An attractive watercolour painting of Brighton’s RNLI life boat house by its architect, C.H. Cooke

An attractive watercolour painting of Brighton’s RNLI life boat house by its architect, C.H. Cooke, the sturdy rectangular building sited below the promenade with the bows of a life boat emerging from one end, with ladies in crinolines with parasols, men in top hats, fishermen and their boats drawn up on the beach, signed bottom left.  The mount inscribed in polychrome with gilt arabesques ‘Presented to Almeric Seymour. M.D., by the, Committee of the Brighton Branch of the National Lifeboat Institution, for his great services as Honorary Secretary in obtaining the new life boat & boat  house.  Inaugurated Oct. 1st 1867.’  English, dated 1867.

Footnote: Charles Henry Cooke (1829-1888), was an architect, draughtsman and artist.  A print after his design for the Godolphin Schools in Hammersmith, published in The Builder magazine and dated 1861, is in the Wellcome Collection.  He was best known for his work with the RNLI, designing over 200 lifeboat houses over a 30 year period, many of which are still extant in some form or another.  He was a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and exhibited at the Royal Academy 5 times between 1862-1877.  He lived in London for the majority of his career, despite his designs being used throughout Britain and Ireland.  The lifeboat house remained in service until 1886, when new groynes on the beach made it necessary to relocate the lifeboat to a site between the two piers.  The Institution agreed to take over the two arches being constructed under the Western Esplanade and surrender the present lifeboat house to Brighton Corporation.