Grace Darling - the heroine of Longford Light

Grace Horsley Darling (24 November 1815 ? 20 October 1842) was an English Victorian heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838.

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Grace was born in 1815 at Bamburgh in Northumberland, and spent her youth in two lighthouses (Brownsman and Longstone), of which her father, William was the keeper.

In the early hours of 7 September 1838, Grace, looking from an upstairs window of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands, spotted the wreck and survivors of the ship, SS Forfarshire on Big Harcar, a nearby low rocky island. The Forfarshire had foundered on the rocks, broken in half and half had sunk during the night.

She and her father, William Darling, 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, 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, Grace kept the coble steady in the water while her father helped four men and the lone surviving woman, Mrs. Dawson, into the boat. Although she survived the sinking, Mrs Dawson had lost her two young children during the night. Her father with three of the rescued men then rowed back to the lighthouse, while Grace and the fourth man comforted Mrs. Dawson. Grace then remained at the lighthouse while William Darling and three of the rescued crew members rowed back and recovered the remaining survivors. Meanwhile, the lifeboat had set out from Seahouses, but arrived at Big Harcar rock after Grace and her father. All they found were the dead bodies of Mrs Dawson's children and the body of a dead vicar. It was too dangerous to return to North Sunderland so they rowed to the lighthouse to take shelter. Grace'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 63 people. The vessel broke in two almost immediately upon hitting the rocks. Those rescued by Grace and her father were from the bow section of the vessel which had been held by the rocks for some time before sinking. 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 Shields that same night.

Grace Darling died of tuberculosis in 1842, aged 26.