Lifeboats - Mumbles Lifeboat

Martha & Anne

Last Updated (Friday, 04 December 2009 17:03) Wednesday, 24 September 2008 18:00

Lifeboat Martha & Anne  1863 - 1866

This boat was stationed at Drogheda, Ireland, for six years before being moved to Swansea in October 1863. She was then appropriated to the legacy of Michael Steel of Oxford and named after his daughters.

She performed two services - the first when she was based at the South Dock, Swansea. During the early hours of 3 December 1863 she was manned by pilots and dockworkers and launched to the assistance of the barque Duke of Northumberland, of London, which had gone aground near the harbour entrance in a westerly gale. The vessel carried a total of eighteen crew and passengers and was inward bound from Cuba with a cargo of copper ore. The lifeboat stood by until dawn and then went alongside and took off all hands. The lifeboat crew were paid £1 each for a night launch.

The Martha & Anne was moved to Mumbles in January 1866. The railway extension had now been abandoned and work had started on a slipway in front of the boathouse. Until this was ready the boat was kept in the open.

This boat's second service was carried out during a heavy SW gale on 23 March 1866. The brig Vesta, of Whitby, was bound for France with a cargo of coal and sheltering in Mumbles roads when her cables parted. She drifted out of the anchorage and drove onto the Greengrounds where she sank in three fathoms. An oyster skiff skippered by one of the Gammon family was quickly on the scene but, drawing too much water, was unable to get alongside. The lifeboat launched and was filled to the gunwhales by the heavy sea which was running. She reached the scene in twenty minutes and Coxswain Jenkins ran her in over the port side of the sunken vessel to snatch Capt Mills and six hands from the fore-rigging.

The rescued crew were given hot meals and dry clothes by the Mumbles folk, and the station's honorary secretary Alfred Sterry (who owned a coal mine at Gowerton) arrived to pay each lifeboatman ten shillings for a daytime service.The Cambrian recorded the names of the Mumbles crew on this occasion: Coxswain Jenkins, William Jones bowman, John Thomas, David Rees, Richard Gee, David Lewis, Sgt McGihon of the Royal Artillery, John Hoskins, John Webbern, William Jenkins and John Williams.

A week later on Good Friday the boat was launched to the steamer Lyric which was signalling for assistance when close to the Mixon sandbank in thick fog. The steamer was able to move away from the bank on the flood tide without assistance so no service was made.

This boat was replaced in August 1866 by the lifeboat Wolverhampton.