Herne Bay is a seaside town in Kent, England. It is part of the City of Canterbury local government district.

The name is derived from the herons that frequented the salt-water shallows between the town and neighbouring Whitstable, known as Swalecliffe. Herne Bay came into prominence during the late Victorian era as a "sea-side" resort. Thus much of the seafront architecture is late Victorian. Its shingle beach and "easy" tides have always been popular and until the main iron pier of the town was destroyed by the great storm of 1982-3, Herne Bay was popular with beach-pier fishermen.

In the late days preceding the general use of steam powered shipping, the sea levied a heavy toll along the Kent coast, aside from the dangers of storm and the notorious Goodwin Sands, many a life has been lost through the deeds of unwary mariners.

Shipping disasters may not always be put down to an act of God. An interesting example of such on oversight in my mind is clearly recorded in the pages of the ‘Kentish Gazette’ on the 8th of January 1822, which reveals:
‘We regret to learn the distressing account of the wind in the night of Friday last. In the evening of that day a sloop was observed on the ‘Columbine sand’ opposite Whitstable. Her dangerous position being observed by those able mariners Messes. Bell of Herne Bay. They put off and offered to take charge of her, but although, when they reached her, the vessel had then beat off her rudder, the Captain refused their assistance, declaring he would ride out the gale. They however, remained by her, putting one man on board, and making fast a boat to her, in which was another of their crew, when towards morning a tremendous sea broke over the sloop, and forced her on her beam ends, sweeping all on board into the sea (except the Captain who had since been found dead clinging to the shrouds) with the mariner who had been put on board, off the deck into the deep water where the whole perished. Thomas ‘Holbans’, the unfortunate mariner who was lost with the crew was a native of Whitstable and has left a wife and two children’

Given that the population of Whitstable in 1831, nine years after this incident was only one thousand nine hundred and twenty six, and had only increased by 731 since 1801, and that the ‘unfortunate mariner’ Thomas had perished, I am certain that the reporter on this story had received an incorrect interpretation of the lost mariners true name.

For it is a fact also that a Thomas Holbourn was baptised at Herne in 1756, as was his brother John, in 1758 and their sister in 1760. This Thomas, with his brothers and sisters were the children of the local farmer Thomas Holbourn, who although born in Wingham, near Canterbury, in 1719, held land in Herne as a freeholder and ‘Husbandsman’ until his death in 1813.

(a recent housing development at Herne has included in its structure a road named ‘Holbourn Close’, which seems likely to refer to the said farm.)

It is then not surprising to find that a Grandson of farmer Thomas, through his eldest son of the same name was a boy named Thomas. This child was born in 1789 and started out in life to become a seaman. He married an Hannah and they raised two sons, the first born 1819, also to become a mariner and baptised Thomas and whose own son was to become a Customs Officer, James Isaac Joseph Holbourn and the second child who was born in 1821, Robert Thomas also of the maritime community.

"Given that farmer Tom had several other children and between them they constituted a large family in a small village, and as yet, no further record of ‘the unfortunate mariner’ have come to light to contest my realisation, I am content to at least speculate as to the possibility of this being a first recorded reference to my family of Shipwright’s actively involving themselves in offshore rescue attempts." : Faedra

In any event the good deed of the Bell family of mariners of Herne and those that accompanied them on that fateful night is one of great merit and must surely rank high amongst the long list of heroic rescue attempts off our coastline.

Unfortunate as its outcome was, to demonstrate clearly the selfless quality of the boatmen of the times, who all too often have been criticised for placing maritime salvage rights from ships wrecked, often before the welfare of those they have nevertheless rescued from a certain watery grave.

The rights of salvage were often a critical factor, because the mariners boat represented their means of survival, which they could not be expected to risk without some form of compensation for their efforts.