Hoylake Lifeboat Station

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Hoylake Lifeboat Station is on the North Parade promenade in Hoylake, Wirral, Merseyside. It is an RNLI lifeboat station. A lifeboat first operated there in 1803, placed by the Liverpool Dock Trustees, and control was handed to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in 1894. Today it operates two rescue craft: Edmund Hawthorne Micklewood (ON 1313), a Shannon-class all-weather lifeboat, and Hurley Spirit (H-005), a Griffon Type 470TD hovercraft.

A brief history:
- 1803: A lifeboat built by Henry Greathead is stationed at Hoylake in a wooden boathouse; the first coxswain was Thomas Seed.
- 1808: Seed dies; Captain Joseph Bennett becomes Master and Keeper of the Lower Lighthouse.
- 1810: The Greathead lifeboat helps the ship Traveller but capsizes; eight crew are lost (a memorial stands outside the station).
- 1840–41: After the Athebaska wreck, a No.2 boat is built and later replaced by a No.1.
- 1847–48: Silting makes launching difficult, so a station on Hilbre Island is created and the No.2 boat moves there in 1848.
- 1858: The Dock Trustees hand the lifeboat stations to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.
- 1894: The RNLI takes over the Mersey stations; the Hoylake boat becomes Coard William Squarey.
- 1899: A new lifeboat station is built on a town Esplanade site, cost £922, with a new slipway funded by the council.
- 1921: Hoylake is among the first stations to trial a launch tractor (Clayton).
- 1931: A new Liverpool-class motor lifeboat arrives, powered by a 35 hp engine.
- 1953: A Fowler Challenger III amphibious tractor is introduced.
- 1938: Hilbre Island station closes.
- Around 2009: A new modern station is built about half a mile east of the old one, costing about £2 million, following years of fundraising.

There are memorials and awards at Hoylake honoring those who served and died on rescue missions.