeboat: Courage on Our Coasts photography book, available at RNLISHOP.org

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‘An old lady gave us a banker’s draft for £10,000’

72-year-old Tom Ridyard was born and brought up in Leigh. There was no lifeboat station there, but he has had a lifelong love of the sea and the RNLI thanks to his grandmother. She ran the local pub. Every weekend, a bus left from outside the pub to take locals to Blackpool for the day.

‘The first thing we did every time we got off the bus would be to visit the lifeboat station. Then it would be into Woolworths and grandma would buy me a little plastic lifeboat and I would sit on the beach all day playing with that.’ That planted a seed of RNLI support that led to Tom’s fundraising feats. His favourite? ‘When I was selling RNLI souvenirs in the town hall square on Armed Forces Day, an old lady gave us a banker’s draft for £10,000. It took me a while to work out how much all those noughts meant!’