150th_Supplement

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Thursday, 2 March, 2017
1914: Local chit-chat – Plenty’s lifeboats
14 May 1914
From the Local chit-chat
column
THE question is often asked why
Newbury, an inland town, should
evince interest in the work of the
National Lifeboat Institution.
One reason was given at the
meeting called by the Mayor in
the Council Chamber on
Saturday afternoon.
It was stated that of the first
fourteen lifeboats placed around
the coast in 1824, eleven of them
were built at Newbury, so that
the town could be said to have as
old a connection with the work
as any in the country.
Reference to Mr Walter Money’s
“History of Newbury” shows that
on 2 July, 1816 a boat of a new
construction for preserving lives,
or for general purposes, built by
Mr William Plenty of Newbury, a
gentleman eminent in his day for
his inventive genius and skill in
mechanical science, was
launched from West Mills in the
presence of a large assemblage of
persons belonging to the town
and neighbourhood.
This precursor of our modern
lifeboats was christened “The
Experiment”, and more than 80
persons sailed down the Kennet
and Avon Canal in her, on the
way to Reading and the London
docks, where her capabilities
were exhibited by Mr Plenty
before the elder brethren of
Trinity House, and the Directors
of the East India Company, who
pronounced a most favourable
opinion of her merits as a life-
saving medium.
The famous Admiral Sir Edward
Pellew (created Viscount
Exmouth, 21 Sept 1816) took a
keen interest in Mr Plenty’s
humane exertions and agreed
with other distinguished naval
authorities that his boat was
built on such a principle of
complete safety that it was
impossible to sink her, or that
she could become water-logged,
or even bilged against rocks.
The Lords of the Admiralty and
the Royal National Institution for
the Preservation of Lives from
Shipwreck ordered several of Mr
Plenty’s lifeboats after practical
test of their powers, and they
were for many years in use at
various places along the coast;
one at Appledore, Devon and
another at Skegness in
Lincolnshire having been
instrumental in saving 120 lives. Pete Johnson poured the final casts at the Plenty’ s Foundry in 1983
A picture of a William Plenty lifeboat from one of the company’s brochures
Plenty & Co’s New Eagle Iron Works which opened in Hambridge Road in 1965
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