Lionel Lukin (18 May 1742 (Great Dunmow, Essex, England) – 16 February 1834[1][2] (Hythe, Kent, England) is considered by some to have been the inventor of the lifeboat (although see William Wouldhave for the competing claim).
Background
The first boat known to embody the principles of design integral to the lifeboat was to come from France, although it was never used as such in any rescue attempt. Experiments with the boat were carried out on the river Seine, it having been fitted with stem and stern air cases, was able to remain afloat when filled with water, and could also right itself promptly when overturned. For the credit of employing these principles specifically to assist in rescue missions at sea, we must return to England.
Upon the death of the third Baron Crewe in the year 1721 the ‘Crewe Trust’ was established, and administered from Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland.
Amongst the many early works of this charitable trust a number of initiatives were introduced for the protection and assistance of seamen. In time the Crewe Trust evolved an elaborate organisation for preserving life from shipwreck, involving many local people in readiness to assist with the hazardous undertaking of rescue at sea. So much so that the establishment of the first Lifeboat station in the world was a further development in the Trust’s progress.
Lukin's design
Born in Essex, at Great Dunmow in 1742, Lionel Lukin experimented along the French lines in 1784 with his own conversion of a Norwegian yawl on the river Thames. In 1785, with the personal encouragement of the Prince Regent, he took out a patent. The design included a projecting gunwale some nine inches thick amidships, tapering off toward stem and stern, with a hollow watertight enclosure built into the boat for increased buoyancy. As well as the watertight boxed enclosures front and stern, he also added a false iron keel to help keep the boat upright.
Lukin's next model was made in 1786 for Dr John Sharp, Archdeacon of Northumberland, who had asked him to convert a coble. The new boat went to Bamburgh, and served for a number of years as the first known purpose-built lifeboat.
Death
Lukin died at Hythe in Kent in 1834, having become a successful and well respected coach builder and inventor. On his tombstone was the epitaph
This Lionel Lukin was the first who built a life~boat, and was the original inventor of that principal of safety by which many lives and property have been preserved from shipwreck.
William Wouldhave, a contemporary of Lukin's, also has a claim to have invented the lifeboat.
Henry Greathead
Mitchell Yard, a shipwright also from South Shields, was entrusted with the job of developing the best ideas submitted in the contest. That included those of Wouldhave ,but with the fitting of cork into the bow and stern air cases, and along the gunwale. The result was the 30 foot life~boat named Original, which was launched in 1790, to remain in service for 40 years.
The Original was used to save hundreds of lives near the mouth of the Tyne without any loss of life to her crew. The success of this craft led the Duke of Northumberland to order another boat from Greathead ,which was stationed at North Shields in 1798; and within a few years he had built some 31 lifeboats. Further early lifeboat stations followed the example set by the trustees of the Crewe and Bamburgh Trusts.
It was, however, Lukin who was responsible for the construction at Lowestoft of a boat, the Frances Anne, which was larger than the Original of 1790, in 1807. It was 40 feet in length with a 10 foot beam, and also the first sailing lifeboat. It was built for the task of searching the outlying sandbanks off the east coast, and soon was adopted by the Suffolk Humane Society.[3]
The Duke of Northumberland became First Lord of the Admiralty, and promoted another national competition, in 1851, putting up prize~money of one hundred guineas. The event attracted 280 entrants, with James Beeching of Yarmouth the winner for the most effective "self righting" craft. He went on to construct the prize winning craft for the Ramsgate Harbour Trust. After some modifications and further testing, the Duke ordered at his own expense a further three of Beeching’s lifeboats. The modifications were entrusted to James Peake, and the construction carried out at Woolwich dockyard.
Sir William Hillary, an experienced boatman and founder of the Lifeboat Institution in 1824, died in 1852. He had personally helped save more than 300 lives, and became president of the Isle of Man Life~boat Association. ‘The National Institution for the preservation of life from Shipwreck’ has retained its charitable status from the outset, but after 18 years in practical application to its mission Hillary himself considered the need for public funding.
The request made to the Home Secretary, Lord John Russell was flatly rejected under consideration of such a change being ‘a departure from the general principal by which, in this Country similar Institutions are left to private benevolence.’ Hilary’s concern was that the substantial funding which had provided the Institution such a good start had gradually been dwindling. This, it has been argued was for no other reason than the prevailing conditions of social unrest in the nation at that time. This, despite the greatest of efforts, combined with possible mis~management, neglect or lack of know how, in the methods required for the successful raising of charitable funds, saw a temporary decline in the Institutions fortunes. The readiness of the population to respond to disasters when brought to public attention however remained buoyant.
It was under the Presidency of the Duke of Northumberland and in the first half of the 1850s that the Institution began its recovery with a number of important reforms. In 1854 that the Institution was renamed the ‘Royal National Lifeboat Institution’. This same year under the provisions of the Mercantile Marine Fund the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade offered a government subsidy, at first amounting to £2000/~ per year on the basis of a number of conditions.
This acceptance from the Board of Trade of financial assistance was considered a necessary, if temporary measure to ensure the Institution was able to continue to fulfil its primary task, and only lasted for fifteen years, being brought to a close by the Institution itself.
It was at the close of 1869 that the RNLI was once again in a position to declare publicly that it no longer wished for support from the Mercantile Marine Fund and as a charitable Institution, it has not looked back since.
A Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1897 to investigate into allegations of mismanagement in the RNLI reported in its general conclusion, that ‘the thanks of the whole community are due to the committee of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for the energy and good management (often in very difficult circumstances) with which they have for so many years successfully carried out the national work of life saving, and this without reward or payment of any sort.’
References
- ↑ Edmund Burke, ed. (1835). Annual Register, 1834. London: Baldwin and Craddock... p. 213. Retrieved 24 November 2008.
- ↑ Sylvanus Urban, ed. (1834). "Obituary - Lionel Lukin Esq". The Gentleman's Magazine. New Series II (July to December ed.). pp. 653–654.
- ↑ Malster, Robert, ed. (2013). The Minute Books of the Suffolk Humane Society... and the world's first sailing lifeboat. Suffolk Records Society, vol. 56. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-805-0.
See also
