Sparrows+and+lifeboats

The following account of the history of a lifeboat at Lowestoft is from 'The Roaring Boys', by the local writers, Peter Cherry and Trevor Westgate. It introduces Robert Sparrow who's association with the town is commemorated in the [|'Sparrows Nest'], which is the site of his gothic holiday 'cottage' under the cliff at Belleview Park.

For references to the Sparrow families of the East Coast, see [] of which the earliest reference to Sparrows in Lowestoft is ' 4 Feb 2010 ... 1670 Joane Sparrow wid married Henry Baanes.

"The history of the lifeboat at Lowestoft goes back nearly 170 years, to the year 1800 when Robert Sparrow, of Worlingham Hall, and the Reverend Francis Bowness, Rector of Gunton, Lowestoft, who were distressed by the loss of life in shipwrecks along the treacherous Norfolk and Suffolk coast, decided to raise a fund to build a lifeboat. The result was the inauguration of a lifeboat society and the money appears to have rolled in well. Most of the Suffolk villages contributed to the fund and it is interesting to find that Lloyd's Coffee House and Trinity House each contributed £30.

An appeal for funds which appeared in the Ipswich Journal in October 1800 declared:

"The first cost is £160—providing oars getting home, and building a boathouse will increase the expence to about 200 guineas—a provision must be made for repairs; and though the seaman has hitherto shown his generosity by braving death in the horrors of a tempestuous ocean, with no other instigation than that of humanity, yet a generous public will see the policy and necessity of providing some additional regard, more particularly in securing a present supply to the families of those who are unhappily lost in the attempt."

And so the first lifeboat was built, by Greathead, of South Shields, at a cost of £160 and a new era of lifesaving should have begun.

But what had begun in humanity and generosity, ended in bitterness. The trouble was that the beachmen who were supposed to man her disliked this 30 foot boat, pulled by ten oars, which had been designed without their having any say in what was required. She was an open boat, relying purely on oars and her only added buoyancy was a cork wale. In short, they disliked her and distrusted her— and refused to put to sea in her.

In 1802, Captain G. L. Reed, one of the Trinity Brethren, who "had the management of the Lowestoft lifeboat built upon Greathead's plan" reported to a House of Commons inquiry in 1802 that the lifeboat had only been out twice. Although they had little experience of her, and little on which to base their prejudice, the Lowestoft beachmen instinctively rejected her, he said.

This first lifeboat had, in her first two years, failed to carry out a single rescue, but expenses were still mounting. A boathouse had been built at a cost of £115, a price which included £1 lOs. 9d. "allowance for beer".

Why did the Lowestoft men dislike the Greathead boat? Thirty-nine pilots of the port set out their reasons in a letter to Robert Sparrow. "Our disapprobation of the Shields boat" they wrote, "arises from no other cause than her unfitness for these shores, on account of her form, which may be very serviceable on a flat coast, but totally unserviceable on this steep shore, where it cannot possibly be launched through a heavy surf without being filled, and when full of water becomes so heavy as to be quite unmanageable."

But Robert Sparrow seems to have persisted in the idea that the Lowestoft beachmen were either mercenary or cowardly and that they needed bribing or taunting before they would put to sea. A letter, apparently written by him, which appeared in the lpswich Journal in October 1804, asked, "whence comes it then that the lifeboat operating with so much success in all other places, is at Lowestoft an object of dislike, that so far from resorting to her when opportunities offer, few occasions are lost to lower her services in the opinion of the public?"

The letter went on, "To endeavour to rouse you from the languid state in which you are, or from the disgraceful prejudice you have adopted, I offer you from the remainder of the subscription left in my hands, a reward of 10 guineas for every exertion, fairly and fully made, with the lifeboat, and if the exertion be attended with the success of saving human life, the reward shall be extended to 15 guineas. It rests with you to bring this fortunate system forward. Should my present attempt fail, I shall first state the failure to the public, and then look out for a situation where a more worthy race of men will gladly accept the advantages you will have blindly refused."

Even the 15 guineas reward and the taunt of a "more worthy race of men" failed to persuade the stubborn Lowestoft men to put to sea in her. And Sparrow seems to have hoped that he would find his "more worthy race" at Gorleston for he had the lifeboat moved there. The Gorleston men, he thought, would soon shame the Lowestoft beachmen and show how the lifeboat could be used.

But it did not work out that way at all. The Gorleston men liked her no better than their fellows at Lowestoft and even the keen spirit of rivalry and an additional reward for each rescue could not persuade them to make use of her. Rivals in everything the men of Lowestoft and Gorleston might be, but at least they had one thing in common—they knew a seaworthy craft when they saw her, and they could recognise a bad one !

And so the lifeboat was towed down the coast again, back to its original home at Lowestoft, where she was liked none the more for having "gone foreign" to Gorleston. According to old accounts, however, she did put out once to save life. In July 1803 appears the payment "Gave at going out to a Wreck £2 2s." So it appears that this first lifeboat did make at least one trip !

In 1807 there came a final totting up of the balance sheet. £446 had been spent on the venture and the only return was £10 "for the sale of the old boat" to Harwich. Here the story of Lowestoft's first lifeboat might have come to an unhappy end, but that was not to be the case; the history of Lowestoft's lifeboats was about to start upon its most glorious era.

In 1807 Lionel Lukin, the coach builder turned boat builder, who was fast gaining a name for himself as a designer of lifeboats, visited Lowestoft on holiday. It was confidently expected among those who were still bitter over the beachmen's refusal to use the first lifeboat, that he would berate them for their cowardice and inhumanity in refusing her.

Lukin certainly spent a lot of time talking seriously to the beachmen, but he was not blaming them— he was asking their advice. He realised that there was nothing petty about the beachmen's distrust of the Greathead boat and he had the wit to ask them what they wanted of a lifeboat. They showed him their beach yawls, sailing craft in which, for generations the Lowestoft men had been putting out to wrecks. Though they did save lives, this was not the primary object of the yawls and the beach companies that manned them. What they were after was salvage.

The yawls which Lukin saw in action off Lowestoft beach were counted as the loveliest and fastest sailing craft ever seen in the North Sea. Long, lean greyhounds of the sea, they were the direct descendants of the Viking longships which were once the terror of the east coast. Even their name, yawl— "yoll" as it was always pronounced by the beachmen—had Scandinavian origins, being a corruption of the Danish word "jolle" for ship.

These greyhounds were the thoroughbreds of the North Sea, proved in hundreds of years of storm and trouble. It was claimed that the fastest of them could do 16 knots and that they could sail with their lee gunwale six inches below the water. The speed of the vessel was so great, it was claimed that the water could not rush in and they took merely a trickle on board.

They varied greatly in size. Some were a mere 40 feet long, but there were others up to 90 feet overall—longships indeed ! Their power and speed come from their great dipping-lugsails. Most had two masts and two sails, but the big 90 footers had three. Each time a yawl came about onto a new tack the lugsails had to be lowered and manhandled to the other side, no easy task in a full gale and one which called for men of brawn, courage and skill. For ballast they carried sacks of shingle from the beach and this, too had to be manhandled every time the vessel came about. In a race for a wreck the shingle also came in handy as ammunition for pelting at rival yawls.

It was reckoned that a fair-sized yawl needed a crew of 25 to sail her really well. Those who were not man-handling the sails and the ballast set to bailing out the water. It was not unusual for eight men to be engaged non-stop bucketing out the seas as fast as they came on board !

The beachmen of the east coast loved and trusted their yawls and it was their proud boast that they could beat anything afloat.

So it was when the schooner America came to Britain in 1851 and won the trophy which has ever since been known as the America's Cup. It was a bitter blow for Britain's yachtsmen who, ever since, have been trying to win back that treasured trophy. Now yachtsmen of other nations have joined in. But if the east coast beachmen had had their way, they claim. the Americas Cup' would never have left these shores and Sir Thomas Lipton and others would never have spent fortunes trying to get it back! They were absolutely confident that one of their yawls could beat the schooner America and win back the cup.

So confident were they, in fact, that when the owners of America offered to race against anyone anywhere for any sum from 100 to 1,000 guineas, the beachmen immediately took up the challenge. They raised the sum of £200 and offered to match the Yarmouth yawl Reindeer against the schooner America, but the race never took place. The owners of the schooner, although they had originally offered to race for £100 refused this challenge and upped the purse to £1,000. The beachmen could not find this sort of money and drew the natural conclusion that the schooner America was afraid to race against a craft which could do 16 knots off the wind.

These, then, were the yawls which Lukin saw in action off Lowestoft beach in 1807. And it was upon these descendants of the Viking longships that he based his design for a new lifeboat. She was the Frances Ann, the world's first sailing lifeboat, and she was launched in November 1807. With her two dipping lugsails she was the forerunner of the famous Norfolk and Suffolk type of lifeboat which remained in service for 130 years. In her 48 years at the port she saved no fewer than 300 lives. Built on Lowestoft's North Beach, she was 40 feet long with a beam of 10 feet 4 inches and was fitted with an iron keel which served as ballast. Inside she had casks which could be filled with water for added ballasts and others to give her buoyancy when she was filled with water.

She was named Frances Ann after the 17-year-old daughter of Lord Rous, president of the Suffolk Humane Society which had taken over from the lifeboat society.

The faith of the men of Lowestoft in their own judgment and their own craft had been amply justified.

Frances Ann's most renowned period of service came towards the end of her career when she came under the command of the mighty Bob Hook, the six foot three inch giant, who once leaped overboard one pitch black night into the surf on the Holm Sands and swam and battled through the breakers to take a line to a brig in trouble.

Hook kept up his mighty work in the lifeboats which followed —Victoria (1855-1868), Letitia (1868-1876) and Samuel Plimsoll (1876-1905). It was during the service of the Samuel Plimsoll that Hook retired in 1883, but he lived on until 1911, when he died aged 83.

Samuel Plimsoll was herself retired in 1905 and was followed by Kentwell which remained in service till the coming of the first motor lifeboat at Lowestoft in 1921, Agnes Cross. Like so many lifeboats, Agnes Cross did not finish her sea-faring days when she was replaced by Michael Stevens in 1939. Renamed Wimp she was still leading a useful life in the 1950's when she was being used as a tender in Aden harbour. Her engineer at that time said that she was still in wonderful condition.

Michael Stevens was herself replaced at Lowestoft in 1963, by the present lifeboat Frederick Edward Crick. Fitted with two 60 horse power diesel engines and every modern aid, including radar, she is a far cry from the days when the Lowestoft beachmen had to rely on sheer muscle power to get out to a wreck. But though their boats have changed out of all recognition, the men have not. It still requires skill and courage and a stout heart to put out to sea in storms which are wrecking other craft".