The Liverpool pilot boat Alfred H. Read  was built in 1913.  At the beginning of the First World War two of the pilot boats were taken over by the War Office for use as Examination Ships.  In the early hours of 28^th December, 1917, the s.s. Alfred H. Read struck a mine on the Bar station.  She sank almost immediately.  Of the forty-one men on board, only two were saved;  nineteen pilots, eight apprentices and six crew members were lost, as well as six men employed by the Admiralty.  At least seven victims of this disaster are buried at Rake Lane Cemetery.