Solar Solve Supports South Shields Marine School Fund

In July of this year South Shields based Solar Solve Marine made a donation to South Shields Marine School’s Dr. Winterbottom Charitable Fund, as it has done every year since the fund was created in March 2016 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Thomas Masterman Winterbottom, founder of South Shields Marine School.

Dr. Winterbottom was born in South Shields on 26 March 1766, graduated in medicine in 1792 and was appointed Physician to Sierra Leone the same year.  During his 3 years of treating the local population and undertaking research into tropical diseases he made significant progress in understanding the symptoms of sleeping sickness.  On returning to South Shields he practised as a GP for 27 years then retired and was involved with local charitable and educational work.  He made a major contribution to a number of the town’s charities but is most famous as the founder of South Shields Marine School which opened in 1861, two years after his death. 

The Fund is managed by a committee of governors, students and staff to reflect the remit of the college, which is to support its students locally, nationally and internationally.  Two local objectives are to offer support with Health and Wellbeing and Learning Hardship.  The latter being designed to overcome barriers to learning by providing small grants to individual students who may need short term help to aid their education progression.

Les Watson, fund chairman and founder of the charity explained, “In most cases of genuine hardship, the difference between a student being able to complete their course successfully or not, is often only a matter of providing a grant of less than £100 up to a few hundred pounds.  In some cases, once a student successfully completes a course it results in a job with greater financial reward and so we will supplement a grant with a loan that they undertake to pay back when they are working again.”

“It is down to trust and the fund’s objective of wanting to remove unnecessary stress for any of South Tyneside College’s students who are trying to improve themselves and their career prospects but need a bit of financial assistance.  The success rate is a great reward for the committee members.” 

Overseas, the college has already established links with the Youth Contact Centre, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which provides education for the many young people who are on low incomes or unemployed.  Students there have been benefiting from educational materials packed into a container and sent over from the college 15 months ago and remain in contact for future assistance.

John Lightfoot MBE, Chairman of South Shields based Solar Solve Marine and a Fellow of the Marine School, who was invited to a presentation to formally hand over the donation on behalf of his company commented, “The Marine School is 157 years old and has always been recognised globally as one the world’s best and probably the most well-known within the maritime industry.  Throughout my working life and through Solar Solve Marine we have communicated personally with hundreds of the thousands of people who have lived in the borough to attended the Marine School or South Tyneside College.  Every one of them has been full of praise for the education and local reception they received.”

“The Dr. Winterbottom Charitable Fund is yet another great example of how the people of South Tyneside welcome and look after their guests.” 

The charity can be contacted by telephone on +44 191 427 3717 or email [email protected].