The Badass Story of Grace Darling, the Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter
Despite what her name sounds like, Grace Darling isn’t a contestant on Ru Paul’s Drag Race. She was a lighthouse keeper’s daughter whose name has gone down in infamy for having balls of steel and braving the dangerous waters of the northern Atlantic to rescue nine souls who would have otherwise perished.
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Darling was born in 1815 in the wee coastal village of Bamburgh, England, to William and Thomasin Darling. She was the seventh of nine children. The family lived on Brownsman Island in a small cottage attached to a lighthouse — which sounds cuter than it probably was — until 1826 when they moved into a nicer, more sophisticated lighthouse on Longstone Island.
The lighthouse was made up of one large main floor and a spiral staircase that led to three bedrooms. We don’t know jack shit about lighthouses, but all of our sources point to the Longstone Lighthouse being quite fancy pants for its day, even though the Darlings were practically living asses to elbows.
There isn’t much record of Grace before the fateful event that would elevate her to national hero status, but we can assume her day-to-day life didn’t much differ from that of other women from the era: banging hoes and getting after that bag.
Just kidding!
On the stormy night of September 7, 1838, 22-year-old Grace was gazing unto the open sea from the lighthouse window as a lighthouse keeper’s daughter was wont to do when she spotted what was unmistakably a shipwreck on a nearby rocky island.
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Twenty-four hours after The SS Forfashire had set off from Hull to Dundee on September 5 carrying 60 passengers and crew, whatever could go wrong did go wrong: its boilers shit the bed, forcing the captain to shut the engine off. While we know nothing about boilers, engines, or passenger ships from the mid-19th century, this situation was clearly a worst-case scenario.
With the engines off, the ship and its passengers drifted at the mercy of the vicious ocean winds. In an attempt to guide the ship to an island for shelter, the captain and crew erected (ha) a makeshift sail and aimed for a distant lighthouse, unknowingly steering them into peril. As the storm raged into the night, the ship crashed into a rocky island a mile away from Longstone Lighthouse. The ship ripped in two, with the bow stuck on the rocks, while the stern was swept out into the angry sea, taking with it 48 people on board.
The remaining nine passengers clung to the rocks as the sea clawed at their bodies and rain poured from the dark sky as the storm raged on.
While Grace had spotted the shipwreck just 45 minutes after it occurred, the sun wouldn’t be up for another two hours, and only then could she see the survivors. Knowing they were in a race against time, Grace and her father, William, took to the stormy sea in a rescue operation, rowing more than a mile to reach the survivors.
Grace skillfully steadied the 21-foot-row boat while her father helped four people — two crew members, an injured man and the sole surviving woman —traverse the rocks into the vessel. When they returned to Longtstone Lighthouse, Grace and her mother tended to the survivors while William and the two crew members returned to the rocky island for the others.
The rescue went viral, making headlines across the globe. Grace and William were awarded the Gold Medal of Bravery from the Royal Humane Society and a Silver Medal for Gallantry from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution— which we think is a pretty fucking cool name for an award.
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Grace’s courage and humility endeared her to the masses. Artists flocked to Longstone to paint her portrait and capture her likeness, which sounds like the equivalent of the paparazzi today but a lot slower.
Along with gifts, letters and marriage proposals, people sent Grace money to show their admiration for her — even the big cheese herself, Queen Victoria, sent her 50 pounds. Grace received a total of 700 pounds, or nearly $80,000 in today’s money. Not bad!
While the sea was no match for Grace, it was a different story when it came to a little bug called tuberculosis. Grace contracted the disease just four years after she helped save the lives of the shipwrecked passengers. She died at the age of 26.
Read
Grace Darling, Her True Story by T. Darling
This biography is compiled from the “unpublished family papers” (we aren’t sure what that means) and promises a vivid portrait of Grace and her life leading up to the fateful rescue.
Grace Darling by Hugh Cunnigham explores Grace’s life in the spotlight after her selfless actions catapulted her to fame.
Watch
The Story of Grace Darling on BBC Teach is a short animated film depicting the rescue.
Visit
If you ever find yourself in Bamburgh, England, wander over to the churchyard of St. Aidan’s Church, where an absolutely beautiful and badass monument depicting Grace lying prone with an oar tucked under her arm sits.
Originally opened in 1938, this fucking adorable museum in Northumberland is dedicated to Grace’s life.