Qualla: Workington Lifeboat Station

Workington Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zcarstvnz, CC BY-SA 4.0. At daybreak on Saturday 19 September 1885, only the top of a mast was showing above the water off Mossbay Point, between Harrington and Workington. The schooner Margaret of Ramsey had broken up overnight, and her crew had climbed into the rigging to wait for help. By the time anyone on shore saw the mast, the last survivor had been washed away. The tug Derwent went out from Workington, towing a harbour boat with four men aboard. The harbour boat capsized. One of those four men was lost too. The bodies of William Cowle, William Kennish, and the Master Robert Christian came ashore on the beach. James Henry Christian — the Master's son, thirteen years old — was found later.

Image: Zcarstvnz | CC BY-SA 4.0

Workington Lifeboat Station: A Station Begun in Grief

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lfc-forum, CC0. It was the kind of morning that changes things. In the weeks that followed, requests went to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for the provision of a proper lifeboat at Workington. The RNLI agreed. A lifeboat house and slipway were built at a cost of £395, and in 1886 the f...

Image: Lfc-forum | CC0

Workington Lifeboat Station: Return and Service

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Andy V Byers, CC BY-SA 3.0. The station reopened, eventually, and in March 1953 it received the Manchester and Salford XXIX (ON 841), a 46-foot Watson-class lifeboat already a decade old when she arrived. Then came the rescue that still defines the station's modern history. At 21:25 on 27 January 1974, the ...

Image: User:Andy V Byers | CC BY-SA 3.0

Workington Lifeboat Station: Dorothy May White

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jim Woodward-Nutt, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 2017, after 131 years of using boats that had served somewhere else first, Workington finally received a brand-new lifeboat of its own. She is called 13-19 Dorothy May White (ON 1326), a Shannon-class all-weather boat that cost £2.2 million and is davit-launched from the North...

Image: Jim Woodward-Nutt | CC BY-SA 2.0

Workington Lifeboat Station: The Sea, the Same

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Billy McCrorie, CC BY-SA 2.0. Workington sits at the mouth of the River Derwent on the Cumbrian coast, where the Solway Firth meets the Irish Sea and the weather can turn from calm to violent in less time than it takes to drink a cup of tea. The hazards that wrecked the Margaret in 1885 — sudden squalls, the ...

Image: Billy McCrorie | CC BY-SA 2.0