page_title: Grace Darling
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Grace Darling / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Lighthouse at Longstone (Farne Islands). The upper window in the white ring is Grace Darlings bedroom where she watched the sinking of the "Forfareshire" Deutsch: Leuchtturm auf Longstone (Farne-Inseln, englische Nordseeküste). Das obere Fenster im weißen Ring ist das Schlafzimmer von Grace Darling, von dem aus sie das Sinken der "Forfareshire" beobachtete.
context_page_description: Grace Horsley Darling was an English lighthouse keeper's daughter. Her participation in the rescue of survivors from the shipwrecked Forfarshire in 1838 brought her national fame. The paddlesteamer ran aground on the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland in northeast England; nine members of her crew were saved.
context_section_description: Grace Darling was born on 24 November 1815 at her grandfather's home in Northumberland. She was the seventh of nine children (four brothers and four sisters) born to William and Thomasin Darling, and when only a few weeks old she was taken to live on Brownsman Island, one of the Farne Islands, in a small cottage attached to the lighthouse. Her father ran the lighthouse (built in 1795) for Trinity House and earned a salary of £70 per annum (UK£ 6,300 in 2020) with a bonus of £10 for satisfactory service.  The accommodation was basic and the lighthouse was not in the best position to guide shipping to safety, so in 1826 the family moved to the newly constructed lighthouse on Longstone Island.
  Longstone Lighthouse had better accommodation, but the island itself was slightly less hospitable, so William would row back to Brownsman to gather vegetables from their former garden and to feed the animals.  The family spent most of their time on the ground floor of the lighthouse which consisted of a large room, heated by a wood stove.  The room was their living room, dining room and kitchen in one and had a spiral staircase leading to three bedrooms above and the light at the top of the tower.
  In the early hours of 7 September 1838, Darling, looking from an upstairs window, spotted the wreck and survivors of the Forfarshire on Big Harcar, a nearby low rocky island. The Forfarshire had foundered on the rocks and broken in half: one of the halves had sunk during the night.
  She and her father William determined that the weather was too rough for the lifeboat to put out from Seahouses (then North Sunderland), so they took a rowing boat (a 21 ft (6.4 m), 4-man Northumberland coble) across to the survivors, taking a long route that kept to the lee side of the islands, a distance of nearly a mile (about 1.5 km). Darling kept the coble steady in the water while her father helped four men and the lone surviving woman, Sarah Dawson, into the boat. Although she survived the sinking, Mrs. Dawson had lost her two young children (James, 7, and Matilda, 5) during the night. William and three of the rescued men then rowed the boat back to the lighthouse. Darling then remained at the lighthouse while William and three of the rescued crew members rowed back and recovered four more survivors.
  Meanwhile, the lifeboat had set out from Seahouses but arrived at Big Harcar rock after Darling and her father had completed their rescue operation: all they found were the bodies of Mrs Dawson's children and of a clergyman. It was too dangerous to return to North Sunderland so they rowed to the lighthouse to take shelter. Darling's brother, William Brooks Darling, was one of the seven fishermen in the lifeboat. The weather deteriorated to the extent that everyone was obliged to remain at the lighthouse for three days before returning to shore.
  The Forfarshire had been carrying 62 people. The vessel broke in two almost immediately upon hitting the rocks. Those rescued by Darling and her father were from the bow section of the vessel which had been held by the rocks for some time before sinking. All that remained at daybreak was the portside paddlebox casing. Nine other passengers and crew had managed to float off a lifeboat from the stern section before it too sank, and were picked up in the night by a passing Montrose sloop and brought into South Shields that same night.
  As news of her role in the rescue reached the public, her combination of bravery and simple virtue set her out as exemplary, and led to an uneasy role as the nation's heroine. Grace and her father were awarded the Silver Medal for bravery by the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later named the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Subscriptions and donations totaling over £700 (equivalent to about £63,500 in 2019) were raised for her, including £50 from Queen Victoria; more than a dozen portrait painters sailed to her island home to capture her likeness, and hundreds of gifts, letters, and even marriage proposals were delivered to her. Her unexpected wealt
caption: Lighthouse at Longstone. The upper window in the white ring was Grace Darling's bedroom, from which she saw the wreckage of the Forfarshire.
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