Heroine, born in Bamburgh, Northumberland, NE England, UK. She lived with her father, William (17951860), the lighthouse keeper on one of the Farne Islands. On 7 September 1838, she braved raging seas in an open rowing boat to rescue the survivors of the Forfarshire steamboat, which was stranded on one of the other islands in the group.
Grace Darling (November 24, 1815–October 20, 1842) is one of England's best-loved Victorian heroines, on the strength of a celebrated incident in 1838.
In the early hours of September 7, 1838, Grace, looking from an upstairs window of her family's current lighthouse on the Farne Islands, spotted the ship, Forfarshire, which had run aground on the Harcar Rocks only a few hundreds of yards away. Knowing that the weather was too rough for the lifeboat to put out from the shore, Grace and her father took a rowing boat across to the other island and rescued nine frightened survivors, bringing them safely back to the lighthouse.
Even in her lifetime, Grace's achievement was celebrated, and she received a large financial reward in addition to the plaudits of the nation.
It has been suggested by Richard Armstrong in his 1965 biography 'Grace Darling - Maid and Myth' she may have suffered from a cleft lip.He is the only biographer to put forward this theory and it was strongly disputed by a former Grace Darling Museum Curator, who contended that it was built on virtually no evidence whatsoever.
Currently, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution Mersey class lifeboat at Seahouses bears the name Grace Darling.
It is a common mistake to believe that Grace is buried under the memorial.
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