3-003-942 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Scarborough life-boat after the storm, 1861. '...the boat was dashed up to the wall...and down again she was precipitated into the foaming billows, her destruction and the loss of her unfortunate crew being apparently inevitable...Lord Charles Beauclerk...had rushed to the rescue of [his] fellow-men...A huge wave was seen to lift the boat with fearful force against the wall, and...he was washed to the foot of the cliff, where Mr. Sarony, the photographic artist, seeing his Lordship's great peril, ran down the incline to his assistance. Mr. Sarony succeeded, single-handed, in fastening a rope round his Lordship's body, when Mr. Rutter, superintendent of the engineering department at the Scarborough railway station, also went to his aid. He was drawn up the incline, the life just ebbing out of him...The life-boat, having broken away, drifted on the rocks under the cliff...where she was stove in, and rendered unlit for future use...Her conduct [had] justified every good opinion that had been expressed on her qualities as a lifeboat...On the intelligence of this sad disaster being conveyed to the...Royal National Life-boat Institution in London a new boat...was at once ordered to be transmitted to Scarborough to replace the wrecked boat'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.