Qualla: Holyhead Lifeboat Station

Holyhead Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 瑞丽江的河水, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1828, the people of Holyhead got tired of watching ships die on the rocks between North Stack and South Stack and asked Lloyd's of London for fifty pounds to build a lifeboat. They had asked before, in 1808, and nothing had come of it. They had asked again in 1825 - again, nothing. But the third time, the Anglesey Association for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck took matters into its own hands, commissioned a 31-foot Palmer-class boat from a local builder named McVeagh for the sum of eighty pounds, and put it on station in 1829. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution would not absorb the station for another twenty-six years. By then, Holyhead crews had already proven they would launch into weather that nothing else on the Welsh coast would face.

Image: 瑞丽江的河水 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Holyhead Lifeboat Station: The Fielden Money

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Arthur C Harris, CC BY-SA 2.0. In August 1875, three brothers - Samuel, John, and Joshua Fielden - wrote the RNLI a cheque for 2,500 pounds in memory of their father Thomas. They were the sons of John Fielden of Todmorden, a cotton-mill industrialist and Radical MP for Oldham, and they had inherited their late...

Image: Arthur C Harris | CC BY-SA 2.0

Holyhead Lifeboat Station: The SS Harold and Ten Silver Medals

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jimfbleak at English Wikipedia, Public domain. On 22 February 1908, the steamship Harold ran aground between North Stack and South Stack in heavy weather. The Holyhead steam lifeboat went to her. Coxswain Superintendent William Owen brought back every member of the Harold's crew. He was awarded the RNLI's Gold Medal - the ins...

Image: Jimfbleak at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Holyhead Lifeboat Station: 1967, and the Survivors of Worse

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bad nights kept coming. In March 1967, the Holyhead boat fought through gale-force weather to assist multiple casualties; Coxswain Thomas Alcock and Motor Mechanic Eric Samuel Jones earned Silver Medals, and six other crew received Bronze. Then in 1971, the lifeboat went to anoth...

Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Holyhead Lifeboat Station: The Current Crew, and the First Woman to Helm

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cls14, CC BY-SA 3.0. In February 2015, the station appointed its first female helm in almost two centuries of continuous service. The current boats are 14-07 Frederick Storey Cockburn, a 14-metre Trent-class all-weather lifeboat that arrived from the RNLI relief fleet in 2025, and the smaller inshore...

Image: Cls14 | CC BY-SA 3.0