The Mexico lifeboat disaster was one the RNLI’s worst-ever tragedies. It was a German cargo ship, a barque that was wrecked in a full WNW gale off Southport on 9 December 1886. It was on its way from Liverpool to Guayaquil in Ecuador and was caught in a storm and dropped anchor in the Ribble estuary. The ship’s anchor broke loose. Fearing the vessel would be blown on to the sandbanks to her doom, the Captain sent out distress signals. The Lytham, St Annes and Southport Lifeboats answered the call. They rushed to save the crew of the Mexico – which by this time was being blown down the River Ribble.

Southport’s Eliza Fernley was the first lifeboat to be launched in response to the Mexico’s distress signals. As the Eliza Fernley reached the stricken vessel, the rough seas and terrible gale capsized her. Only two of the 16 crew survived, Henry Robinson and John Jackson, who had been trapped under the boat after it overturned. They survived by clinging to the keel of the boat and swimming back to shore to raise the alarm. Two hours later, the lifeboat was found washed up at Birkdale. Shortly after the Southport lifeboat was launched, the St Annes lifeboat Laura Janet set sail. No one knows exactly what happened to it – except that the next morning the lifeboat was found washed ashore. Three dead bodies were still clinging to it, and all the crew of 13 men were lost. A third lifeboat, the Charles Biggs, was launched on her maiden rescue to assist the crew of the Mexico. By this point, the Mexico has settled on her beam ends and the crew had strapped themselves to the rigging. The Charles Biggs rowed for a mile and a half to reach the Mexico and successfully rescued all 12 crew members. During the rescue of the Mexico’s crew, 27 of the 29 gallant Lifeboatmen drowned.

This was the worst tragedy, involving the greatest loss of life, in the history of the RNLI. 16 widows and 50 orphans were left behind. A major appeal followed to provide funds for the families of the deceased and for the erection of memorials. Generous donors included Queen Victoria (£100), Kaiser Wilhelm I (£250), the City of Hamburg, and various national newspapers. It was this fundraising which led to the first RNLI flag days. An 1891 appeal, bolstered by the press in the north-east of England, raised £10,000 in just 2 weeks. In the same year, Sir Charles Macara (1845-1929), a leading figure in the Lancashire cotton industry and resident of St Annes at the time of the Mexico disaster and his wife Marion organised the first Lifeboat Saturday, the first recorded charity street collection. It featured a parade of bands, floats and lifeboats through the streets of Manchester and raised over £5,000. Marion Macara formed a Ladies’ Guild to help organise the street collection and within 10 years, more than 40 Ladies’ Guilds had sprung up around Britain and Ireland, and the RNLI’s income had doubled.

Six memorials were erected, including on the promenade at St Annes, Duke Street Cemetery in Southport and St Cuthbert’s Church in Lytham. A memorial carved by the Edinburgh sculptor W B Rhind to five of the Laura Janet crew who lived in St Anne's was erected in the St Anne's parish churchyard above the grave of the five deceased crewmen. Rhind also sculpted the Grade II listed memorial located on St Anne's Promenade that portrays William Johnson, coxswain of the Laura Janet. A graveside memorial to seven crew members who lived in Lytham was erected in St Cuthbert’s Churchyard, Lytham. Another crew member is buried in Layton cemetery, Blackpool. Fourteen members of the Southport lifeboat, Eliza Fernley, are buried in Southport Cemetery. Also in Southport there is another Grade II listed lifeboat memorial commemorating the loss of the Eliza Fernley and her crew. Sir Charles Macara's gravestone stands close to the Laura Janet Memorial.

The bodies of the deceased lifeboat Crews were laid at the coach house of the Palace Hotel in Birkdale, which was used as a temporary mortuary following the tragedy. The coach house is now the Fisherman’s Rest Pub, named in memory of the lost lifeboat men and is now the only part of the original building left. There are 14 mermaids at the bar to represent the 14 lost souls of the Eliza Fernley, and plaques re telling the tale around the pub. Every year the Landlord of the Fisherman’s Rest reads out an ode to the lost lives and conducts a one-minute silence in recognition of their sacrifice.

The Mexico was refloated and sold for £45, becoming a temporary tourist attraction at Lytham St Annes. She was eventually lost in Scottish waters in 1890. The story of the wreck of the Mexico was featured in an episode of the BBC TV programme Coast, appearing in the fifth episode of the first series, first broadcast on 3 July 2005.

The Lifeboat Monument, St Annes, stands on South Promenade, St Annes, Fylde, Lancashire, England. It commemorates the death of 13 lifeboatmen from St Annes who were lost in the attempt to rescue the crew of the German barque Mexico that had been driven into a sandbank in a gale in December 1886. The monument depicts a lifeboatman looking out to sea and standing on a rock-like plinth.