For 200 years, the RNLI has been saving lives at sea. From wooden lifeboats with oars and sails to today’s motor-powered all-weather lifeboats, crews across the country have been making our waters a safer place.
From summer through to autumn 2024, Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery joined the celebrations marking 200 years of the RNLI with an exhibition including historic photographs, crew kit and equipment, stories of shipwreck and artefacts from the museum collection.
Also on display were paintings from Kurt Jackson’s RNLI Cornwall series of work, and artwork by Henry Scott Tuke from the museum collection.
Cornwall and the coast
Together with the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall has more than 250 miles of coastline, and lies in a strategic seafaring position. As a result, Cornish people have relied on the sea for food, work and world connection for thousands of years.
An estimated 6,000 shipwrecks have taken place on Cornwall’s coastline and records from the 1300s show that rescues were carried out by fishers and pilots in small boats like gigs and cutters. Since its beginning in 1824, the RNLI’s lifeboat crews have continued to be populated by these brave seafaring folks hundreds of years later.
RNLI videos
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLum7uncM4u4zmxuTjqWU-ZbeoFxttl79&si=M-hrN0oljDtqNGXu
Images by Toby Weller
