Although long time resident of Newhaven (though not born here), I am still ignorant as to the exact meaning of the numbers which adorn the side and or stern of Lifeboats. For instance in the case of Louis Marchesi of Round Table, what does 44 - 019 refer to please?

The Louis Marchesi of Round Table lifeboat was built by Bideford Shipyard Ltd. in 1975, she had 506 service call-outs and saved a total of 264 lives. Then cira 1999 was sold on to the New Zealand coastguard service.
My understanding of the numbers are they refer to the length and number in the class of lifeboat. The first number ( in this case 44 ) refers to her length 44 feet ( the newer boats this number refers to length in metres) and  in this case the number 019 she was the 19th Waveney class boat built.

You are correct John, there were 4 built at the same time at Bideford Shipyard, 016 went to Ramsgate, 017 went initially to Donaghadee in Ireland before joining the relief fleet, and 018 went to Hartlepool, although a little quirk was that 44-001 was the original boat from the States so the first boat built in England was numbered 002.

The 0 in the 019 meant that the hull was built of steel. If you look at most other boat numbers, they have 4 digits, example 52-32, 52 foot long, 32nd built & 17-21, 17 metre's long, 21st built. The Tyne's are numbered with extra zero's as their hulls are also steel. These numbers are known as the operational numbers, but lifeboats also have another number called the official number. Louis Marchesi's was 1045, and Keith Anderson's was 1106. These numbers show how many boats the RNLI have built, e.g. Keith Anderson was the 1106th boat that the RNLI have had built.

This particular lifeboat also had a unique feature in that it was wallpapered in the aft cabin. From new it had a painted insulated rubber surface covering the walls and ceiling of the small after cabin which was supposed to provide a degree of insulation as well as protection to anyone sitting inside what was in effect the survivors cabin. However over time the rubber dried out and cracked, which to my father Len's eye made it look extremely ugly. The solution - wallpaper. Caused quite a few comments from visiting crews, dignitaries, supporters and rescued survivors but did the job. Paddy Boyle the second coxswain, always chuckled and raised an eyebrow whenever it was mentioned. We also were well supplied with an Amways product for cleaning the brass on the boat, apparently there was a local rep who would pass off the cream cleaner to the boat when she received new stock. Worked pretty well too.! The roundels on the side of the after cabin came from the Round Table association who had funded the boat and were added on by the crew. Head office didnt think much of it but we had a constant stream of visiting Round Table people who were very proud of 'their' boat and continued to donate to the RNLI which was the whole point really. We also had a pair of spare brass propellers given to the station by one of the Round Table groups which were kept in the boathouse for quite a while before Head office depot remembered them and sent a truck to take them back. They resurfaced years later when after 'dinging' the props of the Arun class Keith Anderson (by clipping the underwater stanchion of the old Volks railway line) during a shout off Brighton, head office made a fuss about the cost of replacing them only to be reminded that in fact; we already had a 'credit' of two propellers sitting in a depot somewhere.