Robert William Hook

Robert William Hook (4 June 1828–28 June 1911) was a fisherman and innkeeper and the coxswain of the RNLI Lowestoft lifeboat and with private companies from 1853 to 1883 and who has been credited with saving more than 600 lives in addition to two cats and a dog. He was twice awarded the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's Silver Medal for gallantry.

In 1883 he was dismissed from the service amid much controversy for failing to launch the lifeboat on 28 October 1882 when over 22 people died.

Bob Hook was born in Lowestoft in Suffolk in 1828, the son of Robert Hook, a fisherman and beach-man, and Elizabeth Ellis. In 1844 aged 16 he joined his father as a lifeboatman, and in 1853 aged 25 he was appointed coxswain of the Lowestoft lifeboat which carried an annual salary of £80 plus other fees and payments. In the same year he married Charlotte Boast.

In 1859 Hook was awarded the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's Silver Medal for rescuing in a heavy gale the crew of 14 from the steamer Shamrock on 1 November 1859. Hook received a second award clasp in 1873 for his part in rescuing the crew of 10 from the Norwegian vessel Expedite which had gone ashore on Holm Sand in a gale and had dismasted on 13 November 1872.

His wife Charlotte Hook died in 1879 aged 49, and in 1881 Hook married his widowed housekeeper, Mrs Sarah Ann Goldsmith, at the same time adopting her two children. For some years he was the innkeeper of the Fisherman's Arms public house in Lowestoft.

On 28 October 1882 the Isis, William Thrift, Secret and other vessels were wrecked with great loss of life in the neighbourhood of Lowestoft during a heavy storm. The crew of the Lowestoft lifeboat 'Samuel Plimsoll' did not immediately launch their vessel to undertake a rescue, but Hook and his crew were eventually induced to launch their lifeboat and rescued 17 men. Their reluctance to launch was because they felt they had not been fairly treated during an incident earlier in the year when they had not been able to effect the rescue of a distressed fishing smack; however, a lifeboat from nearby Pakefield had managed to reach it resulting in the Lowestoft crew not getting their full pay allowance, which caused bitter resentment.

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