William Wouldhave - Other Inventors

Other Inventors

Wouldhave's claims to have invented the lifeboat were hampered by his poverty and violent language. Mr. Hailes, a mathematician familiar with marine architecture, supported Wouldhave's claim to the invention, and believed that the curved keel was an error. In a letter to the editor of The Monthly Magazine dated Feb.16,1807, Hailes says that around the time of Greathead's recognition in parliament in 1802, he had asserted Wouldhave's right to the invention, and invited Greathead to prove otherwise. He had not done so, apart from some letters to newspapers, and editors continued to present Greathead to the public as the inventor of the lifeboat. In 1806 Hailes published a pamphlet titled "An enquiry concerning the invention of the lifeboat". In July of that year a letter was published in the Gentlemans Magazine claiming the invention for Lukin.