150th_Supplement

Newbury Weekly News

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

A picture of a William Plenty lifeboat from one of the company ’s brochures

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

Plenty & Co’s New Eagle Iron Works which opened in Hambridge Road in 1965

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