Henry Greathead

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Henry Francis Greathead born 27 January 1757 and died in 1818

Henry Greathead.jpg (to be sourced) Henry Francis Greathead

The following is a quote from Greathead Family

"Henry built the first purpose-built lifeboat in 1789. By 1804 he had made thirty more and did much to propagate lifeboat use. There seems to be quite a bit of mystery and discussion around this gentleman. It would appear that Henry was born to John Greathead who was the Supervisor of Salt Duties at Richmond in Yorkshire. He spent some time in the merchant and naval services between 1777 and 1783."

According Adam Shattock, Henry was also the builder of the lifeboats for the Titanic. This is of course anecdotal from his family's history. Apparently there was an initial order for 64 which was later reduced to 32 because there was not enough space on deck. The architect then later reduced the order to 16 for aesthetic reasons.

It was standard practice to re-use lifeboats after a ship sank, so the whereabouts of the surviving boats from the Titanic remains a mystery after they arrived in in New York.

Henry also build The "Zetland", so named in honour of the Lord of the Manor in Redcar, serving until 1880. The local fishermen raised the funds to have it brought there. It is the only known boat built of this type that survives today. The boat can be seen at the RNLI museum in Redcar with many details of Henry too. Usually the boat was launched from a carriage pulled by horses. With the loss of only one crew member, it helped in the saving of over 500 lives whilst it was in service. The lifeboat was housed in Granville Terrace.

Interestingly, a farm in Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe was named Shields after the area from whence the family came. It was owned and operated by Robert Cary who was married to Shirley nee Shattock. After the Mugabe-government sponsored thefts of the land, it was pseudo-allocated to "New Farmers". It was a park of the Cockington Estates in Darwendale, an hour's drive from Harare.