[2] In 1907, the RNLI received the considerable bequest of £7571-18s-7d, the legacy of the late Mrs A. W. Clarke Hall, who specified a lifeboat was to be provided for the north coast of Ireland, and to be named William and Laura.

[5] At a ceremony in September, the president of Donaghadee RNLI, Mr Charles Dunbar Butler, and Miss Slade, representing the late donor, handed the lifeboat to the care of the station, and the boat was duly named William and Laura (ON 595).

[1][2] The Donaghadee lifeboat William and Laura was called on 12 November 1915, to the aid of the French lugger Cyrano, of Brest, stranded in a NE gale, 2 miles (3.2 km) off Millisle.

[1] Donaghadee lifeboat Civil Service No.5 (ON 753) was launched at 06:30 on 21 November 1940, to the steamship Coastville of Liverpool, when the vessel was wrecked on the rocks at Ballymacormick Point in Belfast Lough.

nine of the 43 men aboard the SS Hope Star of Newcastle-upon-Tyne were brought ashore by the lifeboat, the rest of the crew refusing to leave the vessel.

[8][9] On 17 July, the cargo ship MV Douglas of Bergen ran aground north of Larne near The Maidens lighthouses, County Antrim.

At a ceremony in September 2003, the new lifeboat was named 14-36 Saxon (ON 1267), funded from the legacy of Mrs Freda Rivers, in memory of her late husband.

After great difficult getting a reliable line to the vessel, in conditions of force 5–6, the yacht was pulled off the rocks, found to be watertight, and towed to harbour, arriving at 05:00.

The vessel, with 176 people on board, was operated by British Railways between Stranraer and Larne, and sank in a severe gale in the North Channel on 31 January 1953, approximately seven miles east of the entrance to Belfast Lough, with the loss of 135 lives.