A NEW lifeboat bought with the help of a £1.8m donation from an Oxfordshire couple will be named by Princess Anne today.

The £2.7m Tamar class boat will be christened Alfred Albert Williams at a dual ceremony when the Princess Royal will also officially open the lifeboat’s new home at Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight.

The lifeboat is named after a Hampshire man who was a close friend of the couple.

RNLI personal donations manager Martin Wilson said: ‘The couple donated £1.8m towards the then-cost of a Tamar lifeboat for the RNLI, but wished to remain anonymous.

‘The couple approached the RNLI in 1999, wishing to donate a lifeboat. Sadly, both the husband and wife have since passed away.”

The couple were keen sailors and owned a boat which was moored at Gosport. When they decided to help pay for a lifeboat, they asked that it be named after Mr Williams, who worked on their boat for them.

Mr Williams, who lived in Gosport, joined the Royal Navy in 1928, aged 15, and served until 1956. After leaving he worked on boats and yachts until he was 87. He died in 2006, and never knew where the lifeboat bearing his name would be stationed.

His daughter Sue Slater, who will attend the naming ceremony, said: “It’s just fantastic to think a lifeboat is going to bear my father’s name.

“It was very thoughtful of donors to use my dad’s name but from what he told me about them, it’s just the type of thing they would do.

“My dad was a Chief Petty Officer in the navy and worked as yacht skipper for the donor’s father.

“He always called my dad The Chief, because of his rank, and that nickname just stuck.

“In later life, dad worked for the donor himself, and was always called The Chief by him and his wife, right up until the day they passed away.”

The new Bembridge RNLI lifeboat station replaced a building dating back to 1867.

A £1m appeal was launched in 2008 to help towards the cost of the station and the lifeboat, and the building was completed last year.