Who Was Grace Darling?

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Grace Darling was the daughter of a lighthouse keeper, William Darling, and his wife Thomasina. She was born on 24th November 1815 in Bamburgh, Northumberland, England in her grandfather's house but she lived in the Longstone lighthouse which was in the same area. Her life was quite mundane – she helped her father and mother around the lighthouse – but on the night of 5 September 1838, unbeknown to the Darling family, the SS Forfarshire which was travelling from Hull in Yorkshire, England to Dundee in Scotland, carrying 60 or so passengers had a problem with leaking boilers and by about 11.00 the following night the boilers weren't working at all so Captain Humble stopped the engines and the ship began to drift. He decided that they should turn back towards Farne Islands which is where William Darling's lighthouse was. Captain Humble's only power was a makeshift sail which wasn't much use in a storm and, sadly, a storm was brewing which made it almost impossible for him to steer his ship. By 4.00 the next morning he found himself drifting onto the rocks and the ship crashed about a mile from the Longstone lighthouse. Within a quarter of an hour the ship crashed again into the rocks and the ship broke into two. The front half stayed locked onto the rocks but the other half drifted away, taking with it around 50 of the passengers. At around 4.45 Grace looked from her bedroom window and thought she saw something so went and got a telescope but, as it was still dark, she couldn't really tell whether she was seeing people or whether it was just the waves. It wasn't until 7.00, when it was light enough to see, that she and her father could tell there were people out in the crashing waves. Grace and her father decided that, despite the fact they probably wouldn't be able to reach the people in the storm, they'd go out anyway. As they got close they could see people on the rocks and William Darling thought that it'd be necessary to make two trips. He left Grace in the boat and risked his life scrambling over the rocks to check the injuries of the people that were laying there. He found one woman whose two children had drifted out to sea and drowned, an injured man and two crew members. He got them all into the rowing boat and took them back to Longstone. For the next journey Grace stayed with her mother to look after the rescued passengers while William and the two rescued crew members went out again. By 9.00 the rescue mission was complete but sadly only nine people survived. It was later discovered that nine more survivors had been rescued by a sloop that had passed the wreck. Grace and her father received medals and Grace became a bit of a celebrity for a while but sadly she passed away just four years later on 20th October 1842. She was aged just 26. She had died from tuberculosis and it is said she died in her father's arms.