Looking back at historical moments that happened in September, John Davis highlights Grace Darling
It may be something to do with the advent of blockbuster movies and video games but the impression seems to be given that heroes, using it as a gender-neutral term, need to appear visually tall, powerful, super-fit and often muscle-bound.
Yet it is certainly not a given and throughout history those whose bravery comes from an inner strength, resilience and determination appear quite the opposite. To use examples already featured in this column, recall the slight stature and frailty of pioneering radioactive scientist Marie Curie and the Victorian explorer Mary Kingsley. To this pair you could add civil rights activist Mahatma Gandhi and by all accounts Horatio Nelson was a short, slightly built, ruddy-faced individual who never really mastered sea-sickness during his whole naval career.
Grace Darling, the subject of this month’s feature, fits very much into this latter category and in addition to the qualities mentioned about the characters identified above you could also add youth.
She was born in December 1815, the seventh of nine children in the family of lighthouse keeper William Darling and his wife. Within a few weeks of being born, Grace was taken to live in a small cottage attached to the lighthouse on Brownsman Island, one of the treacherous Farne Islands just off the coast of Northumberland.
Soon the family moved to a nearby island called Longstone where a new lighthouse had been built. The family lived in the large basement room of the building which served as both living room and kitchen with the bedrooms, accessed by a spiral staircase, located on the second and third floors.
It was from one of these bedrooms early on the morning of September 7th, 1838 that Grace Darling spied the remains of the Forfarshire, a paddle steamer with a faulty boiler that had broken apart on nearby rocks during the height of a storm. The front half of the vessel had lodged on rocks known as Big Harcar while the stern section had completely disappeared taking most of the passengers and the crew with it. The Darlings were not to know but the lifeboat at nearby Seahouses had been unable to put to sea because of the conditions so they appeared to be the only help available to those few passengers and crew who had survived by clinging to the rocks.
The lighthouse was equipped with a large rowing boat, about six metres long, but William would not be able to manage this on his own and Grace, at the age of twenty-two and used to travelling on the boat since her youth, was the only family member present who could offer assistance. Together they launched the boat and in horrendous conditions rowed towards Big Harcar. The distance they needed to travel was about one and half kilometres as William knew he would need to approach the leeward of the small island where it would be more sheltered.
After a tempestuous journey and in lashing rain, the pair eventually reached their goal. Grace remained in the boat keeping it in position while William made it to shore and gathered up four men and a lone surviving woman, Sarah Dawson, who had lost two children during the night. William and three of the rescued men rowed the boat back to the lighthouse while Grace comforted and tended to the grieving Sarah Dawson. While Mrs. Dawson and Grace remained at the lighthouse her father and the three men set out again and successfully rescued four more survivors from the rocks. When the lifeboat from Seahouses arrived on the scene it could only pick up dead bodies from the water. Such was the ferocity of the storm that those rescued and the lifeboat crew were forced to shelter in the lighthouse for several days. Later it was learned that there were nine other survivors from the front section of the Forfarshire who had managed to launch a small life raft that had been picked up by another ship.
When news of the rescue spread Grace became an instant hero. Both she and her father received silver medals from what was then the forerunner of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and Grace was also awarded a gold medal from the Royal Humane Society. Journalists clamoured to get her story and artists literally queued to paint her portrait or sketch a likeness to use in an action seascape of the rescue. There were charitable donations to the pair amounting to hundreds of pounds including, although it was never offcially confirmed, £50 from Queen Victoria. Local aristocracy, the Duke of Northumberland, became a self-appointed guardian of Grace and the family adding gifts of his own and setting up a trust fund in her name.
Four years later Grace fell ill with tuberculosis while visiting the mainland and, despite the best attention including the Duchess of Northumberland’s own private physician, died in October 1842 aged only twenty-six. She was buried in the graveyard of St. Aidan’s Church, Bamburgh where there is also a monument to her brave act. This is also depicted inside the church as a stained-glass window. Bamburgh has a museum specially devoted to Grace Darling and over the years a number of local lifeboats have carried her name.
The year after she died, William Wordsworth, just appointed as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, penned a specially commissioned poem to Grace and her heroic deed. It closes:
“Pious and pure, modest and yet so brave,
Though young so wise, though meek so resolute-
Might carry to the clouds and to the stars,
Yea, to celestial choirs, Grace Darling’s name!”
Semi-retired and living in Lyme Regis, John Davis started working life as a newspaper journalist before moving on to teach in schools, colleges and as a private tutor. He is a history graduate with Bachelors and Masters degrees from Bristol University with a particular interest in the History of Education and Twentieth Century European History.
