AID FOR SHIPWRECKED MARINERS. 



73 



48,000 mariners subscribe to the benefit fund organised under its auspices.* The history 

 of this excellent association, which has now an income of nearly 29,000, is interesting. 

 "A worthy, philanthropic medical man, Mr. John Rye, of Bath, had a servant who had 

 formerly been a sailor, and was in the habit of reading the newspapers to his master. One 

 morning their attention was arrested by an account of some fearful wrecks of fishing boats, 

 with loss of life, on the north coast of Devon. The servant asked his master if there was 

 any fund out of which help could be obtained to relieve the families of those men. The 



THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT. 



master replied that he supposed there was, but he would make inquiries from Admiral Sir 

 Jahleen Brenton, then Governor of Greenwich Hospital; and from him he found that 

 there was none. They then together drew up a prospectus, and presented it to the late 

 Admiral of the Fleet, Sir George Cockburn, who most heartily took the matter up, and 

 after circulating the appeal widely, called a public meeting in February, ]839, at which 

 Sir George was appointed President, and a number of noblemen and gentlemen formed 

 themselves into a committee, of which the worthy Chairman, Captain the Hon. Francis 

 Maude, R.N., is now the sole survivor. The following month Her Majesty the Queen 

 graciously consented to be the Patron of the Society ; and so prosperous was the infant 



* The scale of relief to members, their widows, orphans, or parents (when dependent) is as liberal as one could 

 expect. A fisherman or mariner receives compensation for loss of boat or clothes ; a widow with two children may 

 obtain as much as 19 2s. 6d. ; and with four children, 25 10s. 



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