THERE'S a lot going on in this picture: schoolboys larking about on the canvas roof of what looks like a pleasure boat at the far right; several delivery trucks on Queen's Staith, presumably waiting to load or unload fropm the warehouses of Robert Rook, the Skeldergate corn and grain merchant; and, of course, dominating the foreground... the Humber Lifeboat.
Just what the lifeboat was doing this far upriver we don't know. The Humber Lifeboat station was at the very tip of Spurn Point - an awful long way away.
According to the caption to this photograph, which comes from Explore York Libraries and Archives, the picture was taken in about 1930-33. The Humber Lifeboat at this time was a 45-foot Watson-class boat named the 'City of Bradford II' (so named because she had been paid for by fundraising in Bradford).
So presumably that's the City of Bradford at King's Staith, with the lifeboat crew plus a few visiting dignitaries (and their children) aboard. We assume she was either on a voyage designed to show her off to the people of Yorkshire - or else the crew was trying to drum up funds to keep the lifeboat station going...
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