Qualla: The Mumbles Lifeboat Station

The Mumbles Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is a wall at the end of Mumbles Pier where the names are remembered. Four men in 1883. Six men in 1903. Eight men in 1947. Eighteen men in total, every one of them a volunteer, every one of them dead because he answered a call. The Mumbles Lifeboat Station has launched into Swansea Bay since 1835, and in 2022 it logged 126 calls, more than any other RNLI station in Wales. The work has not become safer. It has become better equipped, and the crews who pull on their kit when their pagers go off in the middle of the night know exactly what coast they are putting to sea on.

Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Mumbles Lifeboat Station: Why a Lifeboat Was Needed

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gareth James, CC BY-SA 2.0. In February 1832 the cutter Ilfracombe Packet ran aground while trying to enter Swansea harbour. A young man named Silvanus Padley, son of the harbour clerk, asked to borrow the Customs Officers' boat to help. He was refused. He broke the lock, took the boat anyway, and rowed out...

Image: Gareth James | CC BY-SA 2.0

The Mumbles Lifeboat Station: 27 January 1883

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NotFromUtrecht, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first disaster came in the bitter winter of 1883. Wolverhampton, the station's lifeboat, was launched in heavy seas and capsized. John Jenkins, the second coxswain, and crew members William Jenkins, William Henry Macnamara (aged forty), and William Rogers were lost. Macnamara...

Image: NotFromUtrecht | CC BY-SA 3.0

The Mumbles Lifeboat Station: 1 February 1903

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Farrow, CC BY-SA 2.0. Twenty years later, on 1 February 1903, the Mumbles lifeboat James Stevens No. 12 launched to the steamship Christina out of Waterford. The lifeboat capsized in service. Six men were lost. Thomas Arthur Rogers, the coxswain, was thirty-nine. Daniel Claypitt, the second coxswain, ...

Image: Rob Farrow | CC BY-SA 2.0

The Mumbles Lifeboat Station: 23 April 1947

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lilo Lil, CC BY 2.0. The worst was still to come. On 23 April 1947, the American Liberty ship SS Samtampa drove ashore in a gale at Sker Point near Porthcawl. The Mumbles lifeboat Edward, Prince of Wales launched into a force-ten storm to reach her. She capsized and was wrecked. All eight crew aboard...

Image: Lilo Lil | CC BY 2.0

The Mumbles Lifeboat Station: Now

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wiccasha, Public domain. The current Mumbles boat is the 16-27 Roy Barker IV, a Tamar-class all-weather lifeboat that entered service in 2014. The station's inshore boat, Hugh, Maureen and Heather Pope, arrived in 2024. In 2015 and 2016 Mumbles was the busiest lifeboat station in Wales, with 83 launches ...

Image: Wiccasha | Public domain