Broadstairs the 1930s by A.H. Simison (the photographic chemist) entitled "Ramsgate (The Kent Coast at its best) Pictorially Presented", describes Broadstairs town as having approached modernisation and urban development "always with a consistent policy of retaining those characteristics for which it has for so long been renowned". The town has retained many aspects of historical interest, besides its maritime history. Amongst these is its notable religious history, evoked by places such as the Shrine of Our Lady, Bradstowe. Lifeboats arrived in Broadstairs in 1851. News of the loss of the Irish packet with 250 lives, on the sands off Margate on
Broadstairs far the most effective of the RNLI craft stationed there. Broadstairs' lifeboats were further supported by a fund established in the 1860s by Sir Charles Reed FSA. Broadstairs is within the Thanet local government district. The town contains the five electoral wards of Bradstowe, St Peter's, Beacon Road, Viking and Kingsgate. These wards have eleven of the fifty six seats on the Thanet District Council. At the 2007 local elections, all eleven of those seats were held by the Conservative Party. Broadstairs and St Peter's Town Council has 15 members, who are elected every four years, led by the mayor.