History
of the Life-boat, and Its Work
by Richard Lewis (1874)
[p.3] As is
frequently the case with great inventions, it is
somewhat difficult to say who was the first designer of the Life-boat;
for although Mr. HENRY GREATHEAD, a shrewd boat-builder at South
Shields, has very generally been credited with designing and building
the first Life-boat about the year 1789, yet it is certain that Mr.
LIONEL LUKIN, a coach-builder in Long Acre, London, had designed and
fitted a boat for Saving Life in cases of Shipwreck, which he called an
"Unimmergible Boat," some four or five years before GREATHEAD brought
forward his plan for a Life-boat.
LUKIN was a native of an
inland town, Dunmow, in Essex, and not a resident in a seaport; he had
nevertheless learned “that by the oversetting and sinking of
both
sailing and rowing boats many valuable lives had been lost,”
and was
thus induced to turn his attention to the subject in 1784. The then
PRINCE OF WALES (GEORGE IV.) who knew LUKIN personally, not only
encouraged him to test his invention experimentally, but offered to pay
the whole expense of his experiments.
It appears that LUKIN
then purchased a Norway yawl, which he fitted up according to his plan,
and which he tried in the Thames. To the outside of the upper frame of
the yawl he added a projecting gunwale of cork, tapering from nine
inches amidships, off to very little at the head and stern, and, in
addition to this, he formed within the boat from the gunwale to the
floor a [p.4]
hollow water-tight enclosure, which gave the buoyancy
that was required, the compartment running nearly from stem to stern.
By these means “the vessel had such a power of buoyancy in
its upper
part as to render the specific gravity of the whole vessel and its
contents less than the specific gravity of the body of water it would
displace in sinking.” In order to give it weight or ballast
sufficient
to keep it upright, the patentee added a false iron keel, and he
increased the buoyancy of the boat by two water-tight enclosures, one
at its head, and another at its stern. Upon these principles several
Life-boats were constructed, and found “to be strictly
unimmergible.” A
patent for the design was taken out by LUKIN on the 2nd of November,
1785, and the specification appeared in the third volume of
the ‘Repertory of Arts.’ The accompanying drawings of
LUKIN'S Life-boat are
fac similes of those given in the book, descriptive of his boat, which
was published by him in 1790.
The Rev. Dr. SHAIRP, of
Bamborough, hearing of the invention, and having charge of a charity
for saving life and property at sea, sent a coble to Mr. LUKIN to be
made "unimmergible." This was done, and satisfactory accounts were
afterwards received of the altered boat, which was reported to have
saved several lives in the course of the first year of its use.
Although the PRINCE OF WALES had been the liberal patron of Mr. LUKIN,
yet even his influence was not sufficient to bring the Life-boat into
notice; and Mr. LUKIN appealed in vain for encouragement to the First
Lord of the Admiralty, to the Deputy Master of the Trinity House, and
to various Admirals and Captains of the Navy. With the exception of the
Bamborough coble, not a single Life-boat on this plan was placed at any
of the dangerous parts of our coast.
[p.5] LUKIN retired
from business in 1824, and ultimately went to reside at Hythe, in Kent,
where he died in 1834. At his request, the following inscription was
engraved on the reverse side of his tombstone, and is still to be seen
in Hythe churchyard:
“This
LIONEL LUKIN
Was the first who built a Life-boat, and was the original Inventor
of that principle of safety, by which many lives and much property
have been preserved from Shipwreck; and he obtained for it the
King's patent in the year 1785.”
As we have said, notwithstanding LUKIN'S ceaseless efforts to bring his
plan of Life-boat into general use, hardly any efforts had been
effectually made to aid the shipwrecked mariner until the year 1789,
when the Adventure, of Newcastle, was wrecked at the mouth of the Tne.
While this vessel lay stranded on the Herd "and at the entrance of the
river, in the tnidst of tremendous breakers, her crew" dropped off one
by one from her rigging," only three hundred yards from the shore, and
in the presence of thousands of spectators, not one of whom could be
induced to venture to her assistance in any boat or coble of the
ordinary construction. Under the strong feelings excited by this
disaster, a Committee was appointed, at a meeting of the inhabitants.
of South Shields, to offer premiums for the best models of a Life-boat
“calculated to brave the dangers of the sea, particularly of
broken
water.”
From the many plans which were offered to the
Committee, two were selected—one by Mr. WILLIAM WOULDHAVE, a painter,
and one by Mr. HENRY GREATHEAD.
Excerpt
from:
History of the Life-boat, and Its Work, by Richard Lewis, publ. Macmillan (1874),
pages 3-5 and illustration from opposite page 6.
Digitized by Google (source).
Stained- Glass Window
3 October 1892
A stained-glass window to the memory of Lionel Lukin, inventor of the first lifeboat in 1784 was unveiled in Hythe Church, Kent.
Excerpt
from:
Annual Register, edited by Edmund Burke, publ. Longman's green and Co. (1893),
page 60.
Digitized by Google (source).
See also:
- Today in
Science History event description for 8 May 1742,
birth
date of Lionel Lukin.