Henry Francis Greathead (1757–1818) was an English pioneering rescue lifeboat builder from South Shields.

[4] Although his claims have been contested,[5] he did build 31 boats, which saved very many lives, and succeeded in making the concept of a shore-based rescue lifeboat widely accepted.

His father was well off, having been in public service for 46 years, as an officer of salt duties and later as supervisor and comptroller of the district.

The next year he was shipwrecked near Calais and on his return to England narrowly avoided being press-ganged into naval service.

During a voyage to the Grenadas his ship was taken by American privateers, and was then sent to New York where he was impressed aboard a British sloop.

One, modelled in tin by William Wouldhave, was to be built of copper, made buoyant by the use of cork, and was incapable of being capsized.

The sides were cased with cork, four inches thick, weighing nearly 7 hundredweight and secured with copper plates.

[1][6] In 1802 Greathead's work was "deemed a fit subject for national munificence" and a petition was submitted to the House of Commons.

[6] In 1811 the list included Guernsey, Arbroath, Pillau, Cronstadt, Rye, Whitehaven, Stettin, Riga, Danzig, Cromer, Leith, Bridlington, Charleston, Fraserburgh, Gothenburg, San Lucar, Dunbar, Blyth, Redcar and Heligoland.

His eleventh boat, the Zetland built in 1802, saw 78 years of service in Redcar and saved over 500 lives with the loss of only one crew member.

A Mr. Hailes, mathematician familiar with marine architecture, supported Wouldhave's claim to the invention, and believed that the curved keel was an error.