Qualla: Margate Surfboat

Margate Surfboat: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the morning of 2 December 1897, the steamship Persian Empire was in trouble off the Margate coast. Thirteen men of the Margate surfboat - local boatmen who had clubbed together to buy the boat and shared whatever salvage money came in - launched the Friend to All Nations to reach her. Two waves hit in quick succession just off the Nayland Rock. The boat capsized. Four men made it to shore. Three more, plus the medic Charles Edward Troughton, who died on reaching land - the rest were beaten on the rocks. Joseph Epps was found barely alive beneath the upturned hull. Nine men did not survive. Their names, carved into the seafront memorial above Nayland Rock and onto another stone in Margate Cemetery, are Charles Edward Troughton, Henry Richard Brockman, John Benjamin Dike, George William Ladd, Edward Robert Crunder, Robert Ernest Cook, William Philpott Cook, William Richard Gill, and William Philpott Cook Jr. They were neighbours, and many of them were related; the Cook family lost a father and a son in the same boat.

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Image: DeFacto | CC BY-SA 4.0

Margate Surfboat: Boatmen of Margate

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ruth Johnston from United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. The Margate surfboats existed because of a different disaster. In January 1857, when the American ship Northern Belle ran aground in a blizzard, the Margate lugger Victory had been lost with all nine of her crew while attempting the rescue. Fifty Margate boatmen decided afterward...

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Image: Ruth Johnston from United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

Margate Surfboat: The First Boat

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Barlow, Public domain. The first Friend of All Nations had a difficult history before her 1860 wreck. On 13 February 1860 she tried to rescue the crew of the Spanish brig Samaritano, which had grounded on Margate Sands in a 5:30 a.m. squall. A second Margate boat, launched in haste, was overpowered by ...

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Image: William Barlow | Public domain

Margate Surfboat: The 1897 Disaster

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turner Contemporary, CC BY-SA 3.0. The second boat's destiny came on 2 December 1897. The Friend to All Nations was a non-self-righting whaleboat, which meant that once she went over there was no automatic mechanism to bring her back upright - she relied on her crew to right her, and her crew could not do so if th...

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Image: Turner Contemporary | CC BY-SA 3.0

Margate Surfboat: The Third Boat and a Luftwaffe Prisoner's Last Voyage

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Whippet, CC BY-SA 2.0. A new and larger Friend to All Nations was commissioned from J. Samuel White and delivered in September 1899. She required a crew of 15 and cost £800. By then, improvements in dedicated RNLI lifeboats had largely displaced the surfboats from primary rescue work; she was used most...

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Image: Chris Whippet | CC BY-SA 2.0