About: Henry Trengrouse

Henry Trengrouse (18 March 1772 – 14 February 1854) was a British inventor who invented the "Rocket" lifesaving apparatus. On 24 December 1807 he witnessed the wreck of the frigate Anson in Mount's Bay, when over a hundred people died, and this disaster led him to devote his life and patrimony to the discovery of some means for saving lives at shipwrecks. He spent much labour in attempting to devise a lifeboat, but produced no satisfactory results, and turned his attention to the "Rocket" lifesaving apparatus, an early form of the Breeches buoy. In addition to this, Trengrouse was dismayed at the then common practice of burying victims of shipwrecks in common graves in unconsecrated ground near the site of the wreck, having seen the dead from the Anson buried in the dunes at Loe Bar. He pe