24 November: Grace Darling

Born 24 November 1815, Grace Darling, a lighthouse keeper's daughter, was famous for participating in the rescue of survivors from the shipwrecked Forfarshire in 1838.

1. Her full name was Grace Horsley Darling, and she was born at her grandfather's cottage in Bamburgh in Northumberland. Her father became the Lighthouse keeper on Brownsman Island, one of the Farne Islands, and Grace moved there when she was a few weeks old.
2. When she was ten, Grace's family moved to a newly constructed lighthouse on Longstone Island where Grace would live for the rest of her life.
3. When she was five, she made a pet of an eider duck which had nested close to the lighthouse.
4. She never went to school but was educated at home by her father. As well as reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography and religious studies, Grace and her four brothers and four sisters learned from their father how to maintain the lighthouse, how to recognise the different types of sea vessels, where they were going and what they were carrying. They learned to look out for anything unusual. They learned how to row and navigate a small boat around the rocks, and about tides and the weather. Rowing a boat, therefore, was something which would have come naturally to Grace by the time she was twelve.
5. In time, most of her brothers and sisters left home, sought careers elsewhere and/or got married. At the time of the shipwreck, only Grace and one brother, William, were still living at home. On the night of the wreck, William was away fishing so Grace and her parents were the only ones there.
6. In the early hours of 7 September 1838 Grace was unable to sleep and was watching the storm from a window. Thanks to her training to look out for anything unusual, she spotted the wreck and survivors of the Forfarshire on Big Harcar, a nearby low rocky island. Having alerted her father, they decided that the weather was too bad for the lifeboat to put out, so they decided to rescue the survivors themselves. The boat they used was a 21 ft, 4-man Northumberland coble.
7. Together they rowed for nearly a mile to the survivors. Grace held the boat steady while her father helped the survivors into it. On that trip they rescued four men and the only woman to survive, a Mrs Dawson, whose two young children had died before the Darlings could get there. Two of the crew went back with Mr Darling for the remaining survivors while Grace stayed at the lighthouse. When the lifeboat arrived, they only found the bodies of Mrs Dawson's children and a clergyman. As it was too dangerous to return to the mainland, the lifeboat crew went to the lighthouse as well and stayed there for three days until the storm died down. One of the lifeboat crew happened to be Grace's brother, William. The whole rescue took two hours, from 7.00am to 9.00am.
8. Grace and her father were awarded the Silver Medal for bravery by the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later named the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Grace became an instant celebrity as news of the rescue spread. People sent her presents, money, letters and even marriage proposals. Even Queen Victoria herself sent Grace £50. Grace, as the youngest daughter, believed it was her duty to stay with her parents and look after them in their old age, so she turned all the proposals down.
9. It seems as if Grace was somewhat of an introvert, too, preferring a quiet, simple life away from the public eye, but now, people would hire boats and row out to the lighthouse in order to meet her, touch her or merely stand and stare at her. Even her home didn't allow her much privacy, since her widowed, pregnant sister had returned to live at home by now as well. In fact, Grace needed a holiday. She went to visit her brother and then her cousins, hiding below deck when people realised she was on board their vessel.
10. Sometime during the trip, she contracted tuberculosis, and despite her otherwise strong constitution, and going to the mainland to convalesce, she died aged only 26.

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