(c) Into the 20th Century
Following the closing of the lifeboat station at Thorpeness (1900) and then at Dunwich (1903) the RNLI decided to open a second station at Aldeburgh; so during the opening years of the twentieth century there were 2 lifeboats here, the City of Winchester and the Edward Z Dresden.
Nation-wide publicity about the Aldeburgh disaster resulted in a great wave of sympathy and collections were taken up in many places for the families of the bereaved. Winchester’s generosity provided a new lifeboat, named after the city. The new boat arrived in Aldeburgh in the summer of 1903 and was the largest sailing lifeboat in England at that time. According to James Cable; ‘It weighed about eighteen tons with all on board, and was very strongly built of oak…..We had a grand day in Aldeburgh when the boat was christened by the Marchioness of Winchester.’
A collection of old images : the titles are original

Running ashore with the Lifeboat 1903. (The flag flying from the mizzen mast displays the five castles of Winchester. The young man on the left seems set to make a dry landing.)