Southport and St Anne’s Lifeboat Disaster 1886 | RNLI History Fridge Magnet | RNLI Gifts

Southport and St Anne’s Lifeboat Disaster 1886 | Lifeboat Collectables Fridge Magnet

On 9th December 1886, the Mexico on its way from Liverpool to Ecuador was caught in a storm. Lifeboats were launched from Lytham, St. Annes and Southport to rescue the crew. The Lytham lifeboat Charles Biggs, rescued the twelve crew but both the St. Annes lifeboat Laura Janet and the Southport lifeboat Eliza Fernley were capsized, and 27 of the 29 crew were drowned. To date, this is the worst loss of RNLI crew in a single incident.

This fridge magnet depicts The Mexico from the Southport and St Anne’s lifeboat disaster, and is part of the full commemorative set of fridge magnets from Lifeboat Collectables which includes famous rescues, key events, and people within the RNLI and its 200 years of service.

The Mexico 1886

In response to distress signals from Mexico, the lifeboat Eliza Fernley, was launched from Southport . When the craft reached Mexico, she was struck by heavy seas and capsized. Two hours later, she was found approximately three miles from Southport at Birkdale. Fourteen of her sixteen crew had perished.

The two survivors, Henry Robinson and John Jackson, were trapped under the boat after she capsized and only survived by freeing themselves, swimming out and clinging onto the keel of the boat, then walking miles back to their homes and raising the alarm. One of them had tried and failed to rescue other comrades who were still trapped under the boat. Amazingly, four other men from the Southport boat initially survived the disaster but subsequently could not be saved.

Between fifteen and twenty minutes after the Southport boat launched, the neighbouring St Anne’s lifeboat—Laura Janet—was also called out. Her crew rowed her out to five hundred yards, and then hoisted sail, proceeding two miles off Southport. In the words of Patrick Howarth, author of Lifeboat: In Danger’s hour:

“What happened there has never been clearly established. Two red lights were seen at Southport, which may have been signals from the life–boat. All that is known is that at quarter past eleven the next morning the lifeboat was found ashore, bottom up, with three dead bodies hanging on the thwarts with their heads downwards. Every man in the crew was lost”.

Additionally, a third lifeboat, from Lytham, reached Mexico. By that time, Mexico had settled on her beam ends, and the crew had lashed themselves to the rigging. The lifeboat, on her maiden rescue, rowed for a mile and a half through the River Ribble, and then rowed to Mexico, rescuing all twelve members of the barque’s crew. In the process, the crew shattered three of her oars, and the small craft was filled numerous times with water.

The bodies of the unfortunate lifeboatmen (who were fishermen by trade) were removed from the beaches and laid out in the coaching house of the nearby Birkdale Palace Hotel. The coach house was later converted to a public house, being named The Fishermen’s Rest, and is reputed to be haunted by the spirits of the dead men.

The disaster is the worst in the history of the RNLI, with 27 lifeboat crew lost.

[ References: Wikipedia Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ]