Lifeboats - Mumbles Lifeboat

Lifeboat Wolverhampton 1866 - 1883

Last Updated (Wednesday, 07 April 2010 14:58) Thursday, 25 September 2008 16:04

The Lifeboat Wolverhampton 1866 - 1883 

  

                                                       

              

 The Wolverhampton at her naming ceremony held at Showell Pool, in the Bushbury district of Wolverhampton.

 

 

The Lifeboat Institution is a charity and derives its funds entirely from voluntary contributions. For a very short time during the 19th century it also had a government grant but found that there were too many strings attached and asked for it to be withdrawn.

 

When lifeboats cost a couple of hundred pounds to build it was possible for a wealthy individual to fund one or more boats. Nowadays with the price being as much as £2,700,000 a huge fund raising effort has to be made.

 

In 1866 the people of the Midlands industrial town of Wolverhampton funded the purchase of a new lifeboat costing £290 for the Mumbles station. Built by the firm of Forrestt at Limehouse, London, she was of the standard self-righting class and carried a crew of thirteen pulling ten oars. The oars were used to launch and to manoeuvre near a wreck but the jib and two lug sails were set for getting to and from the casualty when the wind allowed.

 

After the naming ceremony at Wolverhampton the new lifeboat was brought to Swansea free of charge by the Great Western Railway. She was then sailed across the bay on 31 August and was hauled up the completed slipway into the boathouse where she replaced the Martha &Anne.

 

The Wolverhampton's  first service was carried out on 9 January 1867. Many vessels were sheltering in Mumbles roads and one signalled her distress by flying her ensign in the rigging. The lifeboat went off and saw that the schooner Jeanne d'Arc,  of Nantes, was drifting through the anchorage having parted her cables. Coxswain Jenkins took the boat alongside allowing some of his crew to board the vessel. A steam tug was called and the schooner towed to Swansea thereby saving the vessel and her crew of five.

 

On 14 April the same year the lifeboat assisted to save the brig Wellington of Aberystwyth and her crew of nine. With a cargo of coal for Gibraltar, the brig had sailed from Swansea and was sheltering in Mumbles roads from a sou'west gale. At eight that evening the brig parted her cables and drove up the bay burning flares. The Wolverhampton chased the vessel but did not reach her until she ran aground near the west pier. There was no immediate danger so the lifeboat stood by. As the tide made the brig again parted her cables. The lifeboat summoned a tug which towed the vessel into dock.

 

 

The lifeboat off to the rescue at Mumbles.

Watercolour by Edward Duncan 1873.

 

Between August 1868 and April 1882 the Wolverhampton performed services to a total of fifteen vessels, saving 62 lives. All of these services were to sailing vessels, which ranged from three of the local oyster skiffs to ketches, brigs and barques.

 

Then in January 1883 the Wolverhampton capsized, while on service to the barque Admiral Prinz Adalbert, drowning four of her crew. It was a wild Saturday morning which brought disaster not only to Mumbles, but to the crews of ships wrecked at Port Eynon and Porthcawl. For the full story see the article A VERY DARK DAY.