LANDLOCKED Oxford may be 70 miles from the sea, but that's not going to stop us trying to buy our very own lifeboat.

You might imagine there are better ways for Oxford to spend £61,500 than on an Atlantic 75 lifeboat.

But the boat could prove to be one of Oxford's great contributions to the Millennium. It will also see the city celebrating a maritime history that few even knew existed.

The Oxford Lifeboat Appeal has been launched to rescue a desperate lifeboat station 200 miles away, at Whitstable, Kent, where the lifeboat is fast reaching the end of its working life.

But the real inspiration for the appeal lies in the archives of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution offices in Poole. For it was there that it emerged that Oxford had bought its own lifeboat way back in 1866, to bring about the most unlikely boat launch in the history of the Thames.

The discovery was made when the retired lifeboatman John Owen, now a post office manager in Didcot, asked Poole to come up with useful material to boost his local RNLI fund-raising efforts.

Mr Owen, 62, was amazed when the reply came back that Oxford University had bought its own lifeboat, the Isis, 132 years ago, after one of the most vigorous fund-raising campaigns ever witnessed in the city.

When he told local RNLI supporters about the Isis, the opportunity of seeing history repeat itself proved to be irresistible.

"We had wanted to do something special for the Millennium and as so often in volunteer circles things just got out of hand," said Mr Owen, of Portway, Didcot, who served as a lifeboatman on the Isle of Wight in the 1950s. The appeal is to buy an Atlantic 75, the biggest and fastest lifeboat in the RNLI's inshore fleet. It is a rigid-inflatable, carrying a three-man crew with a top speed of 32 knots.

Lord Mayor of Oxford Bill Baker, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University Dr Colin Lucas and the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, Professor Graham Upton, have all agreed to act as patrons.

This week hundreds of leaflets will be distributed to schools, libraries and businesses to alert them to the second Oxford Lifeboat Appeal. Organisers are hoping to raise £61,500 with plans for a Lifeboat Fund Day and gala evening at Oxford Town Hall.

Paul Foote, vice-chairman of the Oxford RNLI branch, said: "When we collect for the RNLI, people often ask 'Why are you doing this in Oxford of all places?' My answer is always the same. We are all islanders. We all go to sea sometime."

Cheques should be made payable to the Oxford Lifeboat Appeal and sent to The Oxford Lifeboat Appeal, The Manor House, Kennington, Oxford OX1 5PH. The bells rang out for 1866

lifeboat launch TEN thousand people turned out to see the launch of Isis, the original Oxford lifeboat, in1866.

The appeal had caught the imagination of the whole landlocked city who turned out in force to see it plunge into the Thames, below Folly Bridge.

Church bells rang, bands played on college barges trimmed with colourful bunting, and the Oxford University boat crew proudly rowed up and down the Thames to demonstrate the ten-oared lifeboat's stability.

Earlier the lifeboat had been paraded through the city streets on a carriage pulled by four cart-horses.

Mr Paul Foote, the vice-chairman of the Oxford Lifeboat Appeal, said: "Isis was a gift from the University to the

Royal National Lifeboat Institution. "The Institution had fallen on hard times since its inauguration in 1824 and in the 1860s raising money for lifeboats had become a nationwide activity."

From Oxford it was taken by rail to its station at Hayle, then a small Cornish fishing port, with a dangerous harbour that had claimed many victims.

In its 21 years at Hayle, the Isis was launched 16 times.

Mr Foote, a former language don at The Queen's College, said: "Six launches may not seem many compared with the six or seven thousand calls to which Britain's lifeboats respond annually today.

"But the rowing boats had a limited range."

At the end of its life, the lifeboat was credited with saving 51 lives.

Now, 132 years after its launch, the Isis could ultimately be responsible for saving many more by inspiring the quest for a second Isis. MARITIME TRADITION 1865: Oxford University Lifeboat Fund launched after address by Captain JR Ward, Chief Inspector of Lifeboats

1866: Isis lifeboat launched in Thames

1900: Thousands attended Grand Lifeboat Saturday in Oxford, complete with carnival

1910: First RNLI branch set up in city

1977: Kidlington Lifeboat Theatre Players formed by local RNLI

1983: Abingdon affiliated to sub HMS Otter

1986: Third HMS Bicester commissioned. Town mayor Joan Blackman attended ceremony in Portsmouth

1988: Sea cadets march through Oxford for 50th anniversary of Oxford unit

Previous sport story

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.