Tower of Refuge, Douglas, IoM by Paul Corrin

HILLARY, Sir WILLIAM (1771–1847), founder of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, born in 1771 of an old Wensleydale family.
Upon the renewal of the war with France in 1803, he raised at his own expense, and many years commanded, the First Essex Legion of infantry and cavalry, amounting to 1,400 men, the largest force then offered by any private individual for the defence of his country. Following the war Sir William left Essex and settled at Fort Anne, near Douglas, in the Isle of Man. The large number of wrecks that he witnessed, culminating in 1822, when the government cutter Vigilance, the naval brig Racehorse, and many smaller vessels were destroyed off the Isle of Man, directed his attention to the question of saving life at sea. In February 1823 he issued 'An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck,' which he dedicated to George IV. The Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (since 1853 the Royal National Lifeboat Institution) was founded and established upon a permanent basis, with the Earl of Liverpool as first president.
Returning to the Isle of Man, Hillary established in 1826 a district association, of which he became president, and provided the four chief harbours of the island not only with lifeboats but also with the apparatus of Manby and Trengrouse.
Hillary frequently went out in the boats himself, and was instrumental in saving many lives. In December 1827, assisted by his son. he aided in saving seventeen men from the Swedish barque Fortroindet, and in the same year, at the expense of six ribs fractured, he took a prominent part in the saving of the crew of the St. George. On 29 Nov. 1830 he set out with a crew of fourteen volunteers and saved sixty-two persons (though he nearly lost his own life by being washed overboard), and gained the Shipwreck Institution's gold medal. In 1832 he planned the picturesque tower of refuge on St. Mary's, or Conister rock, in Douglas Bay. He established a sailors' home at Douglas, and was a strong advocate of the government building a breakwater and making a harbour of refuge in Douglas Bay. His last public act was to preside at a meeting held at Douglas to memorialise the government on this subject in March 1845, when he had to be carried from his residence at Fort Anne to the court house in a chair. Enfeebled in body, but full of mental vigour and public spirit to the last, he died at Woodville, near Douglas, on 5 Jan. 1847, and was buried in Douglas churchyard, 'followed to the grave by crowds who had witnessed his heroism and self-devotion in saving the life of the shipwrecked mariner.'
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