The year 1850 marked an epoch in the history of life-boats, for then the Institution was thoroughly re-organised. It was arranged that the boats should be periodically inspected by qualified officers, and that a fixed scale of payment, both for actual service or quarterly exercise, should be made to the coxswains and crews.(74) His Grace the late Duke of Northumberland offered a prize of one hundred guineas for the best model of a life-boat, and a like sum towards constructing a boat on that model. No less than 280 plans and models were sent in, not merely from all parts of the United Kingdom, but from France, Holland, Germany, and the United States. After some six months’ detailed examination on the part of the committee, Mr. James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth, was awarded the prize. That gentleman constructed several boats shortly afterwards, embodying most or all of the leading improvements, and was the first to build a “self-righting” life-boat. All of the Institution’s modern boats are on this principle. “The chief peculiarity of a life-boat,” says our authority, “which distinguishes it from all ordinary boats, is its being rendered unsubmergible, by attaching to it, chiefly within boards, water-tight air-cases, or fixed water-tight compartments under a deck.... Especially it is essential that the spare space along the sides of a life-boat, within boards, should be entirely occupied by buoyant cases or compartments; as when such is the case, on her shipping a sea, the water, until got rid off, is confined to the midships part of the boat, where, to a great extent, it serves as ballast, instead of falling over to the lee-side, and destroying her equilibrium, as is the case in an ordinary open boat.” The Institution’s self-righting boats are ballasted with _heavy_ iron keels (up to 21 cwts.), and _light_ air-tight cases, cork, &c. The advantage of employing a ballast of less specific gravity than water is, that in the event of the boat being stove in, the buoyancy of the material itself then comes into play.