Snapshots of lifeboats from Brighton and Poole are among the 11 black and white images, which have been painstakingly cleaned and colourised with folds, scratches and dust removed using digital technology
The images show lifeboat crews, early fundraising street collections and scenes of communities coming together to launch and recover lifeboats.
Part of the new collection is a photograph taken in 1904 of the then new lifeboat William Wallis at Brighton.
The image “shows a real sense of community, as families come together to pull on ropes to help recover the lifeboat up the beach after it returned to shore”. The new boat had ten oars and self-righting capabilities.
More than 100 years later Brighton RNLI now has an Atlantic 85 called Random Harvest, one of the RNLI’s fastest boats, which came into service in 2005.
RNLI heritage and archive research manager Hayley Whiting said: “The carefully coloured images illustrate just a few highlights of the incredible history of lifesaving over the previous two centuries where over 144,000 lives have been saved to date.
“Each image has been brought to life by our own in-house creative team with hours spent on attention to detail, along with research being undertaken to ensure each one gave a true, lifelike representation.”
As part of its anniversary celebrations this year, the charity wants people to share their story of being rescued.
Nick Gentry, navigator mechanic and currently Newhaven’s longest-serving volunteer crew member, said: “Our location provides an enormous variety of shouts for the Newhaven crew, from vessels in danger in the Channel to pleasure craft or walkers in difficulty along the coast.
“It is the human factor that stays with us and keeps us doing what we do. The relief in someone’s eyes, knowing that they will return home.”
The RNLI celebrates its anniversary on March 4.
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