Southport and St Anne's lifeboats disaster

On the 9 December 1886 the "Mexico", a Hamburg-registered barque bound for Guayaquil from Liverpool went aground near Southport, in a full west north westerly gale.

A lifeboat, the Eliza Fernley, was launched from Southport in response to distress signals from the "Mexico". When the craft reached the "Mexico", it was struck by heavy seas and capsized. Two hours later, she was found approximately three miles from Southport at Birkdale. Fourteen of her sixteen crew had perished.

The two survivors, Henry Robinson and John Jackson, were trapped under the boat after it capsized and only survived by freeing themselves, swimming out and clinging onto the keel of the boat, then walking miles back to their homes and raising the alarm. One of them had tried and failed to rescue other comrades who were still trapped under the boat. Amazingly, four other men from the Southport boat initially survived the disaster but subsequently could not be saved.

Between fifteen and twenty minutes after the Southport boat launched, the neighbouring St Anne's lifeboat was also called out. Her crew rowed her out to five hundred yards, and then hoisted sail, proceeding to two miles off Southport. In the words of Patrick Howarth, author of "Lifeboat: In Danger's hour":

"What happened there has never been clearly established. Two red lights were seen at Southport, which may have been signals from the life–boat. All that is known is that at quarter past eleven the next morning the life–boat was found ashore, bottom up, with three dead bodies hanging on the thwarts with their heads downwards. Every man in the crew was lost".

Additionally, a third lifeboat, from Lytham reached the "Mexico". By that time, the "Mexico" had settled on her beam ends, and the crew had lashed themselves to the rigging. The lifeboat, on her "maiden rescue", rowed for a mile and a half through the River Ribble, and then rowed to the "Mexico", rescuing all twelve members of the barque's crew. In the process, the crew shattered three of her oars, and the small craft was filled numerous times with water.

The disaster was the worst in the history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, with 27 lifeboat crew lost.

A public fund for relief of the sixteen widows and fifty orphans was opened with the RNLI contributing £2,000, the queen and the emperor of Germany also contributing. £30,000 was raised in total. A memorial statue of a lifeboatman looking out to sea on was placed on the promenade at St. Anne’s. At Southport, a memorial was erected in [http://www.sefton.gov.uk/page&3947 Duke Street Cemetery] and a permanent exhibition can be seen in the Museum of the Botannic Gardens in Churchtown, Southport.

In 1925, the RNLI abandoned the Station at Southport and left the town with no lifeboat. However in the late 1980s, after a series of unfortunate tragedies, local families from Southport started to raise funds and eventually bought a [http://www.southport-lifeboat.co.uk new lifeboat] for the town stationed at the old RNLI boathouse. The lifeboat is completely independent of the RNLI and therefore receives no money from that organisation. Instead it depends entirely on donations by the public.

ee also

* [http://www.southport-lifeboat.co.uk/ Southport Lifeboat]
*Royal National Lifeboat Institution
*Penlee lifeboat disaster
*Birkdale Palace Hotel - Fishermen's Rest

External links

* [http://www.southport-lifeboat.co.uk/ Southport's current lifeboat]
* [http://www.mightyseas.co.uk/articles/inquiry_report.htm Enquiry report into disaster]
* [http://www.southport-lifeboat.co.uk/history/record/page34.htm A History of the Southport Lifeboats - Eliza Fernley]
* [http://www.martyngriff.co.uk/page01.htm Wrecks off the Southport Coast]
* [http://lsacivic.org/history/postcards_st_annes_lifeboat_and_railway.htm St Anne's on Sea memorial postcards]

Further reading

*"The Great Lifeboat Disaster of 1886 " (by J. Allen Miller, new edition by Andrew Farthing. Published by [http://www.sefton.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=5136 Sefton Libraries] , 2001: ISBN 1-874516-09-X)
*"Lifeboat - In Danger's Hour" (by Patrick Howarth. Published by Hamlyn, 1981: ISBN 0-600-34959-4)