Harwich Lifeboat Station

Harwich Lifeboat Station is an RNLI station located in the town of Harwich in the English county of Essex. The station is positioned on the southern side at the mouth of the River Orwell estuary. The station serves a particularly busy section of coastline with Harwich being a very busy ferry terminal. Across the estuary is the Port of Felixstowe which is the United Kingdom's busiest container port. There is also a considerable amount of commercial traffic as well as a great number of pleasure craft using the area.

The first lifeboat at Harwich was in 1821 and was provided by a Lifeboat called Braybrooke, which had been named in honour of Richard Griffin, 2nd Baron Braybrooke, Lord Lieutenant of Essex. The finance behind the organisation came from the Essex Lifeboat Association, but their funds could not stretch to providing a lifeboat house for the Braybrooke and so she was kept permanently afloat in the harbour. Running concurrently with the Braybrooke was a second lifeboat on the Suffolk side of the estuary at Landguard Fort, called the Orwell. Neither of these lifeboats achieved much success, and the Orwell was eventually sold and was converted to a yacht. There is no records of what became of the Braybrooke, although it is recorded that the Harwich lifeboat had ceased operations by 1825.

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