Qualla: Maryport Lifeboat Station

Maryport Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Robson, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 9 October 1940, the wind picked up so fast on the Solway Firth that one herring drifter, the Mourne Lass, lost a single hour against her fleetmates and was caught alone in a gale. She was spotted from shore at 18:30, about two and a half miles out, her propeller fouled in her own nets and her mizzen sail in shreds. The Maryport lifeboat launched at 19:47 and struggled even to clear the harbour. Coxswain Thomas Quayle Reay brought back four exhausted crewmen, guided home to harbour by the harbour master's flashing torch. Reay had already won the RNLI Bronze Medal six years earlier for a rescue off Workington in another gale. The Mourne Lass service earned him a second-service clasp to that medal. He is the kind of name that runs through this station's history.

Image: Graham Robson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Maryport Lifeboat Station: The Henry Dixson Arrives

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Robson, CC BY-SA 2.0. In October 1865, the RNLI's monthly journal The Lifeboat reported that a station had been established at Maryport. A new boathouse had gone up on the harbour, and a 32-foot self-righting Pulling and Sailing lifeboat had arrived, equipped with both sails and ten oars and a launchi...

Image: Graham Robson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Maryport Lifeboat Station: Coxswain Reay

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oast House Archive, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 17 January 1934, the steamship SS Plawsworth of Newcastle-upon-Tyne dragged her anchors in a southwest gale and was driven ashore off Workington. The Priscilla Macbean, Maryport's first motor lifeboat, launched at midday and found the steamer stern-first to the shore, offering...

Image: Oast House Archive | CC BY-SA 2.0

Maryport Lifeboat Station: Closure and Return

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Robson, CC BY-SA 2.0. By 1948, silting of Maryport harbour was making lifeboat launches increasingly difficult. The RNLI decided to re-establish a station at Workington, which had been closed in 1905, and to close Maryport in 1949. The Joseph Braithwaite, the last all-weather lifeboat at the station, ...

Image: Graham Robson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Maryport Lifeboat Station: Maryport Rescue Today

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Robson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The current station operates the E-ON Spirit of Maryport, a Marine Specialist Technology Rescue 900 rigid inflatable boat, in service since 2008, along with a smaller Zodiac inflatable. In 2017, the team took delivery of a refurbished Talus MB-H amphibious tractor from the RNLI: ...

Image: Graham Robson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Maryport Lifeboat Station: The 1934 Naming

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Robson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The naming ceremony on 27 September 1934 for the last all-weather lifeboat at Maryport drew an estimated twenty thousand people. Among them was John Murray, the last surviving member of the 1865 crew of the Henry Dixson, the original lifeboat at the station. His presence at the c...

Image: Graham Robson | CC BY-SA 2.0