GRACE DARLING
With the exception of the lights at the head of Berwick pier, those on
the Farne Islands, on the Northumbrian coast, off Bamborough, are the
most northerly in England. Legend tells us that from a now ruined tower
on one of the islands a light was formerly shown as a warning to passing
ships; and if that was so, then in all probability it was one of those
lights of which we have already spoken as being supported by charity, and
was tended by a monk or hermit from the famous monastery of Holy Island.
Such light would, of course, have been extinguished at the dissolution of
the religious houses, and no other, however dim or flickering, marked the
dangers of the Farne rocks till the year 1776. Proposals were made for a
lighthouse on these islands some hundred years before, by a certain Sir
John Clayton, who put forward many schemes for lighthouses, as objects
of profit, at many points on the coast, but nothing came of it; it was
crushed by the influence of the Newcastle traders, who did not relish
having to pay for it. The sailors engaged in the northern coasting
trade set these proposals afloat again in 1727, but they were stifled
before they came to anything, though the then secretary to the Trinity
House admits that he has heard ‘judicious commanders’ speak well of the
suggestion.
[Illustration: OUTER FARNE LIGHTHOUSE.]
However, opposition—honest or the reverse—kept the Farne rocks without a
lighthouse till the year 1776, when the first of the two that at present
light them was set up. The second, on the Longstones, was built in 1810,
and it is this latter that has become familiar to us as the scene of
Grace Darling’s heroism.
It was customary, sixty or seventy years ago, to place a family in
charge of a lighthouse—a man, his wife, and one or two children, all
of whom, male and female, if above a certain age, received a trifling
salary, and were looked upon—women and girls quite as much as men and
boys—as assistant light-keepers; indeed, there were women light-keepers
appointed by the Trinity House so late as 1860.
An arrangement such as this was adopted at the Longstones lighthouse;
William Darling, his wife, and their daughter Grace, a girl of
twenty-one, trimmed and tended the lights as recognized officials of the
Trinity House.
Grace was born at Bamborough, but she had gone with her parents to live
at the Longstones when but a few months old. In this desolate home she
had grown accustomed to every form of weather; the laughter of a summer’s
breeze equally with the wail of a winter’s gale had been her cradle song.
As she grew up, she spent the time she was not helping her parents, in
rowing and fishing, and when ten or eleven years old her father could
trust her to manage the lighthouse boat even in the roughest weather.
Grace was no scholar—her opportunities of acquiring information were
obviously limited—but she could read and write well, and she made good
use of the former accomplishment, eagerly drinking in every scrap of
information that her father’s twenty or thirty books contained regarding
acts of courage and daring performed by the toilers of the sea either in
peace or war. Her great ambition was that, one day, _she_ might have the
opportunity of emulating the example of those whose deeds she loved to
study.
That opportunity came to her at last. At dusk, on September 6, 1838, the
wind that throughout the day had been freshening was blowing considerably
more than half-a-gale, and in the teeth of this the steamer Forfarshire,
hailing from Hull and bound for Dundee, passed between the Farne rocks
and the Northumberland coast. The ship was ‘labouring’ heavily, and
Grace, as well as her father and mother, eagerly watched her progress
till night closing in hid her from their view.
With the darkness the wind blew yet more fiercely; all through the night
it raged with unpitying fury, and the watchers on the Longstones talked
long and anxiously over the vessel that had passed them. Darling did not
like the look of her, or the way the storm seemed to be handling her.
Neither father, mother, nor daughter took any sleep that night: when
not busy tending to the light or wiping the spray from the glass of the
lantern they peered into the darkness, thinking perhaps they might catch
a glimpse of some signal of distress either from the steamer or some
other vessel, yet no light or signal was observable.
[Illustration: GRACE DARLING AND HER FATHER ON THE WAY TO THE WRECK.]
But the first rays of morning revealed to Darling that his apprehensions
for the Forfarshire were well-founded. On Hawkers Rocks, a mile away
from the lighthouse, could be seen the remains of the wrecked vessel,
the remnant of her living freight clinging to it. What could be done? It
seemed madness to launch the lighthouse boat in such a gale, but Grace
begged her father to make the attempt; she would go with him, she said,
and God, she felt sure, would give them strength to perform the daring
enterprise.
We know what happened. Darling yielded to his daughter’s prayer, and the
survivors of the Forfarshire, few in number it is true, but all that
outlived the fury of that awful night, were brought by Grace and her
father safely back to the lighthouse and carefully nursed by the humane
keepers till the weather changed and they were taken to Bamborough.
Thus the ambition of Grace’s life had been realized; she had tested her
courage, and it had not failed her.
All along the Northumbrian coast the news of the daring deed spread
with wonderful rapidity: presents and letters were heaped upon Grace
Darling in a manner she had never expected. The Trinity House granted the
‘family’ leave of absence from the lighthouse, and the Duke and Duchess
of Northumberland entertained them at Alnwick, where, on leaving, Grace
was presented with a purse containing £700. Her exploit was the talk of
London and of all England, and the print-sellers’ windows gave a liberal
display of her portraits.
She received all these tokens of approbation with an unaffected pleasure
that added to her charms and her popularity, but her naturally retiring
disposition would not allow her to accept the offer of an enterprising
theatre manager to appear nightly on the London boards.
[Illustration: GRACE DARLING.]
Neither were offers of a more permanent nature—offers of a heart and
home—accepted by her; the very exploit that had made her famous seemed
to bind her affections more closely to her insular home and her duties
there. She spent the rest of her days on the lighthouse, helping her
father and mother as before, and only paying an occasional visit to the
mainland. Though innumerable accounts of her early days and of her daring
exploit exist—the latter is the subject of poem, song, and story—we hear
little of her subsequent life, or of the time when the illness which a
few years later terminated fatally first manifested itself. She died
on October 20, 1842, and was buried in the churchyard at Bamborough.
Her death was the signal for a fresh outburst of literary commemoration
of her daring act; but no more appropriate tribute to her memory exists
than the lifeboat now stationed at Bamborough, which bears her name, and
which, winter after winter, renders good service to vessels wrecked or in
distress, often on the very reef on which the Forfarshire stranded. Grace
Darling is not forgotten by the stalwart Northumbrian sailors who man
that lifeboat; her story and the song in praise of her courage has been
taught to them by their fathers and mothers, and they may yet be heard to
sing it, as in their well-fitted boat, possessed of the latest appliances
to ensure safety, they make their way to some sinking ship, and think of
the frail girl and her father, who in nothing more than an open rowing
boat risked their lives to save a perishing crew.