Town celebrates 150th anniversary of RNLI station

The open lifeboat Zaida, which had no motor, was in service in Swanage during World War One

A seaside town is celebrating 150 years of service from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

The charity first opened a lifeboat station in Swanage, Dorset, on 16 September 1875, after a shipwreck that year at Peveril Ledge.

Local coastguards rowed out to save four men and a boy from drowning before the nearest RNLI lifeboat in Poole could arrive.

The same day, Swanage painter and art collector John Charles Robinson highlighted the "urgent need" for better coastal protection in a letter to The Times, prompting an immediate RNLI response.

A coastguard open rowing boat rescued the crew of the Wild Wave

He described how the sailing ship Wild Wave hit the ledge in a gale, leaving "five dark, sodden bundles, rather than living creatures" clinging to rigging.

The letter continued: "In a few minutes (thanks be to Heaven!) all five—one a very small one, a poor little benumbed lad of 10 or 11 (who had been washed off once and caught again by the 'scruff' of the neck like a drowning dog) were safely stowed in the boat.

"Swanage has hitherto had no lifeboat but after this morning's work we shall supply that want."

An RNLI officer responded to him that day promising to consider the idea, according to the archives of the charity's Lifeboat magazine.

A new lifeboat station was opened in 2017 on the original site

The lifeboat station, the RNLI's sixth in Dorset, was opened at a cost of £526, plus £389 for the inaugural vessel Charlotte May.

The year 1895 saw the station's only death of a crew member on duty, when coxswain William Brown was lost overboard.

In 1928, the town's first motorised lifeboat arrived.

In 2017, the RNLI opened a new £8m boathouse on the original site, incorporating its new Shannon class all-weather lifeboat.

The station celebrated its 150th anniversary over the weekend with a boathouse open day and a Thanksgiving Service at St Mary's Church.