Spare a Penny for the Lifeboats?

The first known street collection in the world in aid of a charity.

It was early December 1886, and with a Mr Reginald Bushell, Hinderton Lodge, Neston, reporting abnormal barometric readings on his weather apparatus, the full blown north westerly gale was showing no sign of abating as it continued to wreak havoc on land and sea alike.

The Anglesey and Caernarvonshire coasts were said to be strewn with wrecks. The conditions were so atrocious that the skipper of the Liverpool-registered barque Lariscourt (1113 tons), having departed Newport bound for Western Australia, was forced to run her ashore on the sands at Port Talbot to save her from being wrecked. Even so the sea was such that the crew had to take to the rigging to survive.

Petrel, Historical Photos

The brigantine Petrel, with a cargo of marble for Belfast, was driven ashore at Treyarnon Bay, Padstow, and became a total wreck. Meanwhile the mail steamers City of Berlin, Catalonia, and Nova Scotian, all reported heavy weather, adding at least twenty-four hours to their schedules.

On land, it was r…