THE GROWTH OF THE LIFE-BOAT MOVEMENT.
"What is noble? 'tis the finer
Portion of our mind and heart,
Linked to something still diviner
Than mere language can impart;
Ever prompting--ever seeing
Some improvement yet to plan;
To uplift our fellow-being,
And, like man, to feel for Man."
_C. Swain._
If the ear were only as powerful to enable the mind to realize things
heard, as the eye is powerful in enabling the mind to realize things
seen, many reforms would have been worked out promptly, instead of
having to wait year after year, sometimes almost generation after
generation, while the mind of the public has had its sympathies but
slowly awakened by the constant statement of some evil, and the
unceasing demand for its remedy.
Thus it was, that a terrible scene of disaster and death, of which many
were the agonized eye-witnesses, did more to urge forward the life-boat
cause than had been effected by the report of many similar tragedies,
which but few lookers on had seen occur.
It was in the year 1789, a tremendous gale of wind was raging at
Newcastle; thousands of the inhabitants were watching the wild sea as it
foamed up at the entrance of the port, and they trembled as they saw
vessel after vessel stagger on through the sweeping waves, running into
the harbour for refuge.
One ship, the _Adventurer_, missed the entrance of the port, and was
driven on to the rocks; the seas rushed over her deck, and flew half-way
up the masts; the crew took refuge in the rigging, and the wreck was so
near to the pier, that the horrified and terror-stricken people
thronging there, could hear the cries for help, and even see the growing
shade of the death agony upon the faces of the men, as they became more
and more exhausted and faint from exposure to the heavy seas; and then
they saw one after another of the seamen torn from his hold and perish
miserably; and this within call of these thousands of spectators, who
were full of grief and sympathy, but were unable even to attempt a
rescue.
Brave men stood powerless, and as they were frantically appealed to, to
try and save the drowning men, could only groan over the utter
impossibility of rendering them any assistance! Yes! the daring, hardy,
skilful sailors, wept with the weeping women, as they stood overwhelmed
with helpless horror watching the most heart-rending scene.
Strong boats were there, ready to be manned, boats that had successfully
battled with many a rough sea, but they were _not life-boats_, and to
go out into such a mad boil of raging waves in any other kind of boat
than a life-boat, would have been certain death to all the crew, without
affording the faintest possibility of help to the shipwrecked; and thus,
without help, without hope, one after the other of the poor shipwrecked
sailors, exhausted and faint, fell back into the wild waves and
perished: the vessel was speedily torn to pieces, the crowd slowly and
sorrowfully went home; soon the darkness of night shadowed the wild sea
and the saddened town, but the day's work was not done--the tragedy was
not without fruit, in more senses than one, "the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church;" the sympathies of the people were now fully
aroused; meetings were at once held at South Shields--a committee was
formed--and premiums were offered for the best life-boat.
William Wouldham, a painter, was one of the successful competitors; he
presented a model embracing many excellent qualities; Henry Greathead, a
boat-builder of South Shields, stood next on the list.
The various models presented were discussed--their more excellent
qualities selected--and from the suggestions thus obtained, a model
life-boat was planned, from which, as a type, Greathead built a boat,
which, either from the fact that he improved upon the model given to
him, or because his name, as its builder, was chiefly associated with
it, became known as Greathead's life-boat, and he gained the honour of
being its inventor--not but what the claims of Wouldham were stoutly
asserted; and we may believe by many accepted, for in the parish church
of St. Hilda, South Shields, a tombstone erected to the memory of
Wouldham bears at its head a model of his life-boat, with the following
inscription:--
"Heaven genius scientific gave,
Surpassing vulgar boast, yet he from soil
So rich, no golden harvest reap'd, no wreath
Of laurel gleaned. None but the sailor's heart,
Nor that ingrate, of palm unfading this,
Till shipwrecks cease, or Life-boats cease to save."
Within the next fifteen years, or so, Greathead built about thirty
life-boats, eight of which were sent to foreign countries. At last the
life-boat cause was wakened into life, but into no vigorous existence;
it did not actually die, but lingered on with here and there a spasm of
vitality, as some local cause or stirring advocate excited a momentary
interest in the question.
Life-boat stations were scattered at long intervals round the coast, and
boats of various designs, some very good, were placed at a few of the
more dangerous positions on our shores.
The public was not altogether unprepared to move, but was waiting for
the needed impulse.
The whole cause, in spite of all its intrinsic merits and great claims
upon humanity, waited for the _coming man_, and he was found in the
person of Sir William Hillary, Baronet, one of nature's real noblemen;
his heart was great, as his arm was strong; his love for the sea was
only equalled by his love for sailors; all that concerned their
well-being excited his quick sympathy and active interest, and his
feelings were, as a matter of course, very sincere, and very earnest for
the life-boat cause.
Sir W. Hillary lived at Douglas, in the Isle of Man. His sympathy for
the sailor proved its vitality by being active and practical: he
established Sailors' Homes, and in many ways sought their improvement
and benefit; and when the hour of danger came, when the storms raged and
lives were in peril, Sir William was the first, not only to encourage,
but also to lead the boatmen to the rescue of the shipwrecked; he shrank
from no danger, he shared all labour, and endured all hardship, and this
to such an extent, that he was personally engaged in efforts by which
more than three hundred lives were saved.
The following are some of the occasions in which Sir William's heroic
efforts were blessed in their results to the saving of life:--
In the year 1825 Sir William, and the crews under him, rescued
eighty-seven persons, sixty-two of these from the steamer _City of
Glasgow_; eleven from the _Leopard_ brig; and nine from the _Fancy_
sloop.
In the year 1827 they saved seventeen lives. In 1830, four different
crews were rescued, forty-three lives being saved; and in 1832 no fewer
than fifty lives were saved from a passenger-ship.
The nature of the perils Sir William Hillary so nobly encountered, and
the toils he shared, may be well illustrated by an account of the rescue
of the crew of the _St. George_.
On the 29th of November, 1830, the mail steamer _St. George_ struck on
St. Mary's rock, not far from Douglas. The captain had no boats to which
he could trust in so violent a sea; he therefore cut away the mainmast,
and endeavoured to construct a raft from its wreck, together with the
spars which they had on board; but the seas proved too heavy for him to
be able to do so, and he signalled his distress to the shore.
Sir William Hillary and a crew of twelve men at once manned the
life-boat, and proceeded in the direction of the wreck; they found the
steamer hard upon the rock, and surrounded by such a raging boil of surf
that any attempt to rescue the unfortunate passengers and crew seemed
almost impossible; nevertheless they were not the men to leave their
fellow-creatures to perish without making an effort for their safety, at
whatever risk that effort must be made; they therefore let the boat rush
before the gale into the heart of the surf; here she was completely at
the mercy of the wild and broken waves--her rudder was torn off, oar
after oar was broken, until scarcely half the number were left--some of
the air-tight compartments were strained and filled with water, and
rendered useless, and to add to the dismay of the crew, one of the
tremendous seas which rushed over the boat washed Sir William and three
men overboard; it was only after the greatest difficulty that they were
recovered, and, happily, without being much hurt; the life-boat was then
hurled by the waves between the steamer and the rock, here the broken
mainmast and other wreckage were being driven violently by the surf in
all directions, so that the life-boat was in a very whirlpool of danger.
The crew and passengers of the steamer thought, however, that they would
be safer in the boat, in spite of the dread peril she was in, than on
board the steamer, which was being torn and beaten to pieces, and they
left the steamer for the boat; the boat had then more than sixty persons
on board; and hour after hour her crew struggled in vain to get her out
of the position of extreme danger, in which the force of the gale and
the rush of the waves held them as in a vice; every moment was one of
very great hardship to all on board the boat, as the surf continually
flew over them in volumes, and the danger of being crushed by the
wreckage, that was tossing and leaping in the contest of the mad sea
that raged around them, was incessant.
After nearly three hours of the hardest struggle, they managed to get
the almost disabled boat a little clear from the rock and the wreck, but
still they were unable to make any headway against the seas, or get
beyond the circle of surf, when at length the sea, as if tired of
sporting with its shattered prey, drove the boat so far beyond the range
of the surf, that other boats were able to come to her assistance and
all lives were saved.
Such was the nature of the perils and hardships that Sir William Hillary
often readily and nobly encountered in his efforts to save life.
When, therefore, urged by the cruel necessities of the case, he pleaded
for the life-boat cause, and illustrated his pleading by his own
personal experience, men began at last to listen to what he urged. He
described not only that the dangers of the shipwrecked were fearfully
increased from want of due means for their rescue, in the absence of
boats properly constructed to contend against the peculiar danger
arising from the raging seas and broken water which generally surrounded
a wreck, but he showed also how, from the same cause, brave men too
often rushed to their death.
That in answer to the cry for rescue, men put to sea, urged by the
generous impulses of sympathy and courage, went forth possessed of all
the needed bravery, the strength, the skill, the determination to perish
or to save: they did often perish, and did not save, because they needed
the boats which could alone safely contend with the dangers that they
had to encounter.
Two members of Parliament, Mr. Thomas Wilson and Mr. George Hibbert,
were especially moved by such a tale, told by such a man, out of a
brave, loving, full heart, and illustrated by such terrible experience,
and they gave Sir William their very hearty co-operation; and these
three men became, in the year 1825, the founders of the "Royal National
Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck."
Sir W. Hillary undertook the formation of a branch committee of the
society for the Isle of Man, and so fully succeeded that, by the year
1829, each of the four harbours of the station possessed a life-boat.
Under the organization of this society, and with the aid of some
fourteen smaller, and local associations, and notably with the
assistance of "The Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Royal Benevolent
Society," which was instituted in the year 1839, and provided seven
life-boats on different parts of the coast, the life-boat cause went on,
doing much noble work, but leaving very much more undone; and very much
that was effected was not done in really the best way.
Thus the life-boat cause had prospered, the work was becoming organised;
but still much was wanting; it needed some new and great stimulus--and
in a few years the stimulus came.