“But I never look upon the sea
On a wild November morn,
But I fancy I see a tiny boat
On the crested billows borne,
And a brave crew battling manfully
With their sullen and angry foe –
‘The Brave Eleven’ – who died that day
Just thirty years ago.”
(By Emily Briggs, published in the West Sussex Gazette, November 25, 2880)

The legacy of the Lalla Rookh incident was the establishment of the lifeboat service at Worthing, a volunteer operation that lasted into the 1930s. It is a history well documented in local historian Robert Blann’s series of books on the history of Worthing: A Town’s Pride: Victorian Lifeboatmen and their Community, Edwardian Worthing: Eventful Era in a Lifeboat Town and Vintage Worthing: Images of a Lifeboat Town, 1914-1945.

Robert Blann’s books

Search the West Sussex Past Pictures archive using the term “Lifeboat”

THE LIFEBOAT CREW
Lost in the roar of the wild ocean’s rage,
Are the cries of the timid and brave:
Fearless the crew of the lifeboat engage,
The tempest toss’d vessel to save.
Hark to the thunder that shakes heav’n’s dome,
See how the fierce lightnings flash by;
With a cheer and a pray’r for the lov’d ones at home,
Go the heroes to do or to die.

CHORUS Hail! To the lifeboat,
God bless the brave crew,
Who dare the tempestuous wave.
Strengthen and bless the hearts daring and true,
Who risk all to succour and save.

Dash’d like a leaf on the billows that roar,
Now lost in the wild dashing spray,
Trembling with fear stands the crowd on the shore,
Some weeping, some striving to pray.
Mothers and wives, mute with anguish stand by,
Yet proud of the dear ones so brave,
Straining their ears to catch sound of that cry,
Which at last faintly comes o’er the wave.

CHORUS

Loud ring the cheers as the lifeboat returns,
Forms dripping with foam and with rain;
Grateful and proud every bosom now burns,
They have conquer’d old ocean again.
Then who will forbear to lend helping hand,
To the life-saving boat and its crew,
Whose courage and pluck makes us proud of the land,
That boasts men so fearless and true.

CHORUS
(By John Hartley, late 19th century, from Everyman’s Book of Seasongs, Richard baker and Antony Miall, JM Dent & Sons Ltd., London, Melbourne, Toronto)