A Severn class lifeboat berths in Poole Harbour, Dorset, England. *
Photo: Adrian Pingstone * 1790: The first shore-based boat designed specifically for use as a lifeboat is tested on the River Tyne in northern England.
Christened the Original, she was a 30-foot-long, double-ended, 10-oar longboat built by Henry Greathead of South Shields. She carried 7 hundredweight (784 pounds or 356 kilograms) of cork for added buoyancy and was designed to be self-righting.
Although smaller craft had been pressed into service as lifeboats in the past, Original was the first boat built specifically for sea rescue. She was stationed at the mouth of the Tyne and launched from a shore station. In a career spanning 40 years, she was responsible for saving hundreds of lives.
By 1839, there were 30 lifeboat shore stations operating in the British Isles.
Original was built as the result of an incident in 1789, when a crew was lost after its ship ran aground in stormy seas off the mouth of the river. Although the eight men were in sight of the shore, no one could be persuaded to attempt a rescue that was viewed as suicidal.
Local businessmen upset by the tragedy offered a prize to anyone who could design a true rescue boat. A local parish clerk named William Wouldhave was the winner, and Greathead built Original using Wouldhave's design.
The first lifeboat association, Britain's National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (later renamed the Royal National Lifeboat Institution), was organized in 1824. By 1860, the RNLI could claim to have saved more than 12,000 lives at sea.
Shipboard lifeboats -- carried on davits aboard larger ships and generally associated with this type of craft -- did not appear until later in the 19th century.
(Source: Maritime and Coastguard Agency, RNLI)