Henry Greathead--a boatbuilder of South Shields--erroneously got the credit of this invention. Greathead was a noted improver and builder of lifeboats, and was well and deservedly rewarded for his work; but he was not the inventor. Lionel Lukin alone can claim that honour. In regard to the men who man them, enough has been written to prove that they well deserve to be regarded as the heroes of the coast! And let me observe in passing that there are also _heroines_ of the coast, as the following extract from the Journal of the Institution will show. It appeared in the January number of 1865. "Voted the Silver Medal of the Institution, and a copy of its vote of thanks on parchment, to Miss Alice R. Le Geyt, in admiration of her prompt and courageous conduct in rowing a small boat into the surf at the risk of her life, and rescuing two little boys who had fallen into the sea from the outer pier at Lyme Regis, Dorset, on the 4th August." Again, in October, 1879, the Committee of the National Lifeboat Institution voted the Silver Medal of the Institution, and a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum, to Miss Ellen Francis Prideaux Brune, Miss Gertrude Rose Prideaux Brune, Miss Mary Katherine Prideaux Brune, Miss Beatrice May Prideaux Brune, and Miss Nora O'Shaughnessy, in acknowledgment of their intrepid and prompt services in proceeding through a heavy surf in their rowing-boat, and saving, at considerable risk of life, a sailor from a boat which had been capsized by a squall of wind off Bray Hill, Padstow Harbour, Cornwall, on the 9th August. When the accident occurred, the ladies' boat was being towed astern of a fishing-boat, and Miss Ellen Prideaux Brune, with great gallantry and determination, asked to be cast off, and, with her companions, she proceeded with all possible despatch to the rescue of the drowning sailor. All the ladies showed great courage, presence of mind, and marked ability in the management of their small boat. They ran great risk in getting the man into it, on account of the strong tide and sea on at the time. So it would appear that the spirit of the far-famed Grace Darling has not yet departed from the land! If heroism consists in boldly facing and successfully overcoming dangers of the most appalling nature, then I hold that thousands of our men of the coast--from Shetland to the Land's End--stand as high as do those among our soldiers and sailors who wear the Victoria Cross. Let us consider an example. On that night in which the Royal Charter went down, there was a Maltese sailor on board named Joseph Rodgers, who volunteered to swim ashore with a rope. Those who have seen the effect of a raging sea even on a smooth beach, know that the power of the falling waves is terrible, and their retreating force so great that the most powerful swimmers occasionally perish in them. But the coast to which Rodgers volunteered to swim was an almost perpendicular cliff.