History
The First World War took a terrible toll on merchantmen and warships: in one fortnight in 1917 many thousands of sailors and over 400,000 tons of shipping were lost. Many of those men had a family to support, and towards the end of the war many small charitable organisations were set up to support the injured and bereaved.
In the City of London, far-sighted ship-owners and officers realised that what was most needed was an umbrella organisation that could take a realistic overview of the need and direct resources to where they were needed. They set up a Fund for that purpose and His Majesty George V took a deep and immediate interest, giving both his name and an establishing donation of £5000 to the new organisation.
During subsequent conflicts, and in the intervening years of peace, King George's Fund continued to provide both immediate and long-term support to the casualties of war, and to others who have paid a high price for a life at sea.
They have always supported veterans, the injured and the bereaved, but were set up as an umbrella charity to attend to the needs of the whole maritime community. In the modern world that means we deal with homelessness, unemployment, the strain on separated families, the poverty and hardship that afflict shoreline communities when fish stocks dwindle and merchant vessels grow too large for local docks.
In the summer of 2005 the Fund decided to adopt a new identity. They want to make it clear to everyone that they work for all seafarers throughout the country. For public work the have therefore adopted the name Seafarers UK.
Read more about this topic: Seafarers UK
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)