AGM and the History of the RNLI
10 October 2018
The History of the RNLI
10 October 2018
Dave Nicholl was born and brought up in Falmouth and is passionate about Cornwall and in particular the maritime heritage. He has been a volunteer crewman at the Falmouth Lifeboat Station for 37 years. He is currently one of the Deputy 2nd Coxswains and Navigator on the Severn Class All Weather Lifeboat. For many years he also held the role of Senior Helmsman on the Inshore Lifeboat. In addition, he served for 14 years as an Auxiliary Coastguard in the Maritime Operations Centre at Falmouth. His daughter is also now a member of the Lifeboat crew. Dave trained as a Civil Engineer and a Commercial Diver in the early 1980s, working on both coastal projects and within the water industry in Cornwall & Devon. In 2001 he took up the role of Community Fundraising Manager, looking after the RNLI’s Fundraising Branches and their volunteers in Cornwall & Devon. In 2011 he became one of four Area Managers, overseeing the Community Fundraising Teams and their 35,000 volunteers nationally.
The History of the RNLI – Meeting Report for 10th October 2018
The subject at the very well attended first meeting of the 2018/2019 Season was ‘The History of the RNLI’. Our speaker was Dave Nicholl, who has been in the lifeboat service for 38 years and is deputy coxswain of the Falmouth lifeboat. The illustrated talk was mainly about the development of the service in Cornwall and included films showing the state of the sea at the time of some rescues.
The lifeboat service was founded in 1824 by Sir William Hilary with the motto ‘With courage, nothing is impossible’ has led to the saving of more than 140,000 lives. The organisation being a charity, is dependent on gifts from the public, 16% of which comes from legacies.
The first lifeboat in Europe was a rowing boat at Penzance from 1803 to 1812 and from 1867-1884 the ‘Richard Lewis’
The first boat in Falmouth in 1867 was the ‘City of Gloucester’, which could be loaded on a horse drawn trailer to enable it to be taken overland. From 1894 to 1922 was the ‘Bob Newbon’, which in February 1914 was involved in the rescue of some of the crew of the ‘Hera’ in Gerrans Bay. The lifeboat was towed by tug to Gull Rock but because of the fog the wreck could not found. Eventually the sound of a bosun’s whistle enabled contact to be made and five of the crew were rescued and taken by tug back to Falmouth in a force 8-9 gale. 18 of the crew who perished are buried in Veryan churchyard.
The first motorboat in Cornwall was the steam engined ‘John Stevens’ in 1899 at Padstow. A major disaster on the Doom Bar in 1900 at which the lifeboat had difficulty in attending led to the use of a tug to tow the lifeboat to sea and sometimes carrying out rescues itself.
The following years led to the development of the service. In 1901 at Coverack the ‘Constance Melanie’ was a sailing/rowing boat and at St Agnes from 1909-1920 was the ‘Charles Deere’.
The current Falmouth lifeboat is a Severn class 42 ton ‘Richard Cox Scott’ with a range of 200 miles its 2,500 hp engine uses 4 gallons of fuel per mile. The inshore boat the “Eve Pink” has a top speed of 35 knots.
The next meeting of the Old Cornwall Society is on Wednesday 12th December with a talk on “Oysters & The Helford River”. All are welcome.
Arthur Coomb