Originally the “National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck,” renamed in 1854, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, RNLI, has been saving lives and promoting marine safety, for nigh on 190 years. 139,000 lives have been saved since 1824. This is 139,000 people who would otherwise have been lost at sea. The number of lives preserved by the promotion of marine safety is harder to calculate, but doubtless much larger.

It’s an all-volunteer outfit which saves lives at sea in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, without, as we understand it, any government money. To an American, it may seem odd that a country famous for its National Health Service would rely on an all-volunteer marine safety program. Whether or not it’s philosophically consistent, it seems to work. We’ll take effective life-saving in place of ideology any day.

See also Wikipedia entry Royal National Lifeboat Institution.