Dangerous Waters

In heavy weather, vessels were frequently unable to round Rame Head and reach the safety of Plymouth Sound, so took shelter in Whitsand Bay, to the east of Looe. But this itself could be dangerous and many ships were driven on to the rocks and stranded. And even though ships sailed regularly in and out of the port of Looe itself, when the wind was from the south-east, entering the harbour could be both difficult and dangerous.

For the first half of the nineteenth century, the task of rescuing shipwrecked sailors fell primarily on local coastguards, and several acts of particular bravery in the vicinity of Looe are recorded. On 23^rd November 1824, the Dutch brig Harmonie, on her way from Hamburg to Suriname in South America, was driven ashore at Polhawn Cove in Whitsand Bay. Coastguards, led by Chief Boatman John Miller climbed down the cliffs in the 5 a.m. darkness and rescued seven members of the crew, but were unable to save six others. For his actions, Miller was awarded a Silver Medal by the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (renamed the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1854). A decade later a Silver Medal was again awarded locally, when a pilot saved 12 men from the Konigsberg while those who assisted him received a monetary reward.

In 1838, a Silver Medal was awarded to Coastguard William Jennings who swam through rough seas off Looe Island to get a rope to the stranded brig Belissima, thus saving the lives of the vessel’s master and twelve men – the entire crew.

But not all rescues ended so happily. In September of the following year the collier brig Albion of Exeter, carrying coal from Newport, went ashore in Whitsand Bay between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. and was wrecked near Rame Head. Although two of the crew managed to scramble ashore, three seamen, a boy and one of the coastguard rescuers were lost.

On 14^th February 1851 the French brig Fletan of France was driven ashore in Whitsand Bay but the wreck wasn’t spotted until the following morning. Chief Officer at Stoke Coastguard station John Anderson and a team of his men rushed to the scene. Despite heavy seas, Anderson and Coastguard Richard Andrew waded out, with water up to their shoulders to get a line on the brig. With this, the Coastguards managed to save entire crew of nine, and Anderson was awarded a Silver Medal.

Establishing a Lifeboat Station at Looe

The closest lifeboat station was Plymouth, which had had a lifeboat since the early 1800s but it did not venture as far as Whitsand Bay. It was not until 1859 that the first lifeboat station was established on the south Cornish coast, at Polkerris, to the west of Fowey, but this was too far to reach any vessel in distress in Whitsand Bay.

In the Spring of 1866, residents in Looe wrote to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s Committee of Management requesting a rescue craft, like a Coastguards’ lifeboat, or ‘whale’ boat for the harbour. At its meeting on 5^th April, the Committee agree to the request but decided “it would be better to have a proper lifeboat”. However, although the Institution would provide the boat without charge, the cost of a boathouse – estimated at £200 and the annual costs – £50 – would fall on the residents of Looe. Consequently two meetings were held shortly afterwards in the Guildhall, chaired by the Mayor (J. Bishop), which appealed for contributions. After the “kind-hearted and influential gentlemen and clergy of the town had made their pledges, the masters of vessels gave their names for annual subscriptions of 10s. or 5s. annually, while fishermen promised 1s. annually, pleading the hardness of the times”. Subscribers included William Henry Pole Carew (1811-1888), who had been the Member of Parliament for East Cornwall from 1845 to 1852 and was now the Recorder of East Looe. Sir Joseph Copley, 4^th Baronet Copley (1804-1883) sent a donation of five pounds from his seat in Yorkshire, Sprotborough Hall: presumably the connection was that his grandfather was Joseph Moyle of Bake, a hamlet in Deviock.

On 1^st May 1866, Captain John Ward RN, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s Inspector of Lifeboats, arrived in Looe to select a suitable site for the boathouse on the seafront, and recommended a 32-foot, ten-oared ‘medium lifeboat with transporting carriage’ be ordered.

This was one of ten lifeboats stations established in Cornwall between 1865 and 1885, all with self-righting boats. On the south coast Falmouth, Cadgwith and Mullion were all established in 1867; Mevagissey and Porthoustock in 1869; Portloe in 1870 and a station added in 1885 to the one already established on the Lizard in 1859.