Penlee Lifeboat Disaster - Aftermath

Aftermath

Coxswain Trevelyan Richards was posthumously awarded the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's gold medal, while the remainder of the crew were all posthumously awarded bronze medals. The station itself was awarded a gold medal service plaque. The disaster prompted a massive public appeal for the benefit of the village of Mousehole which raised over £3 million (£8.57 million as of 2012), although there was an outcry when the government tried to tax the donations.

Two nights before the disaster, Charlie Greenhaugh had turned on the Christmas lights in Mousehole. After the storm the lights were left off but three days later his widow, Mary, asked for them to be repaired and lit again. The village has been lit up each December since then, but on the anniversary of the disaster they are turned off at 8:00 pm for an hour as an act of remembrance.

Within a day of the disaster enough people from Mousehole had volunteered to form a new lifeboat crew. In 1983 a new lifeboat station (still known as 'Penlee') was opened nearby at Newlyn where a faster, larger boat could be kept moored afloat in the harbour. Neil Brockman later became the coxswain of the station's Severn class lifeboat. The old boathouse at Penlee Point with its slipway is empty but has been maintained and a memorial garden was created beside it in 1985 to commemorate the crew of the Solomon Browne.

Airframe XZ574 is today preserved at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at RNAS Yeovilton, mainly due to its being flown during the Falklands War conflict by Prince Andrew, Duke of York.

The disaster has been the subject of several songs. Seth Lakeman, an English folk singer, songwriter, and musician wrote a song called "Solomon Browne" about the Penlee lifeboat disaster. This appears on his 2008 album 'Poor Man's Heaven'. The CD reissue of the Anthony Phillips' album Invisible Men includes "The Ballad of Penlee" about the incident. Paul Sirman, a Kentish folk artist who specialises in songs of the sea recorded the incident in his song "Solomon Browne" which appears on his album "One For All". Kimber's Men, a sea shanty group, recorded "Don't Take The Heroes" on their CD of the same name. The song was written by Neil Kimber and Rodger Hepworth.