RNLB J C Madge (ON 536)

J C Madge was built at the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in Blackwall in 1903 at the cost of £1,436 16s 6d.[1] She was paid for from a legacy of £2,000 left to the RNLI by a Mr James C Madge, a chemist, of Southampton.[1] The design was a Liverpool class, non-self righting, pulling and sailing lifeboat. J C Madge was 41 feet (12 m) in length, making her the largest[1] and the only one built of the Liverpool type lifeboat built. The boat was built using the Clinker method of constructing hulls.

The boat was fitted with two sliding or drop-keels and two water-ballast tanks. The lifeboat had two masts of which the fore-mast carried a dipping lug sail and the mizzen mast a standing lug sail.[1] The boat had two drop keels and was fitted out with water ballast tanks. She pulled 16 oars which were double banked for heavy weather. Her Launching carriage was built by the Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works Company,[4] which was delivered separately by rail to Sheringham. This carriage was constructed with larger front wheels installed with a series of flat metal plates around circumference of each wheel. Their purpose was to help prevent the boat sinking into areas of soft sand.

Heavy ropes were attached to the carriage, and a team of 30 or more men would haul her into the waves at launch times. She was then rowed out through the surf, but if this was not possible then the lifeboat was pulled out to sea using a haul-off warp[2] (a windlass), by use of a thick rope anchored some 200 metres off shore and fixed at the beach end to a post by the lifeboat house. There was a large manually operated winch situated at the back of the boathouse to assist in recovering the boat after launch.

The Lifeboat J C Madge[5] was on station at Old Hythe, Sheringham for 30 years and she was launched a total of 34 times and she is credited with saving 58 lives. The first service was on 6 January to the Barge Gothic and Teutonic, both of London. The crews were removed and landed in Sheringham and later the J C Madge and the fisherman's lifeboat Henry Ramey Upcher towed both barges to Great Yarmouth.

After her retirement from service at Sheringham, Lifeboat J C Madge was replaced by the Foresters Centenary.[1] The lifeboat remained at Sheringham for over a month before being sold out of service for £80 to W Gillard of Wembley, Middlesex.[1] She was converted into a private pleasure craft with a cabin added. The boat was used around the coast of Norfolk and Lincolnshire for many years. In 1988[1] J C Madge was displayed at the Sheringham stations annual lifeboat Day. Following her appearance there, £30,000[1] was raised and she was repurchased for restoration in 1989 by the Sheringham Museum Trust. In the summer of 1989[1] the J C Madge was sailed from Brancaster around the coast to the Lowestoft international boatbuilding college at Oulton Broad where she was restored to her former lifeboat appearance and use. On 14 August 1999[1] the National Historic Ships Committee added the J C Madge to the National Register of Historic Vessels (Certificate no 1763).[1] From March 2010 she is on permanent display at the new Sheringham Museum

Whilst J C Madge was on station at Sheringham there were three Coxswains:

• William 'Click' Bishop, 1904 to 1914
• Obadiah Craske Cooper, 1914 to 1924
• James Edward Dumble,[6] 1924 to 1936

• 
• 
  The Bow
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  The rudder
• 
  From the viewing gallery
• 
  The port side

Preceded by RNLB William Bennett (ON 11)	RNLB J C Madge (ON 536) 1904 to 1936	Succeeded by RNLB Forester’s Centenary (ON 786)