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Updated: June 1, 2025
Her father was keeper of the lighthouse on the Longstone, one of the Farne Islands lying off that coast; and here, on a mere bit of rock surrounded by the ocean, and often by the howling tempests and the foaming breakers of that dangerous spot, our heroine spent the greater part of her life, cut off almost totally from the joys and pursuits of the busy world.
In days of old, when men had neither heart nor head to erect lighthouses for the protection of their fellows, many a noble ship must have been dashed to pieces there, and many an awful shriek must have mingled with the hoarse roar of the surf round these rent and weatherworn rocks. A gentleman who visited the Longstone rock in 1838, describes it thus:
The cries continued, but in the darkness they could do nothing. Even after day broke it was difficult to make out distant objects, for a mist was still hanging over the sea. At length, with a glass they could discern the wreck on Longstone, and figures moving about on it. Between the two islands lay a mile of yeasty sea, and the tide was running hard between them.
She was not much of a scholar, she could not spell as well as a girl in the third standard, she lived a quiet life quite out of the busy world; and yet Grace Darling's name is now a household word. Let us see how that has come about. William Darling, Grace's father, was keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland.
Longstone is a desolate rock, swept by the northern gales; and woe betide the ship driven on its pitiless shores! Mr. Darling and his family had saved the lives of many persons who had been shipwrecked ere that memorable day of which I will tell you. On the night of the 5th September, 1838, the steamer Forfarshire, bound from Hull to Dundee, was caught in a terrific storm off the Farne Islands.
Off it lies the Longstone Rock and the Farne Islands. The coast looked bleak and desolate, with here and there dark rocks running into the sea. The wind was very light as we came off the Longstone Lighthouse. While the yachts hove-to, the boats were lowered, and we pulled up to it, in order to pay a visit to the scene of Grace Darling's heroism.
Nothing can be more desolate than the appearance of the little Farne Islands; formed of rocks barely covered with a thin vegetation, surrounded by precipices, they seem accessible only to sea birds, who take refuge there in the tempests. The Island of Longstone is at the head of the group, and serves as a sort of vanguard, and is, perhaps, the most dangerous of all.
Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper of the Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter Grace saw them huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept fragments of the wreck. The girl begged her father to try to save them, and to allow her to help in the task, and after some natural hesitation he consented.
A monument to her has been placed in St. Cuthbert's Chapel on Longstone Island, and upon it is this inscription, from Wordsworth: "Pious and pure, modest, and yet so brave, Though young, so wise though meek, so resolute. "Oh that winds and waves could speak Of things which their united power called forth From the pure depths of her humanity!
He was also considered the best boatman on the whole Northumberland coast the bravest and most skilful, and it was partly due to his reputation in these respects that he was made the keeper of the new light on the Longstone with a large increase in pay and a comfortable home for his family for the interior of the lighthouse held several large and pleasant rooms where the Darlings lived.
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