Yachting Monthly - November 2015

HERITAGE

32 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com NOVEMBER 2015

Wrecks on the Farnes were commonplace.

Steamships tended to be unreliable

and dangerous. Engineers were mostly

self-taught, ships’ boilers were shoddily

constructed from inferior materials and

routinely leaked or blew up. The 1839

Report of the Commissioners on Steam

Vessel Accidents highlighted ‘the absence

of any official record or registry

of disasters peculiar to steam

vessels’ and recommended a ‘rigid

examination’ for ships’ engineers.

On 8 September the Gateshead

Observer wrote up the Darlings’

rescue, concluding ‘history does

not record any instance of more

remarkable courage in a woman

than this’. Grace became a local

hero. Shamelessly plagiarising,

the London Times described

Grace’s role as an ‘instance of

heroism on the part of a female

unequalled... by any on record’.

Now the story went viral. With each

telling the winds grew stronger, the waves

higher, the boat journey longer and more

perilous. Grace dominated. Others were

small bit players highlighting her courage,

skill, stamina, fortitude and leadership.

Her father became an unfit, weak-willed,

hesitant, indecisive old man shamed into

action by his daughter.

Both Darlings were awarded Royal

Humane Society Gold Medals by its

president, the Duke of Northumberland,

A Northumberland coble is a

type of open wooden boat that

can range from 14ft up to 50ft or

more. It is designed for launching

from a beach into waves, so has

a high bow, a marked S-shape

sheer and very full, shallow

bilges. The gunwales have a

strong tumblehome and the

raked transom is characteristically

narrow and high. Now mostly motorised,

though still used for fishing, they used

to be rowed, or rigged with a simple

The Darlings’ boat

lugsail. The Darlings’ boat, a 21ft four-man

coble, can be seen in the RNLI museum in

Bamburgh that bears her name.

A full-scale replica of the Darlings’ coble was displayed

at the International Fisheries Exhibition in 1883

0 1nm

NORTH SUNDERLAND

aka SEAHOUSES

LONGSTONE

Single flashing light

Burn Carr Rocks

BEADNELL

Braidcarr Point

Carr End

Monk House Rocks

Knocks

Reef The

Bush

Wideopens

Scarcars

Megstone

Oxscar

Staple Island

Gun Rocks

Brownsman Island

South Warnses

North Warnses

North

Hares

Knivestone

Crafod’s Gut

Little Harcar

Big

Harcar

Crumstone

Callers

INNER FARNE

Two fixed lights

Picked up by sloop and

taken to North Shields

Darling’s Coble: Made four

trips of 0.6nm, probably taking

about 25 minutes a trip.

Piper Gut

Mate and others

abandon ship

North Sunderland

lifeboat: Sailed 3.5nm

in 2 hours 30 minutes

at an average speed

of 1.4 knots

Heavy swell

meant that is

was Monday

10 September

before the lifeboat,

the survivors and

William Darling

could sail for

Beadnell.

and silver medals from the National

Institution for the Preservation of Life

from Shipwreck, also presided over by

the Duke of Northumberland. Individuals

sent Grace gifts, public subscriptions were

set up. Paparazzi clutching their brushes

hurried north for those exclusive portraits

they could print and sell by the thousand.

Grace became a money-making industry.

Although Grace lived happily with her

parents, the Duke of Northumberland

made her his ward and placed this cash in

a trust he set up. Over £1000 was raised.

Grace received about £700 (55,000

today). She replied courteously to those

who wrote, but the money meant little and

her life on Longstone, as far as it could,

continued as before until illness forced her

to the mainland. She died in October 1842

and was buried in St Aidian’s churchyard,

in Bamburgh.

Her father, the driving force without

whom there would have been no rescue,

continued as keeper of the Longstone light

for another 22 years retiring at the age

of 74. He died, in the shadow of Grace’s

legend, aged 79 in 1865. Wisely, he never

challenged the myth that grew up around

his daughter. Any talk that their passage

between the Longstone and the wreck was

not that far, that the lifeboat had a more

challenging passage, that the weather was

not that bad, that Grace played a minor

role under his direction and command,

and that dangers they faced were not as

great as described were drowned out by

cries ‘against any suspicion being cast on

the heroism of Grace Darling. Her brave

conduct in the affair was well known and

could admit no doubt’. When a legend

becomes fact, it is sometimes better to

stick to the legend. W

CHART: LIZA SAWYER

LEFT: An imposing monument to Grace Darling was

raised at St Aidan’s, Bamburgh, near her simple grave

ABOVE: The North

Sunderland lifeboat,

with Grace’s brother

aboard, launched

from Seahouses

PHOTO: ALAMY

PHOTO: ALAMY

PHOTO: THEO STOCKER