Robert William Hook (4 June 1828 – 28 June 1911) was a fisherman and innkeeper and the coxswain of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) Lowestoft lifeboat and with private companies from 1853 to 1883 and who has been credited with saving more than 600 lives in addition to two cats and a dog. He was twice awarded the RNLI Silver Medal for gallantry

Bob Hook was born in Lowestoft in Suffolk in 1828, the son of Robert Hook, a fisherman and beach-man, and Elizabeth Ellis. In 1844 aged 16 he joined his father as a lifeboatman, and in 1853 aged 25 he was appointed coxswain of the Lowestoft lifeboat which carried an annual salary of £80 plus other fees and payments. In 1851 he married Charlotte Howard.

In 1859 Hook was awarded the RNLI Silver Medal for rescuing in a heavy gale the crew of 14 from the steamer Shamrock on 1 November 1859. Hook received a second award clasp in 1873 for his part in rescuing the crew of 10 from the Norwegian vessel Expedite which had gone ashore on Holm Sand in a gale and had dismasted on 13 November 1872.

His wife Charlotte Hook died in 1879 aged 49, and in 1881 Hook married his widowed housekeeper, Sarah Ann Goldsmith (nee Hewson), at the same time adopting her two children. For some years he was the innkeeper of the Fisherman's Arms Inn in Lowestoft.

Hook's obituary in the Lowestoft Journal wrote of him:

'Robert Hook, or, as everyone familiarly called him, Bob Hook, Lowestoft's great lifeboat hero, is dead! For months past the gnarled, weather-beaten old sea warrior, of giant frame, he stood over 6ft. 3" and once of immense strength, has laid helpless as a child, and on Wednesday afternoon the 28th of June he passed peacefully away. His death being in vivid contrast with the strenuousness of his young days, when he was coxswain of the lifeboat, and when, with lion-hearted courage, and never daunted when the call came to save life, as he said "let the storm rage and the sea roar ever so fiercely". Bob Hook's active days have long been over - he was 84 years of age and it has been somewhat of a reproach that an effort was not made to render his declining years more comfortable. He has been able to get along, for he was very thrifty, but it would have been an act of grace and an acknowledgement of his splendid service if there had been some recognition'.

Genealogy:  Robert William Hook (1828-1911) was the brother of William Robert Ellis “Sheppy” Hook, Sr. (1829-1912).  William Robert’s daughter was Eliza Hook and she married James Blowers (1850-1905).  James’ sister Mary Ann Blowers married William Griffiths Spooner and their son was John William Spooner.  John William married Alice Emmerline Grimble and their son was William John Spooner.  (Note: William’s brother was John Alfred Spooner who died on 6 June 1918 in Flanders, Belgium in WWI and was written about in an early post on this site.) William John Spooner married Gertrude Adams (1901-1960). Gertrude’s grandfather was William Adams (1848-1907) who was the father of George "Pikey" William Welch-Adams (1867-1940)

 

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