Saturday 16 November 2013

Brighton Lifeboat



Brighton Lifeboat crew in all the latest kit 1913. 
Photo: Royal Pavilion and Museums. Brighton.

The Brighton lifeboat station, was established in 1824 in a cave in the cliff near the then new Chain Pier. It is said to be the first in England. no doubt it had to vacate this site with the start of the construction of the great Madeira sea-wall in 1830. Lifeboats then continued to operate from a variety of locations along the seafront ending up at arch no.111 now occupied by Brighton Sailing Club. A now unreadable plaque on the wall between arches 109 & 110 records the Robert Raikes, RNLI lifeboat of 1867 partly financed by pennies collected by Brighton Sunday School children. This arch was vacated in 1932 and for a number of years Brighton was covered by the offshore boats at Shoreham & Newhaven.

In 1965 an RNLI inflatable returned to a station just to the east of the Palace Pier and was removed to a pontoon in the partly-completed Marina in 1976.




1 comment:

  1. Hi Does anyone know the photographer or copyright owner of the black and white photo captioned 'Brighton Lifeboat Crew in all the latest kit - 1913. We want to use the still in Saving Lives at Sea - a series for BBC2. Thanks Sue Innes email: sinnes@blastfilms.co.uk or tel: 01273 022560. Thanks Sue

    ReplyDelete

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