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Her Majesty's Coastguard (HMCG) is a section of the United Kingdom Maritime and Coastguard Agency responsible for the initiation and co-ordination of all civilian maritime search and rescue (SAR) within the UK Maritime Search and Rescue Region. This includes the mobilisation, organisation and tasking of adequate resources to respond to persons either in distress at sea, or to persons at risk of injury or death on the cliffs or shoreline of the United Kingdom. The chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency is Sir Alan Massey. Operational control of the service is the responsibility of the Chief Coastguard. Her Majesty's Coastguard is not a military force or law enforcement agency, with coastal defence being the responsibility of the Royal Navy, and maritime border control being the responsibility of Border Force. However, the organisation is a uniformed service. ==History== In 1809 the Preventative Water Guard was established, which may be regarded as the immediate ancestor of HM Coastguard. Its primary objective was to prevent smuggling, but it was also responsible for giving assistance to shipwrecks. For this reason, each Water Guard station was issued with Manby's Mortar (the mortar fired a shot with a line attached from the shore to the wrecked ship and was used for many years). In 1821 a committee of enquiry recommended that responsibility for the Preventative Water Guard should be transferred from HM Treasury to the Board of Customs. The Board of Custom and the Board of Excise each had their own long-established preventative forces: shore-based Riding Officers and sea-going Revenue Cruisers. The committee recommended the consolidation of these various related services. The Treasury agreed, and in a Minute dated 15 January 1822 directed that they be placed under the authority of the Board of Customs and named the Coast Guard. The new Coast Guard inherited a number of shore stations and watch houses from its predecessor bodies as well as several coastal vessels, and these provided bases for its operations over the following years. In 1829 the first Coast Guard instructions were published, dealing mainly with discipline and the prevention of smuggling; they also stipulated that when a wreck took place the Coast Guard was responsible for taking all possible action to save lives, taking charge of the vessel and protecting property.〔(National Archives - Coastguard History (1992 Memorandum) )〕 In 1831, the Coast Guard took over duties from the Coast Blockade for the Suppression of Smuggling (which had been run by the Admiralty from a string of Martello Towers on the Kent and Sussex coast); this finally gave it authority over the whole of the UK coastline. In the 1850s, with smuggling on the wane, oversight of the Coast Guard was transferred from the Board of Customs to the Admiralty.〔Coastguard Service Act, 1856〕 In the decades that followed, the Coast Guard (or Coastguard, as it came to be called) began to function more like an auxiliary Naval service, a recruitment ground for future naval personnel. Responsibilities for revenue protection were retained, but hands-on rescue services began to be undertaken more and more by Volunteer Life Brigades and by the lifeboats of the RNLI, with the Coast Guard acting in a support role. By the start of the twentieth century, there was a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the service expressed both by the Board of Customs (concerned for revenue protection) and by the Board of Trade (responsible for safety at sea). In the wake of the First World War, moves were made to address these deficiencies. In 1923 the Coastguard was re-established as a coastal safety and rescue service, overseen by the Board of Trade.〔Coastguard Act, 1925〕 Its skills in maritime communication (acquired during the Admiralty years, when Coastguard officers often manned signal stations) were recognized, with provision being made for the use of new communication technologies for safety at sea. There was also a renewed determination to recruit, train and co-ordinate volunteer rescue personnel with the establishment in 1931 of a Coastal Life-saving Corps, later renamed the Coastguard Auxiliary Service (see Coastguard Rescue Service, below). For the rest of the twentieth century, the Coastguard continued to operate primarily out of local shore stations (use of ships had declined after 1923). In 1931 in England there were 193 stations and 339 auxiliary stations; in 1974 there were still 127 stations (permanently manned) and 245 auxiliary stations. From the 1960s onwards, though, priorities were changing from maintaining coastal lookouts to provision of co-ordinated search and rescue services. Old watch houses, with their on-site accommodation and annexed boathouses, gave way to new technology-based Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centres, far fewer in number.〔(English Heritage briefing paper: Coastguard Stations )〕 Efficiency drives in the 1990s made Her Majesty's Coastguard a government executive agency, then in 1998 the Marine Safety Agency and the Coastguard Agency were joined to become the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Her Majesty's Coastguard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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