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Save Lives at Sea (14-18)

Welcome to the ‘Save Lives at Sea: Campaign! Make an Impact’ education resource page.

Cover image.jpg
Here you’ll find everything you need to learn about William Hillary’s campaign to set up a national lifeboat service. The resources are based around the British Library’s Campaign! Make an Impact project, but you can use the resources or archive materials in whatever way suits you and your students.

Project aims:

•​To inspire young people into active citizenship using the history of the RNLI
•To equip young people with campaign skills, enabling them to run their own campaigns about issues that affect them today

Find out more about the British Library’s Campaign! Make an Impact project here. 

Click on the tabs below to find out all about William Hillary's campaign using primary sources, session plans, audio clips and more. 

​Here you will find a selection of additional resources to help you teach your students about William Hillary's campaign to establish a national lifeboat service. These include suggested session plans as well as audio and video clips and the full collection of sources in PDF format.

Overview of the project

​There are three steps to participating in the Save Lives at Sea: Campaign! Make an Impact project in conjunction with the British Library:

Step 1: Study the historical campaign to establish a national lifeboat service to save lives at sea

Step 2: Explore the skills and tactics necessary to run a successful campaign

Step 3: Create a campaign on a topic of our own choice

Using the RNLI's teaching resources and archive materials, you can deliver Step 1 in your school. You can then use the British Library website to deliver steps 2 and 3.

Help may be at hand via RNLI staff or volunteers in your area. Why don't you combine teaching of Step 1 with a visit to an RNLI site such as an RNLI museum or lifeboat station?

To take part in the Save Lives at Sea: Campaign! Make an Impact project at an RNLI heritage site, click here.

To book a visit to a lifeboat station, click here. 

Suggested session plans

Session plan.jpgThe first step of the Campaign! Make an Impact model is to study an historical campaign and understand how it works. Here, an RNLI historical campaign leads you through the process.

The session structures provided illustrate one way to study this historical campaign. Schools and groups will have different class sizes, timetable allocations and lesson durations and should therefore adapt the suggested session plans, number of groups and group sizes to suit their needs. Session 2 allows for differentiation as some source materials are more challenging than others.​

 

Download suggested session plans



Campaign Summary

Step 1: William Hillary's campaign provides a summary of the campaign for a national lifeboat service by breaking it into seven stages. These stages are a useful tool for analysing the tactics and also the success of the campaign. For each stage there is information about the campaign as well as links to historical source material. This summary page can also be downloaded as a grid in PDF format.

Download campaign grid - teacher's summary of the historical campaign​

Sources 1-21

Cover image.jpgThe archive materials are divided up in Step 1: William Hillary's campaign into seven stages to help students to analyse the tactics and success of the campaign. Here you can download the sources as one whole document in PDF format.​

Download sources 1-21 - student handouts

Blank campaign grid

This blank campaign grid is designed to be used along side the session plans, allowing pupils to fill in their learnings from each stage of the campaign.​

Download blank campaign grid

Audio recording

This audio recording of Sir William Hillary's Appeal to the British Nation is designed to be used as part of the session plans.

Download video(lasts 48 minutes 58seconds)

 

You can also listen to the specific extracts cited in Source 9: Appeal to the British Nation

Extract 1 (02:23)

Extract 2 (01:17)

Extract 3 (04:05)

Extract 4 (01:55)

Video clip

​This video clip is designed to support the sessions plans.

​The tabs below will take you through the historical campaign to establish a national lifeboat service around the coast of Britain. The campaign has been divided into seven stages to help students to analyse the tactics and success of the campaign. If you have access to the internet in your classroom, you can click on the images within the PDFs to see larger versions of them. You can also download the PDFs to print or use offline.

The Lifeboat in the Act of Saving Part of the Crew of a Ship Wrecked Near Tynmouth Castle, after W Elmes, 1803. Courtesy: RNLI Heritage Trust

What was the campaign about?

In the 1700–1800s (before the invention of motor vehicles, planes and trains) the seas around Britain were used by all types of vessels for transport, fishing, naval defence and leisure. While trying to earn a living from the sea, many of these vessels were shipwrecked around the coast, often driven ashore by the frequent onshore gales, by mistakes made by the Captain or crew and/or because the vessels were in poor condition.

At the time there was no countrywide provision or organisation that coordinated the rescues and many people’s lives were lost at sea, often leaving their dependants poverty-stricken.

 

Evidence:
Source 1: Shipwreck! 
 
Source 2 – HMS Racehorse
​

 

Click on each link above to access a PDF. Once in the PDF, click on the image of each source to enlarge it (the image will open in a web browser).

 

 

 

 
North Country "Zetland" built in 1802 on land complete with 15 crew holding oars to side of boat one man on horse back taken from the Grahame Farr Life-boat Archives

What was the goal of the campaign?

 

The late 18th century was a busy time for shipping around the coast of Britain. Shipwrecks occurred and often thousands of onlookers watched helplessly as they broke up, unable to save the crews.

The fatalistic view that shipwrecks were caused by the hand of God was replaced by an attitude of saving life at all costs. Greater value was placed on people’s lives and the idea of having special boats stationed at various points on the coast, with a skilled crew who could go to the rescue if a ship got into distress, dates from this time.

Appalled at the number of shipwrecks and loss of life he saw from his home on the Isle of Man, Sir William Hillary, a retired soldier, introduced the idea of a national lifeboat service, which would dramatically reduce the danger of sea travel.

​

Evidence:

Source 3: Early lifeboat stations
Source 4: How to solve the problem of shipwreck
Source 5: Lukin's 'unimmergible' boat
Source 6: The Original lifeboat
Source 7: Captain Manby’s lifesaving apparatus
​

 

 

Click on each link above to access a PDF. Once in the PDF, click on the image of each source to enlarge it (the image will open in a web browser).

 

Frontispiece to William Hillary's appeal. Courtesy: RNLI Heritage Trust

How did the campaigners become experts on the issue?

 

After witnessing first-hand the destruction brought by shipwreck, campaigners were moved to action to introduce the first lifeboats and develop a nationally coordinated lifeboat institution. They were also inspired by the initial inventions and efforts for saving lives at sea. By collecting and publishing eye-witness accounts, as well as gathering facts about loss of life and property to shipwreck, campaigners gained further support for their point of view.​

Evidence:

Source 8: HMS Vigilant

Source 9: Appeal to the British Nation​

 

Click on each link above to access a PDF. Once in the PDF, click on the image of each source to enlarge it (the image will open in a web browser).  

Extract from Trinity House Court Minutes, 4 January 1821. Courtesy: The Corporation of Trinity House

Was there a resource pool?


Sir William Hillary gained support for the victims of shipwreck from his local community, the Isle of Man press and officials, and to some extent the British Admiralty. Around Britain, pioneering local lifeboat organisations had already sprung into existence, with more coordinated countywide organisations inspired by Sir William Hillary's Appeal pamphlet – An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property From Shipwreck. Hillary's campaign was also supported by Trinity House, Lloyd's (the marine insurer) and the Royal Humane Society.​

Evidence:

Source 10: Organisations supporting the cause of saving lives at sea
Source 11: Newspapers praise appeal
Source 12: Establishment of the Norfolk Association for Saving the Lives of Shipwrecked Mariners
​

Click on each link above to access a PDF. Once in the PDF, click on the image of each source to enlarge it (the image will open in a web browser).  

Letter from Sir William Hillary to John Wilson Croker Esquire at the Admiralty, 11 September 1823. Courtesy: The National Archives

Who were the campaigners' opponents?

​

Many people at the time believed that it was up to the individual to take care of themselves, believing that people who chose to travel at sea knew the risks and should accept their fate. Some people even stood to gain from shipwreck through salvage. Even those organisations that acknowledged a sense of duty to help fellow human beings did not want the burden of creating a national lifeboat service that would need a lot of money to set up.​

Evidence:

Source 13: Response to Sir William hillary's letter to the Admiralty

 

Click on each link above to access a PDF. Once in the PDF, click on the image of each source to enlarge it (the image will open in a web browser).  

Oil. Thomas Wilson: First Chairman 1824-42. Artist unknown. Portrait

How did they plan for success?

​Thomas Wilson, MP for London, joined the campaign and recommended that, in the absence of support from the Government and Admiralty, Sir William Hillary should seek funding for the national lifeboat service from wealthy philanthropists. He stirred up support in his constituency and in parliamentary circles, while another campaigner, George Hibbert, Chairman of the West Indies Merchants Company, sought support from shipping businesses.

Both worked to raise the profile of the campaign by convincing influential people to attend their second meeting in London on 4 March 1824. At this meeting, the National Society for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (today's RNLI) was formed.

  

Evidence:

Source 14: Letters from Sir William Hillary to The King and the AdmiralitySource 15: National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck

Source 16: Consultation with other maritime organisations

 

Click on each link above to access a PDF. Once in the PDF, click on the image of each source to enlarge it (the image will open in a web browser).

The Wreck of St George, 1830, attributed to Samuel Walters. Courtesy: Manx National Heritage

What campaign tactics did they use?

​

Supporters of the campaign were numerous. They included royalty, politicians, shipping companies and the press, as well as fishing communities throughout the country. Pledges of £25,000 were made at the first meeting. Lifeboats were needed all around the coast and this meant that the message about the campaign needed to be communicated in a variety of different forms.​

 

Evidence:

Source 17: Sir William Hillary’s Gold Medal
Source 18: The wreck of the St George
Source 19: Praise for Sir William's rescue
Source 20: Rising Sun supports fledgling organisation
Source 21: Sir William Hillary receives support from the King of Denmark
​

Click on each link above to access a PDF. Once in the PDF, click on the image of each source to enlarge it (the image will open in a web browser).  

Once you have studied the RNLI's example of an historical campaign, Save lives at sea, we recommend that you use the resources on the British Library's website to help your students explore different tactics used by campaigners and to run their own campaign.

Step 2: Make Yourself Heard

​Explore the skills and tactics for successful campaigning via the british Library's Make yourself heard page.

Step 3: Run Your Campaign

​Use the guidance on the British Library's Run your campaign page to create your own campaign.

​We greatly value your input and guidance in our work. Your feedback will be used when producing any revised editions and will also feed into our other educational resources.

 

Give your feedback via this online form.

 
 

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