This bronze relief sculpture was commissioned by the Isle of Man Arts Council and the Henry Moore Foundation and can be found in the Marine Gardens on Douglas Promenade.
The relief sculpture forms one face of a bronze cenotaph unveiled on 29th June 2002 by the then Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man, Air Marshal Ian Macfadyen, as part of the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the Douglas Lifeboat.
The sculpture is by Michael Sandle who also sculpted 'Viking' outside the Erin Arts Centre in Port Erin.
The Memorial to Lifeboatmen depicts Sir Willian Hilary and his volunteer crew going to the aid of the stricken St. George on 20 November 1830.
“The wreck specially referred to took place on St. Mary's rock, in Douglas Bay, in a violent storm on 20th November, 1830, when Sir William, accompanied by Lieut. Robinson, Capt. Corlett, and fourteen volunteer boatmen, with the veteran coxswain Isaac Vondy, rescued all on board consisting of twenty-two persons, ' Sir William was washed overboard against the wreck, and was with difficulty saved, having had six ribs fractured and was otherwise much hurt, ’ This wreck formed the subject of a print depicting the wreck of the City of Glasgow Steam Packet, from a, sketch by Edward Price. who was on board at the time, dedicated to Sir William Hillary and dated 1825”
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There is a bronze plaque below the sculpture which has the following text:
'SIR WILLIAM HILLARY & HIS VOLUNTEER
CREW GO TO THE AID OF THE STICKEN
ST. GEORGE 20TH NOVEMBER 1830'
On the other face of the memorial is the following dedication:
'THE ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION
SIR WILLIAM HILLARY
WHO LIVED IN DOUGLAS AND FOUNDED THE R.N.L.I. IN 1824
HIS COURAGE AND THAT OF THE VOLUNTEER CREW
SAVED MANY LIVES * MOST FAMOUSLY THE CREW OF
ST GEORGE * WRECKED IN DOUGLAS BAY IN 1830
IN 1832 ON THE SITE OF THE DISASTER HE BUILT THE
TOWER OF REFUGE * A SHELTER FOR THE SHIPWRECKED
_____________________________________________________
IN HONOUR OF ALL LIFEBOAT CREW DOWN THE YEARS'
Michael Sandle studied at Douglas School of Art and Technology, Isle of Man from 1951 to 1954 and the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1956 to 1959. In his early work he emphasised craftsmanship and the search for symbols, rejecting the formalism increasingly common in sculpture of the period. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s he worked on a small range of individual works in which he explored abstract and figurative idioms.
Following his appointment as professor of sculpture at Pforzheim, Germany in 1973, and at Karlsruhe, Germany in 1980, Sandle’s work became more monumental, partly in response to a series of significant commemorative commissions. His work voices criticisms of what Sandle describes as “the heroic decadence” of capitalism, in particular its appetite for global conflict. He has also attacked the media for packaging and sanitising the destructiveness of war. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1994.
He has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions in Britain and internationally including the 5th Paris Biennale, 4th and 6th Documenta and Sao Paulo Biennale.
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