The clue here was Bamburgh, the location of the castle, and also of the R.N.L.I.`s Grace Darling Museum.
Grace Horsley Darling was born in Bamburgh on the 24th of November 1815. Her father was a lighthouse keeper at the Longstone Lighthouse, sited on the Farne Islands just off the coast of Northumberland). In 1838, aged just twenty-two, she became famous for rowing out with her father and managing to rescue nine survivors from the wreck of the Forfarshire in 1838.
Sadly in October 1842, she died, of tuberculosis, aged just twenty-six and she was buried in the local Church of St Aidan.
There is another fact about Bamburgh, and that is that in the 1750s it was decided to make the ruin of its abandoned castle into a landmark for sailors to spot at sea. In addition, it was also to be used to safely store flotsam and jetsam that arrived on the beaches after a wreck, until it could be properly returned or disposed of, rather than allowing the general public to remove it.
Six years later it is recorded that in Bamburgh funds were made available for a complement of two men to be permanently on watch to row out during storms and assist in the rescue of any vessel that was in distress or wrecked, bringing survivors to the castle and allowing them to stay, with support of food, clothing, etc, for the period of one week.
This was the first ever lifeboat service. And in 1789 a proper lifeboat was commissioned from the patentee. But more about that, and him, later..
Now this particular set does not appear in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, for it was issued after that was published.
And it has but a scant description in our updated version, of :
CASTLES OF BRITAIN. Sm. Nd. (25)
However the header does tell us that all the sets were printed for issue in Mauritius, which is why many of the sets have the text and titling in French.