Nicolette Jones
Plimsolls for Plimsoll Day
Fundraising for RNLI - Royal National Lifeboat Institution
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This fundraiser, happening again on 10th Feb 2024 (the bicentenary of Samuel Plimsoll's birth) is instigated by Nicolette Jones, author of The Plimsoll Sensation: The Great Campaign to Save Lives at Sea (winner of the Mountbatten Maritime Prize and a Radio Four Book of the Week).
Samuel Plimsoll, 'The Sailor's Friend', saved countless lives in his lifetime and since by introducing the loadline that bears his name on the side of merchant ships. He campaigned tirelessly for sailors' safety, nearly brought down Disraeli's government, and became a national hero and a household name. (Throughout he was supported by his unsung first wife Eliza, and, after her death, by his second, Harriet.) He was born in Bristol on 10 February 1824 and died in Folkestone on 4th June 1898.
Samuel Plimsoll, 'The Sailor's Friend', saved countless lives in his lifetime and since by introducing the loadline that bears his name on the side of merchant ships. He campaigned tirelessly for sailors' safety, nearly brought down Disraeli's government, and became a national hero and a household name. (Throughout he was supported by his unsung first wife Eliza, and, after her death, by his second, Harriet.) He was born in Bristol on 10 February 1824 and died in Folkestone on 4th June 1898.
10th February was recognised as 'Plimsoll Day' in the British calendar for decades after his death.
Plimsolls, the shoes, were named in his honour in 1876 (when his whistleblowing campaign for a loadline had made him a household name) by a sales rep for the Liverpool Rubber Company, because, being canvas above and rubber underneath, the shoes could only be safely immersed in water up to a certain point - like a merchant ship.
To raise money for the RNLI (lifeboats) you are asked to wear Plimsolls/trainers/sneakers on 10th February and donate on this site.
In recent years, schools in Folkestone, where Plimsoll is buried, have taken up this fundraiser and worn plimsolls for Plimsoll Day to raise money for Littlestone Lifeboat Station and to train young people in lifesaving skills.
See also, for interest, the Folkestone Plimsoll Memorial Campaign page on Facebook. And don't miss Shane Record's mural of Samuel Plimsoll on the Folkestone Fishing Museum.
The RNLI costs £385,000 a day to run, all from public donation, even though its lifeboatmen are volunteers. 22 lives are saved every day.
The RNLI costs £385,000 a day to run, all from public donation, even though its lifeboatmen are volunteers. 22 lives are saved every day.