|
RNLB Beth Sell in Dover Harbour 25 January 2004.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
was founded in 1824 to organise a national lifeboat service.
A project as large as this took many years to fully implement
and a number of local lifeboat organisations were set up.
One of these was the ‘Dover Humane Society’, which provided
Dover with its first lifeboat in 1837. The boat was designed
by a local man, Mr Elvin, and kept in a boathouse on the Sea
Front. It was crewed by volunteers, as it still is today.
In 1855 the Dover lifeboat came under the control of the RNLI.
Up until the First World
War all of the Dover lifeboats were rowing boats and the
dangers faced by the early crews were enormous. In September
1914 the Dover Lifeboat Station was closed due to the difficulties
of manning the boat during the war.
The station re-opened in 1919 with Dover’s first and only
steam lifeboat. Named the ‘James Stevens No.3’ she had been
built in 1898 and was the fourth of the RNLB’s steam powered
boats and the first to be driven by a screw propeller. She
had the disadvantages of taking 20 minutes to get up steam
and requiring a technical crew to keep her fired. At the end
of 1922 the station was again closed.
During the 1920s, the increasing number of aeroplanes flying
over the Channel made the RNLI look into the possibility of
stationing a special high-speed lifeboat at Dover, to cope
with the consequences of an aeroplane crashing in the sea.
In 1930 the Dover Lifeboat Station was re-opened with the
arrival of a brand new lifeboat, named ‘Sir William Hillary’
after the founder of the RNLI. The new boat was powered by
two 375 h.p. petrol engines and was capable of a top speed
of 17.25 knots, as compared with a top speed of 9 knots for
conventional motor lifeboats then in service.
With the outbreak of the Second
World War new perils faced the crew of the Dover lifeboat.
In November 1939 the ‘Sir William Hillary’ had to sail right
into a minefield to carry out a rescue. The Dover relief lifeboat
‘Agnes Cross’ (the ‘Sir William Hillary’ was away for an overhaul
at the time) took part in the Dunkirk
evacuation helping many of the small boats into the safety
of Dover Harbour. In October 1940 ‘Sir William Hillary’ was
taken over by the Admiralty and used as an air-sea rescue
launch. The ‘Agnes Cross’ remained in service at Dover until
1941 when it was decided to close the station for the duration.
The Dover Lifeboat Station re-opened in May 1947 and has remained
open, its volunteer crew always ready to risk their lives
in an effort to save those in peril on the sea.
|
