Coxswains of Spurn and their Families
by
Jan Crowther
In 2001 Brian Bevan retired after 26 years of distinguished service as coxswain of the Spurn lifeboat. He was 17th in line of coxswains, several of whom have served for long periods at the only permanently manned lifeboat station in the British Isles. Lifeboatmen need very special qualities — notably bravery, and the skills of seamanship and management. Those stationed at Spurn also need inner reserves, enabling them to live, essentially imprisoned, on an isolated spit of land. Moreover they need supportive families, to share this unusual life with them. This article will focus upon eight of the coxswains and their families, all of whom served for more than a decade on the Spurn station.
The first coxswain was almost the longest serving. Robert Richardson, a Hull man, began in 1810, and served until 1841. At the time of his appointment, he was 25 years old, his wife was 20, and they had one infant son. Richardson, who had been at sea for nine years and served in a revenue vessel, was taken on initially as mate, but the man chosen as coxswain never served, so Richardson took on the difficult task of establishing the service at Spurn from scratch.
Richardson did not even have his crew nearby. For the first ten years they lived several miles away, at Kilnsea. The Richardsons’ new home was a former barracks, built during the Napoleonic Wars to house soldiers stationed on Spurn to protect the country from invasion by the French. One of the rooms was made into a tavern, which also served as accommodation for ‘the reception of ship-wrecked persons’. The inn was intended to supply the Richardsons with an income. They were also to run a shop, selling ships’ stores, meat, and groceries.
In lieu of wages the crew were given exclusive rights to load gravel and cobbles on the peninsula. This trade had been supplying local men with work for many years and its restriction to lifeboatmen caused great hostility between them and their fellow villagers — blows were often exchanged! Having the men living miles from the station was impracticable, and in 1819 cottages were built near the lighthouse, overlooking the Humber. From thenceforth Spurn station became the only permanently manned lifeboat station in the country. The close residency of the crew helped Richardson to build up team spirit and retain his men. After constant changes of crew, things settled down, and a period of stability came to the Point.
The wives of lifeboatmen are crucial to their ability to carry out their job, most especially at a place like Spurn. Richardson was well supported by his wife, Elizabeth. When she arrived at Spurn, newly married, and with a baby, she found herself part of a tiny community, mainly comprising the three or four lighthouse families. Until the new crew members and their families moved into Spurn in 1819, and trebled the population, she must have felt quite lonely, though she was kept very busy, writing all Robert’s letters, working with him in the public house, and carrying out her family duties. During the time that they lived at Spurn Elizabeth produced 16 children, including one set of twins. Sadly seven of them died. The nearest medical support was the doctor at Patrington, or across the Humber at Grimsby, so during childbirth and bereavement the help and support of the other women must have been particularly important.
Richardson left Spurn in 1841 when he was in his mid-fifties. He had saved 304 lives, the lifeboat had never been afloat without him in all his years of service, and he had never lost a crew member. A testimony to his good management may be the fact that four of his crew served with him for 20 years or more. Unfortunately a period of instability followed his departure, when the removal of gravel and cobbles (except from the Binks) was prohibited and the men lost their main source of income. Between 1841 and 1857 six coxswains served, whilst between the years 1850 and 1859, no less than 30 of the 52 men who were appointed to the ten-man crew served for one year or less, and another eight for less than two.
By the late 1850s, when the next long-serving coxswain, Fewson Hopper, joined the crew, a relatively stable period had arrived for Spurn. The new defences were fairly effective, and modern houses had been built. The Hoppers brought a family of six children to the peninsula, and whilst at Spurn they had four more. On the retirement of William Willis in 1865 Hopper was promoted to coxswain, and served until 1877, when, at 55, he left to become keeper of Saltend lighthouse — lifeboatmen often became lighthouse keepers and vice versa. Several of his children stayed on. His son, James, was landlord of the Lifeboat Inn from the late 1870s until just before the First War. In the later 19th century Spurn became a popular place in summer for visitors arriving from Grimsby and Cleethorpes in pleasure steamers. The public house was a popular venue, but for those who did not wish for alcoholic refreshment the wives of the lifeboat crew offered tea and food. Lifeboat families running cafes on the Point is by no means a modern phenomenon!! James’s brother, Consitt, became the Lloyd’s Agent at Spurn and another brother, William Fewson Hopper, followed his father as a lifeboatman. William’s cousins and his own son, George, all followed the family tradition and became lifeboatmen.
The next coxswain, Thomas Winson, joined the Spurn lifeboat in 1865 and served until 1869, when he went to Grimsby for a few years, returning to Spurn in 1873, and becoming coxswain in 1877. Winson served as coxswain for 16 years. Like the Hoppers, the Winsons had a large family, ten in all, eight of them born at Spurn. His wife, Eliza Winson, started a school at Spurn, and when she left, Eliza Hopper, daughter of Fewson Hopper, took over as schoolmistress on Spurn and also became its telegraph clerk and postmistress too!
Winson, crippled by rheumatism, retired in 1894, aged 54. His service as coxswain had resulted in many successful rescues, and until just before he retired he apparently managed his crew very efficiently. However his service ended in acrimony, when he dismissed the mate, John Liversedge, who had served at Spurn for 26 years, and recommended his own son, Thomas Charles Winson, a man of only 26 with two years service, to be coxswain in his stead. The majority of the crew refused to serve under him, and he resigned. David Pye, the next long-serving coxswain, was appointed in March 1894.
Pye was well qualified, having been involved with fishing and gravelling in the Spurn area for many years. He served until July 1912, and during his 16 years as coxswain, three different bodies managed the lifeboat. Hull Trinity House, which had supervised the service since 1810, was replaced in this role in 1908 by the Humber Conservancy Board, which itself handed over responsibility to the RNLI on May 1st 1911. This body has retained control over the Spurn lifeboat station to the present day.
The next coxswain to serve, Robert Cross, was one of the most celebrated. He was a native of Flamborough and had first joined the Spurn crew in 1902. He later returned to his family home in Flamborough, to work as a fisherman, and it was a family tragedy, which caused him to return. One of his brothers and his two sons lost their lives when their fishing boat was sunk. Cross rejoined the Spurn crew in 1906 and took over as coxswain in 1912.
Cross, a devout Methodist, disapproved of strong drink. One cannot imagine him running a public house on Spurn! The Cross family, themselves deeply religious, ensured that the spiritual needs of the lifeboat families were met. Services were held fortnightly in the school, and a Sunday School was held for the children. An important development in the lifeboat service at Spurn occurred in 1919, when the Samuel Oakes, a motor vessel, replaced the oared lifeboat. New skills were needed, and a mechanic had to be employed, but the coxswain and crew soon adapted. Cross received many awards during his long career. In 1908 he was awarded the RNLI silver medal, in 1922 the bronze medal and in 1926 a second service clasp to the silver medal. Finally during the Second War, in the rescue of the crew of nine men from the trawler, St. Garth, he won the Institution’s gold medal. Cross retired to Withernsea in 1943, aged 67, having given 31 years service as coxswain and another six as a crew member.
The next long-serving coxswain was William Anderson, who was appointed in 1949, and served until 1959. He took the job at Spurn ‘to settle down ashore’ after a lifetime at sea, much of it in command. Connections between the lifeboat crew, either by blood or by marriage, occur throughout the Spurn lifeboat’s history. In 1952 Anderson’s son-in-law, Robertson Buchan, joined him as second coxswain. When Anderson retired in 1959 Buchan became coxswain, and served for 14 years, until 1973. The Buchans had three sons. By the time that they lived on the Point the school had closed, and the Connor and Graham bus took children to Easington for primary education and Withernsea for secondary.
Shortly after Buchan took over command things changed again at Spurn. The Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union had been running a bird observatory on the peninsula since 1945 and in 1960 the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Trust (later the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust) bought the peninsula from the Ministry of Defence, so that the lifeboat families found themselves living on a nature reserve instead of a military site!
Brian Bevan came to Spurn as coxswain in 1975. He had been born in Wales, but like many crew members over the years had connections with Flamborough, where he was brought up, his father being a coastguard. The Bevans moved into the old terrace of houses on the Point, but lived there only for a few months, as they were about to be demolished. They were small, and by modern standards quite basic, not having been connected to mains electricity until 1970—the poles still give birders a useful means of identifying specific locations! Until the 1940s the families had been dependent for water on a supply obtained from their gutters and piped into tanks, with drinking water coming in by ship to be stored in a tank on top of the low lighthouse. At least now water came via an underground main. By the time that the Bevans came to Spurn the modern world was beginning to impinge in other ways too. Some of the wives of the lifeboatmen had cars and could take the others shopping or go to work away from the Point. And Spurn was becoming very popular for a day out. It was not uncommon for 2–300 cars to come onto the peninsula on a Bank Holiday in summer.
Seven new houses, specially clad to withstand the weather conditions, were built near the ‘parade ground’. The old cottages were demolished and the site made into a much-needed car park. A playground was made for the lifeboat children just opposite the houses. Ann and Brian had one son, Jorrod, and most of the other families also had quite young children at that time. Life on Spurn was pretty good for children, with many derelict buildings, tunnels, and odd corners to explore.
Brian Bevan’s career at Spurn has been a celebrated one. Closely paralleling his predecessor Robert Cross, he has been awarded the RNLI’s gold, silver and bronze awards for gallantry — all three in one presentation in 1979 for a series of rescues in the winter of 1978/9. Brian and Ann retired to Easington in November 2001. We wish them a long and happy retirement.