270 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



ship." A special pension of ^100 a year was granted 

 to the widow of Lieutenant Bosworth Smith, and 

 pensions were given to the widows of the seamen and 

 firemen who lost their lives in the Cobra. About ^4000 

 was subscribed in Portsmouth for the relief of the 

 dependants of those who perished. The Cobra was 

 a turbine-driven destroyer, and it is remembered as a 

 strange fact that the Viper, a sister ship, was lost a few 

 weeks earlier in the Channel. 



The lifeboat of to-day had its origin in a North Sea 

 port South Shields. Disastrous autumnal gales in 1789 

 resulted in the offer of a prize for the best craft capable 

 of being launched from the shore and sent to vessels in 

 distress. The prize was won by Henry Greathead, of 

 South Shields, who was also rewarded in other ways 

 for his invention, which proved so successful that in a 

 dozen years three hundred lives were saved off Tyne- 

 mouth alone by means of boats built according to his 

 plans. These boats were in use for more than half a 

 century, then, in December 1849, a score of the ablest 

 pilots of the Tyne were drowned by the upsetting of one 

 of the Greathead type of boats. She capsized and the 

 pilots were drowned inside her, because she was so deep 

 in the water as to leave them no space to breathe. 

 This calamity and the miserably inadequate rewards 

 given to men who went off to vessels in distress in the 

 spring of 1850 lifeboatmen off Holy Island were con- 

 sidered well enough paid at one-and-eightpence each 

 for risking their lives caused further steps to be taken 

 to evolve a new type of boat. After competition the 

 model of James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth, was 

 chosen. Three accidents happening quickly to the 



