Qualla: Rhosneigr Lifeboat Station

Rhosneigr Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Whittaker, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 28 August 1942, a Polish-piloted Blackburn Botha crashed into the sea off Rhosneigr beach. Three airmen were trapped in the wreckage. Two schoolboys - John Stewart Wood and Derek Baynham, both seventeen - launched a small dinghy and reached the aircraft, pulling out the pilot before their dinghy was overturned. They survived. So did the pilot they had reached. By the time the day ended, eleven other men had drowned trying to row out to that wrecked Botha. The boys received the George Medal and the RNLI Silver Medal; General Sikorski, commanding the Polish forces in exile, sent each of them a cigarette case. Eleven RNLI Bronze Medals were awarded, seven of them posthumous. The lifeboat station itself had been closed for eighteen years by then. The rescue happened anyway.

Image: Martin Whittaker | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rhosneigr Lifeboat Station: 1872: A Station for Rhosneigr Bay

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Whittaker, CC BY-SA 2.0. Rhosneigr Lifeboat Station was established by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1872, after a series of shipwrecks in Rhosneigr Bay convinced local residents to petition for a boat. Mrs Selina Lingham of Lower Norwood in south London donated 680 pounds to fund the statio...

Image: Martin Whittaker | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rhosneigr Lifeboat Station: The Norman Court Rescue

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Whittaker, CC BY-SA 2.0. The most extraordinary service the Rhosneigr boat ever attempted was on 30 March 1883, called out to the Greenock vessel Norman Court aground in heavy weather. The Rhosneigr crew launched into impossible conditions and lost one of their own washed overboard. A steam tug towed the...

Image: Martin Whittaker | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rhosneigr Lifeboat Station: Decline and Closure

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Whittaker, CC BY-SA 2.0. Rhosneigr saved forty-five lives in its first thirteen years, ten more in 1890 alone, and thirteen in the thirteen years following. Then the calls dried up. Improvements in ship construction, the gradual fading of sailing-vessel coastal trade, and the proximity of other stations ...

Image: Martin Whittaker | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rhosneigr Lifeboat Station: 1942: The Botha That Should Not Have Flown

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Whittaker, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Blackburn Botha was one of the most unloved aircraft of the Second World War. Underpowered, unstable in some configurations, withdrawn from front-line use, it was nevertheless still in service for training in 1942. On 28 August one came down off Rhosneigr. The crew were Polis...

Image: Martin Whittaker | CC BY-SA 2.0