Grace was born in a Bamburgh cottage (a few yards west of the museum), the fourth daughter of William Darling, principal keeper of the lighthouse on Brownsman Island, one of the Farne group. Grace lived on Brownsman until 1826 when the light was discontinued and her father appointed to the new Longstone light on the outermost of the Farnes.
It was on the morning of 7 September 1838 that Grace wrote her name into history. At about 4 a.m. the steamship Forfarshire on passage from Hull to Dundee, struck the west point of what is now known as Big Harcar and almost at once broke in two. William Darling thought (wrongly as it turned out) that neither the Bamburgh nor the North Sunderland lifeboat could put to sea in the ferocious weather, so decided to set out with just Grace to help him in the raging storm. Their boat was a four-oar coble and William, now 52, gambled that survivors seen on the reef would help the passage back.
There were in fact nine still alive on the rock, one being Mrs Dawson, holding the bodies of her two dead children. They took off five on their first trip, and a second trip was made with the help of two surviving seamen. All were safe in the Longstone lighthouse by 9 a.m. The one boat that had put away from the stricken Forfarshire drifted southwards before being miraculously sighted, and the passengers landed at Tynemouth.
Grace Darling became a national heroine, the newspapers suggesting that she had taken the initiative in the rescue. Crowds of curious visitors came. Requests for locks of hair, and even proposals of marriage poured in. Dozens of artists, including J.W. Carmichael (q.v.) visited Longstone to produce their dramatic versions of events. There were portraits, mugs, models and medallions. Poets galore celebrated Grace, including Wordsworth and Algernon Swinburne, who loved the Bamburgh coast. Modern writers who have written about Grace include Jessica Mitford and Jill Paton Walsh.