Like so many great British ideas, the RNLI began life in the pub!

Beloved charity celerates two centuries of life- saving drama and courage

- James Murray

THE RNLI is two centuries old this week, having saved more than 144,000 lives and counting at sea since then. Yet the now formidable charity's foundation was never a given. Even for an island nation surrounded by a meandering and sometimes jagged coastline and dependent on the sea for fishing and trade, it had a stormy start.

By the 1820s author and philanthropist Sir William Hillary had begun work to implement an official manned service intending to preserve lives and assist vessels in distress at sea. In the early 19th century there were some 1,800 shipwrecks a year around our coast.

On February 28, 1823, Hilary, who lived in Douglas on the Isle of Man, made an impassioned appeal to the nation. He published a pamphlet detailing his plans for a lifeboat service manned by trained crews for all of the UK and Ireland.

Hilary sent details to the Royal Navy, ministers and prominent citizens, appealing for the formation of a national institution for saving lives at sea.

At its heart would be "a large body of men... in constant readiness to risk their own lives for the preservation of those whom they have never known or seen, perhaps of another nation, merely because they are fellow creatures in extreme peril".

Despite Britain being a seafaring nation his pleas fell on deaf ears, even at The Admiralty. It would take all of his patience and perseverance to find support.