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We were commissioned to design a new memorial seating area overlooking the sea at Moelfre to provide an eyecatching location for a new statue of Coxswain Richard Evans who was awarded two gold medals for saving the lives of the crews of two ships.
    
Completed project ready for the sculpture
    
Images from Seawatch unveiling ceremony ~ sculpture by Sam Holland
The community at Moelfre has a long history in lifeboat rescue having saved more than six hundred lives. One of the most remarkable was in October 1959 when the coaster Hindlea, with a crew of eight, was driven on to Moelfre rocks in a gale with recorded winds of more than 100 miles per hour. This occured a hundred years to the day after the loss of the Royal Charter.
 Dic Evans was born in a small cottage overlooking the sea at Moelfre, Anglesey. His father, William Evans, was a sea captain and member of the Moelfre lifeboat crew, as was Dic's uncle and both his grandfathers. Dic himself left the village to join a coaster's crew when he was 14, and soon rose through the ranks as a seaman. He returned to Moelfre to run a butcher's business and married farmer's daughter Nansi. In 1954 Dic was asked to became coxswain of the Moelfre lifeboat after his uncle, John Matthews, retired.
Dic's service as coxswain was a long and successful one culminating in his part in the rescues of the Hindlea in 1959 and the Nafsiporos in 1966. Having won the MBE and two coveted RNLI Gold medals he retired in 1970. He died in 2001 at the age of 96.
+ > Click here for more about the Royal Charter shipwreck
The Royal Charter shipwreck
On the 25th October 1859 the ship Royal Charter, a 2,700 ton steam and sailing ship bound for Liverpool, was lost off Moelfre on the island of Anglesey.
Almost at the end of its long voyage from Melbourne, Australia, the Royal Charter was carrying four hundred and fifty two passengers and crew and gold from the Australian goldfield, it sailed into the worst storm that had occured in the Irish Sea during the century.
After battling across the Irish Sea, the captain called for the Liverpool pilot while off Point Lynas, but the sea was too ferocious for the pilot to go aboard the Royal Charter. The captain was faced either with the prospect of making his own way to Liverpool without help, or sheltering from the severe weather in Moelfre Bay.
He chose to find shelter, but the ship's anchor chain broke under the strain and drove the Royal Charter stern first onto the rocks off Moelfre. The waves were so tumultuous that the ship struck the rocks fifty yards from the shore and broke into two sections.
Every person on board was thrown into the sea except for thirty two who perished as they were hurled against the rocks. Many of the passengers were men returning from the Australian goldfields and some had attempted to leave the ship and swim to shore with their pockets filled with gold dust.
For weeks after the tragedy bodies were washed up on the beaches, and on the clifftop there is a memorial with the words "where the Royal Charter met its end, and the memory of those who died". A fortune at the time but it is believed that £370,000 of gold was scattered in the waves. A memorial to the dead can be seen in the nearby Llanallgo churchyard.
The Seawatch Centre in the small, picturesque harbour village of Moelfre is a reminder of the island's rich maritime history and the importance of the ever present sea for the people of Anglesey. Use the remote controlled camera to view the spectacular offshore scenery of the east coast of Anglesey and if you're lucky you may see the Moelfre lifeboat crew launch their boat.
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During construction
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