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Maritime history

The Fleets at the Battle of Beachy Head, 1690: Part 1

31/03/2014 by J D Davies

I’m delighted to welcome Frank Fox as my guest blogger, both this week and next!

Frank’s name will be well known to many students and readers of naval history. A former Supply Officer in the US Navy, he is the author of two of the most important books about late 17th century naval history, Great Ships: The Battlefleet of King Charles II (1980) and The Four Days Battle of 1666 (2009, originally published as A Distant Storm in 1996). The latter describes the subject of the forthcoming Quinton novel, The Battle of All The Ages, and was one of my principal research sources for it. Frank is currently working on aspects of the Battle of Beachy Head, one of the most controversial engagements of the age of sail, and this week, he presents important new evidence about the French fleet at the battle. The revised listings of the Anglo-Dutch fleet will follow next week. So over to Frank!

***

Many thanks to J D Davies for making his site available.  The Battle of Beachy Head, fought on 30 June 1690 by the English calendar, was a victory achieved by a great French fleet over a rather smaller combined English and Dutch fleet.  While studying this engagement for its possible archaeological relevance for a shipwreck site on the British coast (for which more will soon be forthcoming here), I found that the published fleet lists for the battle are not fully satisfactory.  Whether from French, Dutch, or British sources, all are incomplete and some contain demonstrable mistakes.  The lists offered here present more detailed information, though unknowns still remain.

Contemporary illustration of the Battle of Beachy Head, 30 June 1690 (known to the French as Beveziers)
Contemporary illustration of the Battle of Beachy Head, 30 June 1690 (known to the French as Beveziers)

The French fleet, commanded by Vice-Admiral Anne Hilarion de Cotentin, Comte de Tourville, has been best known from a list in Léon Guérin, Histoire Maritime de France (1851), v. 3, pp. 449-453.  This was accepted by the most frequently cited British authority, William Laird Clowes, The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to the Present (1898), v. 2, p. 335.  Regrettably, Guérin and Clowes omit two ships, reverse the stations of two others as compared with other lists, give improbable numbers of guns for two vessels, and do not indicate the stations of fireships and light frigates.  A less known list in Eugène Sue, Histoire de la Marine Française (1856), v. 4, pp. 557-558, shows the complete order of battle including stations of the fireships and light frigates.  Sue does not give men and guns, but these appear in other sources.  First, there is a list in the Dutch newspaper Hollandsche Mercurius from July 1690, pp. 195-197.  It was drawn up a little before the final order of battle was adopted, and thus gives a different order of fighting and includes several vessels which were eventually left behind with a squadron of galleys.  It does, however, offer plausible armament figures.  Second, a panoramic drawing of the battle in the French archives is reproduced in Charles De La Roncière, Histoire de la Marine Française (1900), v. 6, following p. 72.  It marks each ship with a number corresponding to a keyed handwritten fleet list including men and guns.  Unlike other sources, this one gives what appear in many cases to be actual numbers of men aboard instead of merely rounded complements.  For better or worse, they are accordingly used in the list below.  A few are hard to read due to unlucky ink blots, hence the occasional question mark.  Guérin allots all fireships 30 men, which uniformity seems unlikely, but there is no other source.

Many authorities have remarked on the baffling inconsistencies in numbers of guns listed for the French ships in the various sources for this battle.  As these appear unresolvable, I have given the highest and lowest numbers of guns for each vessel as they appear in Hollandsche Mercurius, Guérin, and the drawing in La Roncière.  Wildly inaccurate figures for two ships reported by Guérin (80 guns for the third-rate Le Marquis and only 58 for the first-rate La Couronne) have been disregarded, as have two clear mistakes in Hollandsche Mercurius (only 46 guns for the second-rate Le Pompeux and 80 guns for the third-rate Le Hardy).  The results agree well with the armament ranges in Pierre Le Conte, Lists of Men-of-War 1650-1700, Part II, French Ships, 1648-1700 (Society for Nautical Research Occasional Publication no. 5, 1935).  The only vessel for which the variation still seemed excessive is Château-Renault’s flagship Le Dauphin-Royal, for which the armament in the three sources is given as 90, 100, and 110 guns.  The largest figure (from Guérin) is questionable in that Tourville insisted on mounting rather fewer than the specified 110 guns in his own Le Soleil-Royal, which was considerably larger and vastly more strongly manned than Château-Renault’s ship.  And, a report printed in Guérin, v. 3, pp. 313-316, written from the fleet five days after the battle by Cartigny, Commissionaire and Inspecteur Général de la Marine, gives the armament of Le Dauphin-Royal as 100 guns.  For the present, it must be left for French researchers to settle this matter.

The line included seventy ships.  Excluded from the line were five light frigates and eighteen fireships. The fleet was organized into three squadrons of three divisions each, but the available sources do not show the boundaries between divisions.  The French flags are recorded in an English source:  a meticulous listing in the log of Captain Sir Francis Wheeler of the English ship Albemarle (The National Archives of Great Britain [NA], ADM 51/55).  Each squadron commander, in the centre division, flew a rectangular flag at the fore (including Tourville).  The second-in-command of each squadron (the functional vice-admiral regardless of titular rank) flew a rectangular flag at the mizzen, and the third-in-command (the functional contre-admiral or rear-admiral) flew a swallow-tailed ‘cornette’ at the mizzen.  The command flags in the Avant-garde (Van Squadron) were blue, those in the Corps de Bataille (Centre Squadron) were white, and those in the Arrière-garde (Rear Squadron) were bicolour white over blue.  In addition to the nine division commanders, the French placed a junior flag officer (chef d’escadre – abbreviated ‘CdE’ below) at the very head and tail of the line.  These flew special pendants at the mizzen peak (the tip of the diagonal mizzen yard), the only ships in the fleet with pendants (though Tourville’s ‘seconds’ stationed immediately before and abaft him were also chefs d’escadre).  In all ships, jacks and ensigns were white.  The flag arrangements were rather different from those specified by the current Ordonnance, which apparently had not anticipated fleets of such great size.

In the list below, the division commanders and their flagships are in bold type.  In the RATE column, the five fourth-rate light frigates not in the line are identified as ‘4F’.  Their names are indented showing their approximate stations on the unengaged side of the fleet.  Fireships are designated by ‘fs’ in the RATE column and their names are double-indented.  All the flag-officers including the junior chefs d’escadre each evidently had at least one fireship under his control.  The eight ships indicated as ‘Répétiteurs’ were designated signal repeaters.  There is some controversy about this, since the Chevalier de Forbin-Gardane claimed later in his Memoirs of the Count de Forbin (London, 1731), p. 277, to have been among the répétiteurs, but Sue’s list allots this honour to Forbin’s next-ahead, the Chevalier de la Rongère.

The rates for ships in the French navy of the 1690s did not correspond to English rates.  The three-decked French first-rates included all of what the English would have counted as first- and second-rates.  French second-rates roughly equated to large English third-rates, and French third-rates were about the same size and force as the small English third-rates and large fourth-rates.

Some details in the list below still remain wanting.  I was unable to find the forenames of most of the captains, and have accordingly omitted them all.  I was able to identify only three flag-captains, as shown below.  Finally, French proper names in the seventeenth century were often rendered in a variety of phonetic spellings.  To those who disapprove of the versions adopted here, I cheerfully apologize.

RATE       SHIP                       GUNS        MEN             COMMANDER

Avant-garde (Van Squadron)

2          Le Fier                          68-72         515             CdE De Relingues

fs                   L’Hameçon                6            30            Deslauriers

3          Le Fort                          52-60         365            De Lartelloire

4          Le Maure                       52-54         282            Chev. La Galissonnière

2          L’Éclantant                     64-68         441            De Septesmes

1          Le Conquérant             70-74         588           Lt-Gén. Marq. de Villette-Mursay / Capt. de La Roche-Allard

fs                   Le Fanfaron              10           30             La Serre

2          Le Courtisan                  62-66         400             De Pointis

4          L’Indien                        44-50         250             De Roussel

4F             Le Solide                  42-48         250             De Ferville

4          Le Trident                     46-52         282             De Riberet

3          Le Hardy (Répétiteur)     56-58         350             Comte des Gouttes

3          Le Saint-Louis                56-58         362             La Roque-Percin

3          L’Excellent                     56-60         351             Chev. de Montbron

2          Le Pompeux                   72-74         460             D’Aligre

fs              La Branche d’Olivier        6            30             Moreau

1          Le Dauphin-Royal       90-110          705       Lt-Gén. Château-Renault / Capt. Delcampe

fs                   L’Impudent               10           30             Origène Marchand

fs                   Le Déguisé                4            30             De Lalande

3          L’Ardent                        62-66          364             D’Infreville

3          Le Bon                          52-56         315?           Chev. de Digoine du Palais

3          Le Précieux                        54         330             De Périnet

3          L’Aquilon (Répétiteur)     52-54         350?           De Beaugeais

4F             L’Alcion                     40-44         150             Jean-Bart

3          Le Fendant                     52-58         340?           La Vigerie

3          Le Courageux                     60         365             De Sévigny

1          La Couronne                72-78         517         CdE Marquis de Langeron

fs                   Le Dur                      10           30             De Longchamps

3          Le Ferme                       54-60         358             De Vandricourt

3          Le Téméraire                 52-58         343             De Rivault-Huet

4F             L’Éole                       46-50         250             Du Tast

 

 

Corps de Bataille (Centre Squadron)

3          Le Brusque (Répétiteur)  50-56         314             De Ricours

3          L’Arrogant                      54-60         362             Chev. des Adrets

4          L’Arc-en-Ciel                   44-46         272             Chev. de Sainte-Maure

2          L’Henri                           62-66         390             D’Amblimont

1          Le Souverain                80-84         588          CdE De Nesmond / Capt. d’Aire

fs                   Le Périlleux               10           30             Monnier

3          Le Brillant                      58-66         480             De Beaujeu

4          Le Neptune                         46         240             De Forbin

3          Le Sans-Pareil (Répétiteur)58-60       385             Chev. de La Rongère

3          Le Fidèle                         46-56        242             Chev. de Forbin-Gardane

3          Le Diamant                     54-56         355             De Serquigney

2          Le Sérieux                      56-64         324             Chev. de Bellefontaine

2          Le Tonnant                     70-72         515             CdE Marquis de La Porte

fs                   L’Espion                    10           30             Drognon-Terras

1          Le Soleil-Royal           98-104          904        Vice-Adm. Comte de Tourville

fs                   L’Insensé                  10           30             Cadeneau

4F             Le Faucon                      44             —             De Montbault

1          Le Saint-Philippe                  80         525             CdE Chev. de Coëtlogon

fs                   La Jolie                     10           30             Naudy

3          Le Marquis                      58-60         343        Chev. de Château-Morand

3          Le Furieux                       58-60         365             Desnots

3          La Fortuné (Répétiteur)    58-60         368             Pallas

3          L’Apollon                         56-58         365             Bidault

3          Le Saint-Michel                54-58         348             De Villars

3          L’Entreprenant                 56-60         365             De Sébeville

1          Le Magnifique               76-80         590        Lt-Gén. Marquis d’Amfreville

fs                   La Bouffonne             10           30             Descourtis

fs                   Le Fâcheux                10           30             Verguin

2          Le Content                      56-60         390             Comte de Saint-Pierre

3          Le Vermandois                58-60         262             Du Challard

4          Le Cheval-Marin              40-46         252             Chev. d’Amfreville

3          Le Fougueux (Répétiteur)     58         368             De Saint-Marc

 

 

Arrière-garde (Rear Squadron)

4          Le Comte                       40-44         250         Marq. La Roche-Courbon-Blénac

3          Le Vigilant                      52-56         315             Chev. de Chalais

2          Le Parfait                       60-62         350             Machault

2          Le Triomphant             70-72         515             CdE Chev. de Flacourt

    fs                   L’Impertinent        6            30             Fremicourt

2          Le Bourbon                   58-62         350             D’Hervault

3          Le Duc                          48-52         305             Pallière

3          Le Vaillant                     48-54         350             Feuquières

3          Le Capable (Répétiteur)  50-54         250             La Boissière

3          Le Brave                       50-58         385             De Champigny

3          Le François                    44-46         262             Chev. d’Hailly

3          L’Agréable                     58-60         360             Le Motte

2          Le Florissant                  72-80         500             De Cogolin

fs                   La Diligente          6-10            30             Rolland

1          Le Grand                     80-86         660         Vice-Adm. Comte d’Estrées

fs                   Le Boutefeu         6            30             Jean-Étienne

2          Le Belliqueux                72-74         515             Des Francs

fs                   Le Royal-Jacques 6-10            30             Perron

4F             Le Léger                       44         200             Du Rouvroy

3          Le Prince                      56-58         365             Baron des Adrets

3          Le Prudent                    52-58         234             Des Herbiers

3          Le Modéré (Répétiteur)       50         315             Des Augiers

3          Le Fleuron                    54-58         339             De Chabert

2          L’Aimable                     66-70         450             Du Magnon

1          L’Intrépide                 80-84         600             Lt-Gén. Gabaret

fs                   La Maligne          6-10            30             De Reussy

2          Le Glorieux                  60-62         392             Belle-Isle Érard

2          L’Illustre                      66-70         472             Chev. de Rosmadec

2          Le Terrible                   72-74         515             CdE Pannetié

fs                   L’Extravagant         10           30             Longchamps-Montendre

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Maritime history, Naval history, Uncategorized Tagged With: Battle of Beachy Head, Beveziers, Frank Fox

The Birth, Death and Rebirth of a Royal Dockyard

13/01/2014 by J D Davies

(Cross-posted on my Welsh naval history site , britanniasdragon.com)

I spent the weekend in Pembroke Dock, attending the launch events for the bicentenary of the foundation of the Royal Dockyard in 1814. The yard was established to take advantage of the tremendous deep water harbour of Milford Haven, and was intended to be exclusively a building yard. During its history, it built over 200 ships for the Royal Navy, many of which had long or remarkable careers: they included the Erebus, which took part in the ill-fated Franklin expedition; huge ‘wooden walls’ like the Duke of Wellington; ironclads like Dreadnought (1875) and Thunderer; the armoured cruisers Warrior and Defence, which were sunk at Jutland; and no fewer than five royal yachts, including the great Victoria and Albert of 1899. (A full list of the ships built at Pembroke Dock can be found here.) The yard closed in 1926 – I’m currently working on an article about the closure – and later became a flying boat base, playing a prominent part in the Battle of the Atlantic.

HMS Duke of Wellington, launched at Pembroke Dock in 1852 as the Windsor Castle; the Duke died on the day of the launch, so she was renamed after him
HMS Duke of Wellington, launched at Pembroke Dock in 1852 as the Windsor Castle; the Duke died on the day of the launch, so she was renamed after him

 

The dockyard site was neglected for many years, and many of the buildings were cleared and built over, primarily when much of the site was converted to an Irish ferry terminal in 1979. But two of the original thirteen slipways remain, albeit without the iron covers that were the first ever to be installed in a dockyard, as do the dry dock and caisson, the mast pond, and a number of the dockyard buildings, including the fine row of officers’ houses and the dockyard chapel. The latter, which was restored a few years ago, was the venue for the weekend’s events, which centred on the premiere of a remarkable digital reconstruction of the dockyard as it was in about 1860. This was produced by the Digital Building Heritage group at De Mentfort University, Leicester, and it certainly generated a great deal of interest from both the invited audience on Friday and the general public on Saturday.

The other really positive thing about the weekend’s events, and about the bicentenary commemorations as a whole, is the extent to which the local community has become involved with them. A dynamic team has encouraged people to come forward with their own memories and materials – producing, for example, the diary of the last established workman to be employed in the royal dockyard – and to undertake their own research, for example into the history of their own houses. (The entire town was built from scratch from 1814 onwards to accommodate the dockyard workforce.) It struck me that this is a terrific example of how to involve local people in their heritage, and the numbers present on Saturday certainly suggest that it’s proving to be a tremendous success. I hope to be able to go down to Pembroke Dock for some more of the bicentenary events, and will report back both here and on Twitter!

Interior of the restored dockyard chapel
Interior of the restored dockyard chapel
The entrance to HM Royal Dockyard
The entrance to HM Royal Dockyard
Workers leaving the yard – 1890s or early C20th

Filed Under: Heritage preservation, Maritime history, Naval history, Welsh history Tagged With: Pembroke Dock

Labels in History, or Why Historians don’t Complete Arguments with ‘QED’

02/12/2013 by J D Davies

When this post goes ‘live’, I’ll be heading north to spend a week shut away on my own, brainstorming the plot of ‘Quinton 6’. (The first draft of book 5, The Battle of All The Ages, is currently out with its critical readers, and after I’ve made the inevitable revisions and redrafts, it should be on course for publication by Old Street Publishing on schedule in the spring / early summer.) For a variety of reasons, the sixth book is going to be very, very different to everything that’s gone before in the series, so watch this space for further information!

In the meantime, I’m delighted to welcome another guest blogger this week. Samuel McLean is a PhD student in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. His doctoral research is supervised by Dr Alan James, and examines the professionalization of the Royal Navy from its creation in 1660 to 1749. Samuel is also the Social Media Editor for the newly launched online naval and maritime history website www.BritishNavalHistory.com. He is active in the promotion of the academic uses of social media, and can be found on Twitter @Canadian_Errant. Current projects also include the podcast series “Making History” which will be available through the website.

So without further ado, over to Sam!

***

First, I need to thank David for providing me with this opportunity. I would not be at Kings, asking these questions, or able to make these arguments, without his encouragement and honest criticism.

Lately, I have often proclaimed, in the course of teaching or talking to my friends, that history is a performance art. The gist of my argument is that the study of history is not just about the accumulation of knowledge; it should also be about analysis, and the creation and communication of an argument. I have also realized that I don’t think that this original sentiment goes far enough to emphasize process over result. Clearly, I don’t have to tell anybody that historical education is not receiving anywhere near the level of funding or the priority that I and many of my historian colleagues feel it should be getting, at any level of education including universities. Part of the problem is that although I’m a historian by practice, I’m not part of a history department at King’s College London, but rather the Department of War Studies. Although the department originated from History, it has in the subsequent decades incorporated other disciplines such as social sciences, and fields of study like International Relations that lack a specific discipline. As a result, the War Studies BA (undergraduate) students are faced with a series of conflicting requirements and disciplines. This has created very specific reactions in the classroom. I am a Teaching Assistant for a 1st year basic survey course, “Conduct of War”, as well as for a 2nd year course on naval history. In both cases my primary tasks are to lead seminars (which are discussions) and to mark essays and provide feedback for students (formative, not substantive assessments). With my recent experiences teaching as well as experiences talking to senior academics and education researchers I have developed concerns about how history seems to be taught as a science, rather than an art.

I realize that sounds ridiculous, and inflammatory, but considering the way that history is structured, and way certain topics are taught give some credence to my concerns. Maths and sciences are taught in a very specific way. Students are taught the rules, formulas, provided the values of variables. Then they are handed a series of problems that they are expected solve using the formulas. Essentially, they are taught how to analyze a situation, and then to use the provided rules to find an absolute answer. It is clear to me that in many ways, students are being taught history in the same manner. I think that a major part of the modern approach to education is the creation of the correct, final answers; this is an approach that is anathema to the study of history. However, it is an approach that has taken hold. Consider the way that historians use labels and descriptions. One particularly vivid example from my past was one element of Ontario’s high school history curriculum “what were the four causes of the First World War.” The curriculum was looking for specific answers, and not arguments. Recently, my first year students have spent five weeks and several seminars discussing Michael Robert’s “Military Revolution” thesis. Much time was spent by the lecturer demolishing the thesis and its underpinning assumptions. Whether Roberts intended the “Military Revolution” to be the final answer or not, historians should not treat it as an attempt at such. The goal should not be to develop descriptions and labels that solve a particular historical problem, but rather to find precise, and as my colleague Katie Parker said “elegant” ways to communicate history arguments clearly and to also invite questions to propagate future analyses and arguments.

Some people I have discussed my concerns with have argued that is incumbent on the teachers and teaching assistants to ensure their students look beyond the explanations that they are given. While I agree, and do so in my seminars, it is clear that many undergraduate students feel that my approach to history implies extra work that cannot be accommodated given their course loads. As a result, often students won’t go beyond the simple answer presented by the label, or the framework to study the complexity. This raises my aspect of my concerns. After a recent academic event, a very senior historian and former naval officer opined much of the work produced by history students was essentially plagiarism due to the lack of original analysis and the reproduction of other historians arguments. Setting aside the implied academic misconduct, my colleague’s point was embodied by an encounter I recently had with one of my students, who handed me an essay for which they had clearly read many historical monographs and articles. However, the student neither used those sources to provide references for their personal analysis, nor provided a historiographical analysis. When I spoke to them in my office hours, they told me that they had been taught that history essays did were not supposed to include arguments from the student. On the same day, I was told that in the English academic tradition, the role of the lecture is not the transmission of information but rather the expression of the lecturer’s opinion. That practice can only contribute to a problem-solving approach to history.

I’m not arguing that historians shouldn’t create frameworks like The Military Revolution, just that the frameworks or labels should be a means, not an end. Instead, historians should create frameworks as a mechanism to organize their study and facilitate the creation of their arguments. The development of just such is the encapsulation of the experience of my PhD so far and my practice as a historian over the past several years. The difference between what I was attempting to do during my Masters research and my current Doctoral research is the link between my comprehension, practice and expression of the interdisciplinary aspects of my work. I was previously unsuccessful because although I had an innate understanding of the questions I was trying to ask I was not able to communicate to my professors, or the readers of my work what I was trying to do and their inability to understand my methodology rendered them unable to evaluate the arguments. In a very similar way, the most important changes that I’ve made within my PhD project was the movement from the use of a label to a description at the centre of my analytical framework.

Whether we recognize it or not, historians always create artificial frameworks to organize their arguments whether they be the sections of an essay, chapters of a thesis or a rubric. For my current study of the professionalization of the Royal Navy, I’ve created a number of these that describe, and break down the development processes. Unintentionally, this resulted in a loss of focus on the history itself Instead of describing the frameworks I use in my methodology, I placed them at the centre of my thesis statement. This affected the way that my chapters were being written, as well as the way that others understood my work. It became clear that this was an issue when I began receiving comments about concerns that my PhD was not “history” enough to defend successfully. I also struggled with the use of a label at the centre of my thesis. For months, I had argued that the Royal Navy was a corporate entity. I had needed to select a label because when I used the term ‘Royal Navy’ in my arguments I needed to communicate that I was not talking about men, or the materiel but something rather less tangible. Although this label did provide the required function, it did not accurately describe what the Royal Navy actually was. A colleague pointed out that the Royal Navy was never incorporated, cannot be attributed the same legal agency as a corporation. I needed to consider why I was actually using the term ‘corporate entity’, and as a result I decided that I didn’t need a label, I needed a description. By providing a description of the compound existence of Royal Navy instead, I found that I no longer needed to continually clarify what I meant when I used the label “Royal Navy” and my arguments because much easier to understand.

In both cases, the artificial frameworks that I created proved to be a distraction. Instead of simply being tools to help understand the analysis and arguments, they became arguments themselves. Their removal allowed me to refocus my work and clearly outline its place within the established historiography which in turn has resulted in the most recent responses to my work actually being on my arguments, where they should be.

Historians should be like the Borg; we should strive for perfection despite the knowledge that we’ll never read every single document or achieve the perfect turn of phrase to encapsulate a complex phenomenon. As we (historians) get better at describing what we are doing, the better we (historians) are able to analyze what we are seeing, and better able to communicate that analysis. But historians cannot forget that the result of historical study is not a final solution to a historical problem, but rather contributions to an ongoing discussion.

Filed Under: Historical research, Historical sources, History teaching, Maritime history, Naval history, Uncategorized Tagged With: Methodology, Military Revolution

Reclaiming the Past

21/10/2013 by J D Davies

Last Saturday, I attended the annual conference of Morol, the Institute of Welsh Maritime Historical Studies, in Cardiff’s glorious Pierhead building. This proved to be a stimulating and highly convivial affair, although the afternoon session was conducted against the backdrop of an almighty storm which caused flash flooding throughout Cardiff; indeed, the downpour was so torrential that it became quite difficult to hear some of the afternoon speakers. Luckily, I delivered my talk, on ‘Cardiff, Wales and Naval History’, well before the deluge began, as did Professor John Hines of Cardiff University, speaking on the archaeology of the city, and the broadcaster and writer Trevor Fishlock, who recounted some fascinating personal and historical anecdotes of the sea – notably of his passage in a yacht from Capetown to Melbourne via Antarctica. However, the talk which provoked the most response was that of Richard James of Maritime Heritage Wales, a relatively new body attempting to promote awareness and understanding of the country’s maritime past. His central point was that Wales has seriously neglected this important element of its heritage; for example, docklands have been turned over for redevelopment with little heed paid to their original role, and, in many cases, no extant interpretation of that role. This was very much the case in Cardiff, where the waterfront contains many trendy cafe-bars but no display panels explaining the history of the area. Indeed, one member of the audience observed pointedly that the much-vaunted regeneration of Cardiff Bay had involved filling in one of the most important and innovative 19th century wet docks in the world, then renaming the surviving depression ‘the Roald Dahl basin’, on the basis that the author was born, and spent the first eight years of his life, in the city; the approximate equivalent, perhaps, of renaming Edinburgh Castle ‘J K Rowling Towers’.

(Afficionados of science fiction will know the basin rather better as the site of Torchwood headquarters…)

Richard’s argument struck a real chord with me. In the conclusion of Britannia’s Dragon, for example, I complain that ‘local councils afflicted by a dearth of imagination and in thrall to rapacious developers can often think of nothing better to do with old docks than create in them largely empty marinas and populate the quaysides with blocks of ugly flats and national chain restaurants, usually providing little or no interpretation of the original heritage of the area’. True, this isn’t just a Welsh problem – I’ve referred in previous blogs to the phenomenally crass Gunwharf Quays development at Portsmouth, the dire disregard of the city’s naval heritage in Plymouth, and the completely inappropriate development proposed for the former royal dockyard site at Deptford. And yes, providing suitable, maritime-related alternatives for what are often very large sites can be difficult and expensive: the project to build a replica of the 17th century warship Lenox at Deptford, also referred to in previous posts, is a case in point, although Richard pointed out how the building and subsequent establishment as a tourist attraction of the replica famine ship Dunbrody has played an important part in regenerating New Ross in County Wexford. ‘World of Boats’, a new attraction in Cardiff docks which we explored at lunchtime, is an excellent example of appropriate, maritime heritage-related activity, but it occupies only a tiny fraction of the area – and not far away, yet another former dock is about to be transformed into ‘Porth Teigr’, full of yet more flats, shops, trendy cafe bars, and, umm, ‘the Dr Who Experience’. Yes, these are huge sites that clearly need commercial development to make them sustainable – but that doesn’t have to mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater and ignoring the previous heritage of the area.

On the other hand, it really isn’t difficult, or expensive, to provide good-quality interpretation of an area’s heritage. The week before last, we stayed in the Landmark Trust’s Saddell Castle on the Kintyre Peninsula (aka the castle in the background of Paul McCartney’s original Mull of Kintyre video). Saddell is a tiny place, but it has a good interpretation panel explaining the heritage of the village, especially of the ruined abbey which played an important part in the history of the Lords of the Isles. We also went across to the island of Islay and visited Finlaggan, the seat of the Lords, where a series of excellent display panels guide you around the site. These days, of course, it’s possible to harness digital technology, too – in the summer, we visited Lordenshaw in Northumberland, where interpretation of the fascinating Neolithic rock art can be accessed directly on mobile phones. Clearly, though, it needs initiative and direction to undertake such projects, and hopefully Maritime Heritage Wales and local organisations can provide it. There are already examples of good practice, such as the activities of the community heritage group in my own home town of Llanelli: they’re responsible for putting up over 40 blue plaques around the town, the latest of which – for the 19th century sports journalist John Graham Chambers, the actual writer of the ‘Marquess of Queensberry rules’ of boxing – has been sponsored by a certain historian and author. They’ve also put up a considerable number of large, detailed and well illustrated panels around the town, covering the history of particular areas: surely an example that other communities could and should follow.

To end on another positive note, Morol is launching a number of projects to improve awareness of maritime heritage in Wales. One, tied in to the World War I centenary, will investigate U-boat activity and wrecks in Welsh waters; another is the compilation of a Welsh maritime bibliography. I’ll be contributing to both of these projects, and, no doubt, will be blogging about their progress in the future!

Filed Under: Heritage preservation, Maritime history, Uncategorized, Welsh history Tagged With: Cardiff, Llanelli

Launching the Dragon

19/08/2013 by J D Davies

You are in an oak-panelled library, or, perhaps, a fine old bookshop, full of musty antiquarian tomes. All around you is a hubbub of lively, erudite conversation. You’ve tried to play ‘spot the celebrity’, but there are just too many – Huw over there, Jeremy in the corner talking to Melvyn and Polly. You sip your wine – an excellent choice, displaying the host’s good taste and refinement – and nibble some of those little sausages on sticks. The host rises to speak. You and the assembled guests chuckle at his fascinating anecdotes and witty asides. And then the moment that you’ve been waiting for finally arrives: the host raises a copy of his book and officially launches Britannia’s Dragon: A Naval History of Wales.

BDSo yes, OK, you’ve got me bang to rights – I didn’t get round to organising a launch party, so you’ll have to make do with this virtual one. But the important point is that the book is now out there, available (as they say) from all good bookshops and from online outlets whose tax affairs have sometimes been called into question. And I have to say, with quite stunning immodesty, that I’m delighted with it: the History Press did a terrific job on its design, and the cover in particular has already won high praise. I just hope the same proves to be true of the contents!

Seriously, though, the publication of a book is usually the end of a process. The author has put this particular project to bed, and has already moved on to his next one. But I don’t want that to be the case with Britannia’s Dragon. The whole point about this book is that it’s meant to be a beginning – the beginning of a much fuller exploration of a theme that’s been woefully neglected, namely the naval history of Wales. I know that there are things that I’ve left out, either because I didn’t become aware of them in time, or because I’ve still to become aware of them. There are already certain statements in the book that need to be amended or expanded in the light of new information that’s come to light since I completed it. So what I’ve decided to do is to launch a new blog-cum-website to build on the book, and to try and continue the process of raising awareness. The site is called, yes, Britannia’s Dragon, and it’s just gone live. So please head on over there, too, and if any of you have any material that might be relevant for it – guest blogs, original documents, photographs, anything within reason – I’d be delighted to hear from you! And in case you’re wondering, I’ll continue to blog regularly about other writing-related or historical themes on this site, although I might take the odd week out here or there if there’s a particularly large amount of material to put up on the new one.

So I declare both manifestations of Britannia’s Dragon, both the book and its online ‘extension’, well and truly launched! And yes, you can now get back to sipping that very nice virtual wine and nibbling the virtual sausages on sticks. Enjoy.

Filed Under: Maritime history, Naval history, Uncategorized, Welsh history Tagged With: Britannia's Dragon

The Cruel Sea

04/03/2013 by J D Davies

I spent last week in my home town of Llanelli in west Wales, visiting family, taking in some rugby, and meeting with the project team at Llanelly House. I had an update on progress – the plans for the house, which will open this summer, are really exciting – and provided them with some information from my 15 years of research into the history of the Stepney family, who owned the house; more on all this in future posts. But I also took the opportunity to go down to the local seashore, which has exerted an irresistible pull on me for as long as I can remember. On previous occasions in this blog, I’ve mentioned how dangerous this particular stretch of coast has always been. The Bristol Channel has the second biggest tidal range in the world, and in the Burry Inlet, on which Llanelli stands, this phenomenon is particularly marked. The inlet, formed of the estuary of the River Loughor, is about eight miles long and three miles broad at its widest point, but the tidal range on spring tides can be nearly eight metres. At high tide, therefore, the inlet is a broad stretch of water with a depth of perhaps six fathoms in the deepest channel, but at low tide, vast areas of the inlet are exposed as sandbanks. These contain valuable cockle beds, and the sands are so firm and extensive that professional pickers can drive their vans out several miles onto the sands. (The inlet’s other claim to fame is that it was where Amelia Earhart landed at the end of her ground-breaking Transatlantic flight; a modern memorial at Burry Port harbour, west of Llanelli, commemorates the event.)

Looking from Llanelli towards the north Gower coast at low tide

The navigable channels shift constantly, and Victorian efforts to construct a training wall for the deep water channel only accelerated the silting process. At the mouth of the inlet is the Burry bar, which has always constituted a difficult obstacle for shipping. Llanelli still managed to become a busy port, ultimately possessing four docks and surviving for over 150 years; it even experienced a brief resurgence in the 1970s. At its peak, it was visited by ships of up to 5,000 tons, but the navigation of the inlet was always treacherous. Inevitably, tragedies occurred, and the most terrible of these took place on 22 January 1868. The disaster that took place on that day deserves to be better known – indeed, it’s almost forgotten in the area itself, and no memorial to it can be found anywhere on the coast of the inlet. The following contemporary newspaper report provides a harrowing account of the tragedy, and serves as a reminder of the dangers faced by seafarers of all eras.

Dreadful loss of life on Burry Bar — Llanelly.

On Wednesday night, one of the most fearful shipping casualties occurred on the Gower Coast.

Nineteen or 20 vessels left Llanelly with the evening tide on Wednesday, towed by steam tugs. On nearing the bar, the tow-ropes snapped. Sail was made with all speed, but the wind having lulled, and the breakers on the bar being heavy, in consequence of the recent gale, the vessels were not able to get clear of the heavy sea then rolling in upon the shore. Night closed upon the scene and those who had witnessed the departure of the vessels hoped they would get clear of the dangerous breakers. This hope was not realised; the ships could not beat out to sea and finally they drifted upon the sands.

The survivors say that a more fearful night they never passed. Although the wind had gone down, the waves roared and rolled with fearful violence. Some of the ships got into collision and the result was that great destruction of life and property occurred, not however, through the collision, but for want of wind. They were left to the mercy of the waves which rolled tremendously high and, on receding, the vessels thumped heavily upon the sands.

The ‘Tamar Queen’, of Plymouth, and another were brought into Llanelly in the morning, leaking badly, but of the others the following were totally wrecked: the ‘Rocius’, ‘Water Lilly’, ‘Onward’, and ‘Brothers’, all of Llanelly; ‘Mary Fanny’, of Amlwch, ‘Ann’, of Bideford, ‘Huntress’, of Workington, and ‘St Catherine’, of Fowey. The crews of the ‘Rocius’, ‘Water Lilly’, and ‘Brothers’, and five men from the ‘Onward’ were saved; but the Captain (Clement), and his son, the Pilot (Christopher Lewis), and an apprentice were lost. The body of the captain has been recovered frightfully mutilated, as well as the body of the pilot. One boy only was saved from the ‘Mary Fanny’, who jumped to the boat when the pilot was leaving her. The Captain (Williams) was heard by parties on shore requesting them to throw something to him, which they did, but being dark they were not able to see him, and in a short time he was found on shore, but life was extinct.

It is not certain how many vessels and lives have been lost; a French vessel supposed to have been lost succeeded in making her way to a French port, and took with her the pilot (Daniel Rees). We trust we shall hear of others again. We need scarcely say that this disastrous catastrophe has created a mournful sensation throughout the entire district. Many of the unfortunate mariners belonged to the port of Llanelly, and their being wrecked within sight of their homes, and within an hour or two after leaving, renders it still more distressing. A correspondent who was present at the inquest says that Captain Roberts, of the ‘Brothers’, Llanelly, stated that he believed if there had been a lifeboat on board the light-ship, all the crews of the other ships might have been saved. He heard the cries of the drowning men, but could not render them any assistance, for nothing but a lifeboat could have ventured in such a sea.

After hearing evidence of one of the pilots and one of the men belonging to the ‘Ann’, the coroner summed up, and the usual verdict on such cases was returned.The jury requested the coroner to inform the authorities at Llanelly that they consider it necessary that the lifeboat be replaced on board the light-ship, and that signals should be placed on a high point of land at Cwm Ivy Toi.

The town’s first historian, John Innes (father of the famous artist, James Dickson Innes), provides some additional detail on the strange combination of conditions which led to the doomed ships encountering a huge swell, but having insufficient wind to give them the momentum to get over the Burry bar:

The greatest and most wholesale calamity to Llanelly shipping occurred in practically a dead calm, and in consequence of too little and not too much wind. In 1868 all the docks were full of wind-bound vessels long ready for sea…they went out into the channel in threes and fours, escorted by our tugs. One tug returning warned the outgoing strings of vessels to return, but this was regarded as a joke. Once over the bar a whole fleet of craft found themselves in Broughton Bay [north Gower] in an increasing ground swell of great violence. The sails simply flapped and did not fill. The vessels collided, went ashore, and bumped on the sands. The light air died away and they were helpless. Next morning the town was a town of grief and desolation. 

At least fifty-two lives were lost, and the remains of the wrecked ships littered the north coast of Gower for a long time thereafter.

Google Earth's view of the Burry Inlet, showing clearly the treacherous sandbanks and channels
Google Earth’s view of the Burry Inlet, showing clearly the treacherous sandbanks and channels

 

 

Filed Under: Maritime history, Uncategorized Tagged With: Llanelli, Shipwrecks

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