Hoylake Lifeboat Station

Hoylake Lifeboat Station is located on the North Parade promenade in the town of Hoylake, on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside.

A lifeboat was first stationed at Hoylake by the Liverpool Dock Trustees in 1803. The station was transferred to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in 1894.

The station currently operates a Shannon-class All-weather lifeboat, and a Griffon Type 470TD Hovercraft.



History
On 16 September 1803, the Liverpool Dock Trustees ordered that a lifeboat, purchased from Henry Greathead in 1802, be placed in service at Hoylake, one of 6 lifeboat stations in the area provided by the Dock Trustees. The boat was to be housed in a newly constructed wooden boathouse, under the supervision of the local Tide Surveyor, Mr. Marlowe. The first Master (coxswain) was Thomas Seed, Lower Lighthouse Keeper. Thomas Seed died in 1808, and the Dock Trustees appointed Capt. Joseph Bennett, already an experienced Liverpool pilot, as Master of Hoylake lifeboat, and Keeper of the Lower Lighthouse, on a salary of 40 guineas.

Following an wreck of the Athebaska in 1838, when none of the boats from Hoylake, Point of Air or Magazine village were able to effect a rescue, with the loss of all aboard, the Dock Trustees decided to place a No.2 boat at Hoylake in 1840, specially constructed by local boatbuilder Thomas Costain to suit the local conditions. So pleased were the crew with the new boat, they requested another one, to replace their No.1 boat, which arrived in 1841.

By 1847, launching of either Hoylake boat was proving difficult at certain times due to silting. So it was decided to create a station on Hilbre Island. A stone built boathouse and slipway were constructed, a caretaker was appointed to live on the island, and in 1848, the Hoylake No.2 boat was transferred to Hilbre Island.

Liverpool Dock Trustees handed over control of all their lifeboat stations to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in 1858. However, by the 1890s, with an ever increasing work load due to rising levels of port traffic at Liverpool, negotiations took place between the two parties, and on 1 July 1894, all the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board lifeboat stations were handed over to the RNLI. The Hoylake boat was only two years old, so after being sent away for some modification work, the boat was returned to Hoylake and was named Coard William Squarey (ON 377).

In 1898, the RNLI gave up their existing wooden boat house and site, to allow Hoylake Council to create an Esplanade. A new site was provided by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and the council paid £200 towards the construction of a new lifeboat station, which cost £922, and was completed in 1899. The council also constructed a new slipway opposite the new boathouse at no cost to the RNLI.

Hoylake was one of the first stations to trial a launch tractor, receiving a Clayton tractor T1 in 1921. They also got a new lifeboat in 1931. She was the first of the new motor-powered Liverpool-class lifeboats, with a single 35 h.p. engine, capable of 7.3kts.

With motor lifeboats at Hoylake and New Brighton, and one due at Rhyl, it was considered that there was enough lifeboat coverage for the area, and it was announced that Hilbre Island station would close in 1938.

Nearly 110 years since the building of Hoylake's 1899 lifeboat station, at a cost of £922, a new station was constructed on the site of Hoylake's old open air baths, located about half a mile to the east of the old station, on the sea-side of North Parade. It followed two years of fundraising, and cost £2 million to construct.

Station honours
The following are awards made at Hoylake


 * RNLI Silver Medal
 * George Davies, Coxswain - 1851


 * Thomas Dodd, Coxswain - 1902


 * Silver Medal awarded by the Dutch Government
 * George Davies, Coxswain - 1864


 * RNLI Bronze Medal
 * Herbert Jones, Coxswain - 1943
 * Benjamin Stanton Armitage, boatman - 1943
 * William G. Widdup, late Coxswain, H.M. Coastguard - 1943


 * Harold Triggs, Coxswain - 1971


 * Thomas Henry Jones, Coxswain - 1980


 * Medal Service Certificate
 * Peter Jones, Acting Motor Mechanic - 1980
 * Alan Tolley, Acting Assistant Mechanic - 1980
 * Geoffrey Ormrod, crew member - 1980
 * Gordon Bird, crew member - 1980


 * First Class Certificates of Merit awarded by The Imperial Russian Association for Life-saving on Waters
 * Hoylake Lifeboat Crew - 1902


 * The Thanks of the Institution inscribed on Vellum
 * Capt. Joshua Armitage - 1896


 * John McDermott, Second Coxswain - 1980
 * David Dodd, crew member - 1980


 * A Framed Letter of Thanks signed by the Chairman of the Institution
 * Jeffery Kernigan, Acting Tractor Driver - 1980
 * Jesse Bird, Acting Assistant Tractor Driver - 1980


 * Member, Order of the British Empire (MBE)
 * David Arthur Dodd, Coxswain - 1998


 * British Empire Medal
 * David Anthony Whiteley, Coxswain - 2016

Hilbre Island
Station Closed, 1938