Henry Freeman (29 April 1835 – 13 December 1904) was a

Whitby Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It is on the Yorkshire Coast at the mouth of the River Esk, North Yorkshire, River Esk and has a maritime, mineral and tourist economy. From the Middle Ages, Whitby ...

fisherman and lifeboatman.

Biography

Born in

Bridlington Bridlington (previously known as Burlington) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is on the Holderness part (Flamborough Head to the Humber estuary) of the Yorkshire Coast by the North Sea. The town is ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, often abbreviated to the East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, S ...

, Freeman worked in his youth as a brickmaker. He was successful at his work, and rose to the position of manager. With the decline of the brick trade Freeman turned to the sea and fishing. He moved to

, and became a fisherman and a lifeboatman. Freeman was the only survivor of the Whitby Lifeboat disaster of 9 February 1861, during which a great storm wrecked more than 200 ships on the east coast. The Whitby lifeboat crew launched five times to rescue stricken vessels, but on their sixth launch, tragedy struck. A freak wave hit the lifeboat, which capsized, and all but one of the crew were lost. Freeman survived because he was wearing a new design of cork

lifejacket A personal flotation device (PFD; also referred to as a life jacket, life preserver, life belt, Mae West, life vest, life saver, cork jacket, buoyancy aid or flotation suit) is a flotation device in the form of a vest or suit that is worn by a u ...

. He was awarded an

RNLI Silver Medal A number of awards have been established by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) since its creation in 1824. None are approved by the Crown, and are therefore unofficial awards. As such, they do not appear in the official British order ...

for the courage and determination he displayed that day, and later become the Whitby RNLI Coxswain. Freeman was a lifeboatman for more than 40 years, 22 years as coxswain. He participated in many rescues, saved many lives, and became a respected ambassador for the lifeboat cause and a prominent spokesman for his fellow fishermen. In 1880, he was awarded a second RNLI Silver Medal.

Personal life

Late in life Freeman married his deceased wife Elizabeth's widowed sister, Emma, an action that was illegal until the passage of the

Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 ( 7 Edw. 7. c. 47) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, allowing a man to marry his dead wife's sister, which had previously been forbidden. This prohibition had derived from a doctr ...

Death

Freeman died on 13 December 1904, aged 69.

In popular culture

Freeman's story is retold in ''Storm Warrior : Turbulent Life of Henry Freeman'' (1991), by Ian Minter and Ray Shill. In 2005, a solid bronze bust of Freeman, sculpted by

Richard Sefton Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and ...

, was installed and unveiled at Lifeboat Museum in Pier Road, Whitby; it was transferred to an exterior wall on the new lifeboat station upon its completion in Spring 2007. The sculpture's display commemorates all those who have lost their lives at sea off Whitby. In 2021
The Freeman 1st Foundation
was created in honour of Henry Freeman. The grant-making charity provides financial and practical support to talented young people resident in Yorkshire and the Humber. The charity is located in Bridlington.

References

External links