RNLI Walmer Lifeboat Station

General information

1800-1939

In 1830, Gold Medals were awarded to Captain P Graham RN, Lieut HW Johnson RN and Lieut WS Watts RN, and a Silver Medal to John Durban for rescuing 13 crew from the ship Mountaineer and three other Deal boatmen on 24 November 1829. It was 26 years later, however, in 1856, that an actual lifeboat station was established.

In 1896 Crew Member E Young drowned when he was trying to board the steamship Trapian from the lifeboat. From 1912 to 1927 the station was closed, but when it re-opened the lifeboat was kept on a launching cradle at the head of the beach and soon afterwards, from 1930, the station had its first motor lifeboat.
[edit] World War Two

During World War II, Deal had two lifeboats, the Charles Dibden[1]and the Frances Forbes Barton; William Stanton was coxswain of the “Frances Forbes Barton”[2]In 1944 a Bronze Medal was awarded to Coxswain Joseph Mercer for rescuing 13 men from an anti-submarine boat stranded on the Goodwin Sands.
[edit] Postwar to present

Walmer's last all-weather lifeboat was the “Hampshire Rose”. In 1964 an inshore lifeboat (ILB) station was established with a D class lifeboat. The "Hampshire Rose" was retired from service on 5th May 1990 and, with the addition of a B class Atlantic 21 lifeboat (for whose launching rig the boathouse was then extended in 1992), Walmer was permanently established as an inshore lifeboat station. A new Atlantic 21, B-589 James Burgess, was placed on service in 1992, in the same year as a visit by the Queen Mother as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and on 22 January 1997 a new D class lifeboat, D-514 Lord Kitchener, was placed on service.

A new Atlantic 85 class lifeboat, B-808 Donald Mclauchlan, was put on station in December 2006, along with a new IB1 dclass D-663 Douggie Rodbard.