4th March: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) was founded on this date in 1824. Some facts about one of Britain's biggest charities.

1. What is it and what does it do? It's a registered charity in the United Kingdom whose function is to save lives at sea. It receives no government funding - it depends entirely on donations and legacies. Queen Elizabeth II is its Patron.
2. It was founded by Sir William Hillary, who lived on the Isle of Man and became aware that ships were often wrecked around the Manx coast. He drew up a plan for a national lifeboat service. He first pitched it to the Admiralty, but they showed little interest. He turned instead to philanthropic members of London society and members of parliament to make his plans a reality.
3. The organisation was initially called the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. It became the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1849 after Prince Albert began supporting it.
4. The organisation's Flag was designed by Leonora Preston in 1884 after a lifeboat crew in Ramsgate rescued her brother.
5. The RNLI was the first charity to organise a street collection, in 1891, in Manchester. The collection was orgnaised after 27 lifeboatmen were lost.
6. At time of writing there are 233 lifeboat stations around the coast of the UK and four on the River Thames. There are over 330 lifeboats and about 4,800 lifeboat crewmembers.
7. Since the RNLI was founded, its lifeboats have saved more than 137,000 lives. Lifeboats launch several thousand times a year (7,656 times in 2004, saving 433 lives). The busiest lifeboat station is Tower Lifeboat Station on the River Thames.
8. In the early days of the service, it was considered bad luck for women to crew lifeboats, although they would help with the launch and recovery of the boats. Today, about 8% of lifeboat crews are women. The first woman crew member was Elizabeth Hostvedt in 1969.
9. The RLNI does not get any of its income from the salvage of shipwrecks. While there is no legal reason why they couldn't, they don't, because they are there to save lives. If they tow a boat to safety, they will not ask for a salvage fee, because charging a fee might discourage people from calling them (however, if the people rescued want to make a voluntary donation to say thank you, they can, of course). The RNLI were criticised when they refused to launch a lifeboat to help recover an unmanned fishing boat which had run aground, but said this was because no lives were at risk and the charity wasn't a salvage firm.
10. It's a challenging and often dangerous job - over 600 people have lost their lives while serving as lifeboat crew over the years. Their names are inscribed on the RNLI Memorial sculpture at RNLI HQ, in Poole.

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