Qualla: St Annes Lifeboat Station

St Annes Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ray Hindle, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Laura Janet had been on station for five years and had saved six lives. That was her one successful service. Five days after she brought the crew of the Yan Yean of Montrose to shore, distress signals went up at nine in the evening from the barque Mexico, driven aground off Ainsdale in a south-southwesterly gale. The Laura Janet launched into the dark with thirteen men aboard. None of them came back.

Image: Ray Hindle | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Annes Lifeboat Station: A New Town, A New Station

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pimlico Badger, CC BY-SA 2.0. St Annes did not exist as a town before 1874. The development of the Victorian seaside resort, which began the following year, ran fast: pier, station, hotels rising from the dunes, streets laid out by the architects who would later build Blackpool Tower. A lifeboat was an obviou...

Image: Pimlico Badger | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Annes Lifeboat Station: 9 December 1886

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Lee, CC BY-SA 4.0. The German barque Mexico was driven ashore off Ainsdale around twenty-one hundred hours on the evening of 9 December 1886. Three lifeboats launched into the storm: the Southport Eliza Fernley, the St Annes Laura Janet, and the Lytham Charles Biggs. The Charles Biggs reached the M...

Image: Mark Lee | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Annes Lifeboat Station: What the Town Did Next

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JosephHolt1849, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 23 May 1888, a monument designed by William Birnie Rhind and topped by a figure of a lifeboatman was unveiled on St Annes Promenade by John Talbot Clifton. It is still there. At the same ceremony, the new boat, The Brothers, was named, and Coxswain Thomas Rimmer was presented ...

Image: JosephHolt1849 | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Annes Lifeboat Station: The Slow Closing

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. Through the 1920s the same silt that closed the steamer service at Southport Pier choked the Ribble approaches at St Annes. The local fishing industry, which had given the lifeboat its crew, collapsed. The station became a half-time station, able to launch only at high water. It ...

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0