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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.
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