J D Davies - Historian and Author

The website and blog of naval historian and bestselling author J D Davies

Warships

The Return of Ranty McRantface

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[Note: those not interested in naval stuff, or in a good old-fashioned rant, can look away now, watch repeats of The West Wing or Jeremy Kyle on daytime TV, and come back next week instead.

On the other hand, if you’re not interested in naval stuff or good old-fashioned rants, what the heck are you doing here in the first place?]

 

So the first Type 26 frigate, the first major British surface warship to have been named for at least nine years (and has there ever been such a long hiatus in the entire history of the navy?) will be called HMS Glasgow.

We now know its name, but will its canteen serve deep fried Mars bars?

Enter, stage right, the cynics, who inevitably christened the new ship Frigatey McFrigateface; enter, stage left, perhaps the last thalasso-historically literate* journalist in the United Kingdom, who rightly points out the illustrious historical pedigree of the ship name in question.

Now, regular readers of this blog – hope the straitjackets aren’t too tight, folks – will know that I’m distinctly interested in the subject of warship names, and have previously blogged about it here and here. Oh, and an entire chapter of my new book Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Royal Navy, based partly on three other posts on this site, is devoted to the subject. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I venture into the fray once more, because at the current rate of ordering new warships, I may never get the opportunity to do so again.

So first, the good news. Making the new frigates a ‘City Class’ at least gets us away from the utter insanity of alphabetical naming (so no temptation for our current government to seek private sponsorship for a new E-class, thus giving us HMS Easyjet), and of naming major warships after the descendants of the illegitimate children of King Charles II.

Now, the bad news. Obviously, there’s no political motive whatsoever in giving the name Glasgow to a warship about to be built in, umm, Glasgow, a city which has voted overwhelmingly (and more than once) in the recent past for the SNP, at a time when talk of a second Scottish independence referendum is still floating around in the ether. Equally plainly, there’ll be no political motive whatsoever in naming subsequent ships of the class after cities which have significant numbers of marginal constituencies. Anybody take odds against a new HMS London, HMS Plymouth or HMS Sheffield? No, thought not.

An excellent image of an early HMS Torbay, exactly where you’d expect to find it – on a pub sign in rural west Wales

Actually, though, none of this is very new, because for over 300 years, geographical names have always been a surefire giveaway sign that those responsible for ship naming are playing safe. Although there had been earlier examples, the first great age of geographical naming was the 1690s, when the navy first acquired such ultimately iconic names as Cornwall, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and the only very recently retired Torbay, although that had specific political connotations at the time. In an age of profound political division, geographical names were largely uncontroversial, and ever since, they have always been the first resort of administrations desperate to prove that the navy is connected with the nation as a whole, particularly in eras of austerity. Witness, for example, the decision to give county names (and almost exclusively rural counties to boot) to the principal class of heavy cruisers built between the two world wars, to name classes of frigates built in the 1950s and 1960s after holiday resorts – off whose beaches they could anchor as obese sunburned tourists floated past them on pedalos – and to allocate geographical names to all but six of twenty-eight destroyers ordered between 1960 and 2017, and all but eight of thirty-one frigates ordered between 1975 and 2017. True, really big surface ships and submarines have always been named to different criteria (and thus have much more interesting names), but as the numbers of both have got smaller and smaller, so the proportion of geographical names in what some still euphemistically refer to as ‘the fleet’ has got larger and larger.

What all this means, of course, is that unless there’s a serious change of heart at some point, many of the great names of the Royal Navy’s history are very unlikely ever to sail again. There’s clearly no desire to name ships after great admirals any more (heroes, after all, only appear in blockbuster movies these days), so farewell Blake, Hawke, Howe, and all the rest. Classical names have evidently gone out of the window now school curricula ensure that most officers, let alone ratings, probably only associate Virgil with Thunderbirds and Homer with The Simpsons, so vale, Leander, Bellerophon and Minotaur. Battles, of course, run the risk of offending pretty much everybody we need to do post-Brexit trade deals with, so don’t even think of mentioning Agincourt, Armada, Matapan, or even Amethyst. (A reminder that we exchanged live fire with Communist China within living memory? What could possibly go wrong?). 

HMS Amethyst: making Liam Fox’s job more difficult since 1949

All of which leaves us with safe, boring, predictable geographical names, or at least, those safe, boring, predictable names that happen to make each successive cut as a new class is named. I doubt if any Ships Names Committee will ever be as bold as that of the 1960s which suddenly introduced brand new names in Glamorgan and Fife, but is it too much to hope for some names to accurately reflect modern Britain, rather than pandering to political agendas and lobbying from old shipmates who served on the last HMS Whatever and are determined to get a new one at all costs? It’s a curious fact, for example, that the most important city outside of the capital in Scotland now has the fourth major warship to be named after it in the last 100 years, whereas the most important city outside of the capital in Wales, Swansea, has never had a British warship named after it, and as for Northern Ireland and the nightmarish implications of reviving the name Londonderry…

(Actually, Northern Ireland demonstrates the flaw in the logic of using ‘City’ names, unless the DUP’s deal with Theresa May included a promise to name a frigate HMS Newry; after all, Belfast can’t be used for obvious reasons, while Antrim isn’t a city. So how, exactly, is the new class going to acknowledge Northern Ireland’s place in the Union?)

Finally, then, with nods to my good friends Drs Steven Gray, Sam McLean and Duncan Redford for ‘borrowing’ some of their ideas in this post, here’s my top ten of Royal Navy ship names that will never, ever, be used again – although we could certainly add Londonderry to it.

10. HMS Stayner (Sir Richard Stayner was a great captain of the period I work on, but even in 1943, how on earth did anybody think it was a good idea to name a ship after him?)

9. HMS Trollope (ditto, with apologies to the heroic Captain Sir Henry Trollope)

8. HMS Cockchafer

7. …and while we’re on the subject…HMS Cockatrice

6. HMS Daisy

5. HMS Grinder

4. HMS Buttercup

3. HMS Pansy

2. HMS Spanker

1. HMS Fubbs Yacht

And before you boggle at, or criticise, the number 1 on my list, let me ask you this one question.

What, exactly, are the circumstances in which you think a present-day Royal Navy Ships’ Names Committee would name a new warship after the reigning monarch’s mistress’s bum?

 

(* And before anybody thinks of pinching it, I’m copyrighting that expression.)

The Ghosts of Swarbacks Minn

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My fourth and final post about the naval heritage I visited during our recent holiday in Shetland…

By complete coincidence (honest!), our rented cottage looked out directly over Busta Voe, at the head of the Swarbacks Minn anchorage. During World War I, this was the base of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, responsible for enforcing the maritime blockade on Germany by patrolling the great North Atlantic gaps. The squadron initially operated the elderly Edgar-class cruisers, but these proved unable to cope with the sea conditions and were swiftly replaced by larger and faster armed merchant cruisers, which then formed the squadron until it was withdrawn in 1917. These were ships like HMS, formerly RMS, Oceanic, once the largest ship in the world, although her service proved to be brief: she was wrecked on Foula on 8 September 1914, and one of her propellor blades now stands sentinel outside the Shetland museum in Lerwick.

The propellor blade from the Oceanic

Quite a lot of information about 10CS’s operations can be accessed easily online, for instance here and here; there’s even a freely accessible doctoral thesis on the subject.

There’s now relatively little extant evidence of the one-time naval presence in Swarbacks Minn, but it doesn’t take much imagination to visualise the great grey hulls lying in this extensive stretch of water, which is over 100 metres deep in places, and several local history books and pamphlets contain some excellent photographs of the anchorage in its heyday. (One example illustrates this news story, about the local bakery that was established to supply the squadron.) Busta House, commandeered as an officers’ mess and shore headquarters for the admiral commanding 10CS – initially Sir Dudley de Chair – is now a very pleasant hotel, where we enjoyed a good meal.

(Today’s ‘not a lot of people know that’ fact: de Chair’s granddaughter is the wife of Tory MP and arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg.)

Busta Voe and the Busta House Hotel

Most evocative of all, though, are the gun emplacements on the island of Vementry, which stands on one side of the entrance to the anchorage. These still have their original six-inch guns in place; they were originally part of the armament of HMS Gibraltar of the Edgar-class, which became the depot ship for the base after her withdrawal from front-line service. We only viewed the guns from the opposite shore, on the island of Muckle Roe. It’s apparently possible to land on Vementry and inspect them close-up – see the photos here and here – but, sadly, it’s out of bounds in May, which is lambing season in Shetland!

The guns of Vementry

I’ll be exploring the history of the Swarbacks Minn base, and many other aspects of Shetland’s naval heritage, in much more detail in an article in the autumn issue of Dockyards, the newsletter of the Naval Dockyards Society. And we’ll definitely be returning to Shetland!

Dead Admirals Society (and Much, Much More) in New Zealand

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This week, I’m delighted to welcome back Sam McLean as my guest blogger! Sam runs the excellent British Naval History website, and recently paid a lengthy visit to New Zealand, where he has family. Over to you, Sam!

***

Occasionally, opportunities arise for rest and recreation to include some research. My recent trip to New Zealand proved to be particularly fruitful, and repeatedly I indulged in naval history.

Our arrival in Auckland coincided with 75th anniversary celebrations of the Royal New Zealand Navy’s formal founding. After Auckland, we proceeded north to the Bay of Islands, on the Eastern side of the peninsula that tops New Zealand’s North Island. The first interesting aspects of naval history that we encountered were in Russell, across the bay from Waitangi and Paihia. Russell at that time was known as Kororareka, and by the 1840s, this was a rough town, inhabited by whalers, merchants, missionaries, and convicts who had escaped from Australia. Imagine Mos Eisley in the South Pacific, and you’re not far off. One of the major reasons that the Maori engaged with the British was so that the latter could remove the corrupting influence that many individuals in Russell represented. This area is particularly important to New Zealand history, as it was a ‘capital’ for Maori in the North Island, and included where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in February, 1840. Indeed, Russell was the first capital of New Zealand after the signing of the treaty, before the new site of Auckland was selected in 1841, and administration moved there in 1842.

The British transition of the capital from Waitangi to Auckland was forcibly done by placing tariffs and taxes on ships that unloaded cargo in the Bay of Islands. This very much removed authority and influence from the Maori chiefs in the Bay of Islands. The Maori chiefs registered their displeasure by cutting down the flagpole in Kororareka multiple times. Eventually, this led to the ‘Flagstaff War’, and the almost total destruction of what is now Russell. Only Christ Church and the ‘Pompallier Mission’ survived the destruction of the town. The Royal Navy was involved in the ‘Flagstaff War’ due to the actions of HMS Hazard, a ‘Favourite Class’ sloop which was deployed to New Zealand and the Bay of Islands in 1844 and 1845. At Christ Church, two memorials are of particular interest.

Gravestone of Captain Charles Bell
Gravestone of Captain Charles Bell

The first is the grave of Charles Bell. Bell was born in 1799, and was commissioned as Captain of the Hazard in 1841. After several years service in Asia (including the Opium War), he remained Captain when the Hazard was deployed to New Zealand. Due to ill health, he remained behind in Auckland while his ship proceeded to Port Nicholson, now Wellington. When his health improved, he took passage on a government brig to the Bay of Islands. After arriving there in August 1844, he went on deck of the ship, and when his Steward went below decks, somehow Bell fell by the board. Efforts to rescue him took time, and he drowned. He was then buried in the graveyard at Christ Church.

 

In March 1845, the Hazard was involved in the ‘Flagstaff War’, and put a detachment ashore to assist a platoon of 96th Reg’t of Foot. In the Battle of Kororareka, 6 men from the Hazard were killed, including several of the ships’ Royal Marines Light Infantry detachment. Further details about this battle, and the role of the Hazard in the tension and conflict can be read on the RNZN Museum’s Website. In the first photo above is what may be the original memorial, which is now mounted inside Christ Church. In the photo beneath is the replacement memorial, now standing in the churchyard.

These were only some of the memorials linked to naval history in the Bay of Islands. HMNZS Canterbury was commissioned in 1971, decommissioned in 2005 and sunk in the Bay of Islands as a reef. One of her propellers is now mounted in Paihia as a memorial to that ship.

After departing the Bay of Islands, we drove to Rotorua with a two hour diversion to observe some naval history. This diversion was inspired by David’s book Britannia’s Dragon, which mentioned that the bell from the Pembroke is at St Bride’s Church, in Otorohanga.

Otorohanga is a town in the King Country, part of Waikato, several hours drive south of Auckland. It is effectively a market town for the many dairy farms surrounding it. At St Bride’s Church, they have the bell of the Pembroke. Launched in 1694 as a fourth-rate, she was captured by the French in 1709, recaptured in 1711, then sold to the Spanish in 1713. After active service with that navy, she sank in Buenos Aires. Somehow, her bell made it to New Zealand, where it was donated to the church by a local family. As can be seen from the photos, below, the Bell is displayed outside the church. At some point, it has been repaired.

Further historically-informed considerations of the travels in New Zealand can be found at BritishNavalHistory.com.

The Anglo-Dutch Fleet at the Battle of Barfleur/La Hogue 1692

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I’m delighted to be able to start the New Year with a really important guest blog from Frank Fox. Following on from his previous contributions on this site, which provided the most definitive listings of the fleets at the Battle of the Texel/Kijkduin (11/21 August 1673), Frank has now turned his attention to the twin battles of Barfleur and La Hogue in 1692. These were hugely important in both the immediate context of the ‘Nine Years War’ and the wider one of naval history as a whole: Admiral Russell’s victory both prevented probably the most realistic prospect of a full-scale pro-Jacobite invasion, and constituted one of the most spectacular and complete British naval triumphs before the age of Nelson. And yet, as Frank points out, our understanding of which ships actually fought in the battles is remarkably sketchy. That all changes right now, as I hand over to Frank!

(Note: the formatting of the lists below has been tested on two browsers, Chrome and Edge, but I can’t guarantee that they’ll retain the formatting on other platforms, especially mobile ones.)

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Many thanks to David Davies for making his site available.  The series of actions known as the Battle of Barfleur/La Hogue took place in the English Channel on 19-24 May 1692 (Old Style) or 29 May-3 June (New Style) between an outnumbered French fleet under the Comte de Tourville and an Anglo-Dutch force with British admiral Edward Russell in overall command and Philips van Almonde directing the Dutch.  Considering the importance of these events, it is surprising that the makeup of the fleets has been so imperfectly known.  The French battle line, at least, is well recorded and not repeated here – though an accounting of frigates and fireships is still lacking.  But the English and Dutch squadrons in modern printed and online works are chaotically inconsistent.  I have sought to remedy this here as far as possible.

For the Dutch, I have followed (with expanded details) a mostly ignored order of battle found by A L van Schelven in the records of the Admiralty of Amsterdam and published in 1947.  It is dated 17/27 May, when the fleet sailed from St Helens two days before the action.[1]  Modern researcher Carl Stapel found a closely related list in the Dutch National Archives in The Hague dated 16/26 May; it omits one ship through an apparent clerical error and shows a different disposition of frigates which was evidently altered the next day.[2]  Dutch journals mention no other arrivals before the fighting ended.

Van Schelven’s list is best verified from English records.  Extensive correspondence with Russell and Almonde is preserved in the papers of Secretary of State Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham and principal strategic advisor to Queen Mary.  These include many reports of ship movements and several invaluable Dutch fleet lists sent to Russell by Almonde at various times.  Nottingham and the queen also communicated often with officers of the Portsmouth-based Dutch winter guard which supplied eleven vessels to Almonde’s fleet.[3]  The English sources lend strong credence to Van Schelven’s list.

Numerous Dutch ships joined after the fighting ended on 24 May/3 June, and their arrival dates are nearly all recorded in Nottingham’s papers.  Most of these vessels appear on one or another of the printed or online orders of battle, so I list them here showing guns and captains.  As in the order of battle below, the letter before each ship’s name indicates the admiralty to which it belonged:  A for Amsterdam, M for the Maas (Rotterdam), N for the Noorderkwartier (North Holland), Z for Zeeland, and F for Friesland.

Arrived St Helens 24 May/3 June, but only sailed for La Hogue the next day:[4]

Z       Zierikzee                             64           Jan de La Palma

M      Maagd van Dordrecht         60           Matthijs Paradijs

 

Came to Dover 26 May/5 June requesting orders:[5]

N       Wapen van Hoorn             54           Jacob van Veen (joined fleet)

N       Valkenier                           42           Diest Cromhout (sent to North Sea)

N       fireship Brandenburg          ?            Andries Muijsevanger

 

Joined the fleet at Spithead 1/11 June after convoying (with three English ships) 60 merchantmen from Bilbao to Falmouth:[6]        

A       Haarlem                              64           Arnold Manart

A       Ripperda                             50           Herman Lijnslager

 

Joined before 6/16 June, possibly on 1/11 June with the Haarlem and Ripperda as the third

Dutch escort of the returning Bilbao convoy, though evidence is inadequate:[7]

F       Frisia                                    72           Hidde de Vries

 

Joined 6/16 June:[8]

F       Prins Casimir                       72           Anthonij van Lith

F       Stad en Lande                     52           Ross

A       Gaasterland                         50           Jan Middtagten

F       Brack                                   36           ?

Z       fireship Zon                           ?           Arend Vinck

 

For the Dutch squadron listed below, ships are given in normal order from van to rear as shown by Van Schelven and confirmed by Captain Philips Schrijver’s account, which specifically mentions that Vice-Admiral Callenburgh commanded the van division.[9]  The year built (or purchased for some fireships) is given to help distinguish the many Dutch warships with identical or similar names.  Guns and manning  (complements, not men aboard) for major ships are mainly from a list drawn up by Almonde on 8/18 May.[10]  Other data and captains not given by Van Schelven are from various sources.[11]  The abbreviation ‘S-b-N’ means schout-bij-nacht, or rear-admiral.  The Dutch battle-line included twenty-four ‘capital ships’ of 50 guns or more and three heavy frigates of 40-44 guns; eight smaller frigates of 16-38 guns and seven fireships were outside the line.

On the British side, Russell established his initial order of battle on 5/15 May, but issued a slightly updated order on 14/24 May.[12]  Laird Clowes printed the original or a closely related version in 1898 (in reverse order) and Clowes is still followed in some recent sources.[13]  But many ships on his list did not arrive in time for the battle, while others not listed did, and he mostly omitted light frigates and other small warships.  During the twentieth century some researchers and historians offered corrections and additions,[14] but more adjustments and details are still needed.  I have reexamined the Admiralty’s fleet distribution lists for May and June 1692,[15] correspondence and accounts of the participants from many sources,[16] and various ships’ logs.[17]  The result is the list below.

The ships are given as arrayed from van to rear.[18]  Guns and complements are from the Admiralty’s fleet distribution lists,[19] while men aboard are as of 14/24 May as reported by Russell the next day.[20]  Russell’s data are useful in showing the overall manning condition of the fleet, but are not the final figures for some ships because he reluctantly obeyed the Admiralty’s orders to transfer men from over-manned ships to under-manned vessels; the Vanguard, for instance, gained 32 men, making 612, by 16/26 May.[21]  Asterisks indicate captains killed.  The battle-line numbered 58 ships of 44 guns or more including (surprisingly) a fifth-rate.  Outside the line were four more fifth-rates, six sixth-rates, and a hospital ship.  There were 23 fireships on hand for the first day’s fighting, but another joined later.   Incidentally, two late-arriving vessels were nearly in time to find a place on the list below.  The third-rate York reached La Hogue just hours after the fighting ended on 24 May/3 June, and the third-rate Royal Oak came to St Helens the next day.[22] There is also an oddity:  Vice-Admiral Sir Ralph Delavall sowed confusion by specifically naming the fourth-rate Reserve as taking part in his attack at Cherbourg, but this was a misidentification; the ship was then leaving the Thames with orders to blockade Dunkirk.[23]

 

WHITE SQUADRON – DUTCH

 

Van Division, Vice-Admiral Callenburgh

Adm Built    Ship                                 Guns  Comp       Captain

M      1665    Zeven Provinciën                76      400        Evert de Liefde

M      1683    Kapitein Generaal               84      500        S-b-N Philips van der Goes

M      1688    Veluwe [24]                         64      335        Cornelis van Brakel

N       1691    Wapen van Medemblik       50      210        Jan Visscher

N       1690    Noord Holland [24]             68      350        Jacob de Jonge

N       1688    Kasteel van Medemblik      86      500        V-Adm Gerard Callenburgh

M      1691    Ridderschap                        72      375        Johan van Convent

A       1662    Harderwijk                           44      175        Justus van Hoogenhoeck

A       1688    Brandenburg [25]                92      500        Hendrik van Toll

Frigates, not in line

A       1688    Anna [24]                            36      150        Govert van Meppelen

A       1692    Wakende Boij                      26      100        Jan Varckenvisscher

N       1689    Herder                                16         60        Meijndert de Boer

Fireships

M      1692    Fenix or Vogel Fenix           ?         28        Willem Gerritsz. Klein

M      1691    Wijnbergen                          ?         22        Jan Freriks Presser

 

Centre Division, Lieutenant-Admiral Van Almonde

A       1688    Amsterdam [24]                 64      325        Cornelis van der Zaan

A       1683    Prinses Maria                     92      500        S-b-N Gilles Scheij

A       1672    Schattershoef [24]             50      210        Jan Barend van Wassenaar

A       1691    Elswout or Elsterwout        72      375        Louis, Graaf van Nassau

A       1687    Prins                                  92      540        Lt-Adm Philips van Almonde

A       1692    Slot Muijden                       72      375        Gerard van der Dussen

A       1687    Edam                                 40      165        Christiaan Bernhard, Graaf

van Bentheim

N       1682    Westfriesland                     88      475        S-b-N Jan Gerritsz. Muijs

A       1687    Leijden [24]                        64      325        Pieter Klaasz. Decker

Frigates, not in line

A       1677    Raadhuijs van Haarlem      38      150        Hendrik de Veer

A       1692    Batavier                              26      100        Jolle Jolleszoon

A       1675    Bruijnwis                             18         75        Jan, Baron van Nieuland

Fireships

A       1688    Vesuvius                               4         22        Gilles Jansz. Du Pon

A       1688    Strombolij                              6         22        Jan Herman van Troijen

A       1672    Etna or Berg Etna                 6         22        Cornelis Pieter Schuijt

 

Rear Division, Vice-Admiral Van der Putten

A       1688    Vlaardingen                         42      170        Rutger Bucking

M      1666    Gelderland                           64      325        Johan Willem van Rechteren

A       1663    Provincie v. Utrecht [26]      62      325        Abraham Ferdinand van Zijll

Z        1691    Eerste Edele [24]                74      400        Andries de Boer

Z        1688    Koning Willem                     93      525        V-Adm Carel van der Putten

A       1690    Zeelandia                             64      325        Philips Schrijver

Z        1688    Ter Goes [24]                      54      225        Maarten Barentsz. Boom

Z        1682    Zeelandia                            92      500        S-b-N Geleijn Evertsen

Z        1682    Veere [24]                           62      325        Cornelis Mosselman

Frigates, not in line

Z        1689    Zeijst [24]                            30      130        Steven Wiltschut

A       1675    Neptunis                               18         75        Daniel Ronkszen

Fireships

Z        1689    Etna                                      4           22        Samuel Des Herbes

A       1688    Zes Gebroeders [24]             6         22        Simon Jacobs de Jongh

 

RED SQUADRON – BRITISH

 

Van Division, Vice-Admiral Delavall

Rate  Ship                                Guns  Comp  Aboard    Captain

2       St Michael                           90       600      602        Thomas Hopson

3       Lenox                                  70       460      422        John Munden

4       Bonaventure                       48       230      216        John Hubbard

2       Royal Katherine                  82       540      510        Wolfran Cornwall

1       Royal Sovereign               100       815      840        V-Adm Sir Ralph Delavall

2nd Humphrey Sanders

3       Captain                                70       460      396        Daniel Jones

4       Centurion                             48       230      209        Francis Wyvell

3       Burford                                 70       460      422        Thomas Harlow

Fireships

Extravagant [27]                           10         40         41        Fleetwood Emes

Wolf [28]                                         8         45         35        James Greenway

Vulcan                                             8         45         44        Joseph Soames

Hound [28]                                      8         45         43        Thomas Foulis

 

Centre Division, Admiral Russell

3       Elizabeth                              70       460      357        Stafford Fairborne

3       Rupert                                  66       400      252        Basil Beaumont

3       Eagle                                    70       460      390        John Leake

4       Chester                                48       230      172        Thomas Gillam

1       St Andrew                            96       730      730        George Churchill

1       Britannia                            100       780      940        Adm Edward Russell

1st David Mitchell

2nd John Fletcher

1       London                                 96       730      780        Matthew Aylmer

4       Greenwich                            54       280      233        Richard Edwards

3       Restoration                           70       460      380        John Gother

3       Grafton                                 70       460      380        William Bokenham

4       Dragon [29]                          46       220          —       William Vickars

Fireships

Flame                                             8         45         43        James Stewart

Roebuck                                         8         45          —        Francis Manley

Vulture                                            8         45         37        Hovenden Walker

Spy                                                 8         45         41        John Norris

 

Rear Division, Rear-Admiral Shovell

3       Hampton Court                   70       460      434        John Graydon

3       Swiftsure                             70       420      370        Richard Clarke

4       St Albans                            50       280          —       Richard Fitzpatrick

3       Kent                                    70       460      401        John Neville

1       Royal William                    100       780      880        R-Adm Sir Clowdesley Shovell

2nd Thomas Jennings

2       Sandwich                             90       660      606        Anthony Hastings*

4       Oxford                                  54       280      275        James Wishart

3       Cambridge                           70       420      400        Richard Lestock

4       Ruby                                    48       230      200        George Meese

Fireships

Phaeton [30]                                 8         45         40        Robert Hancock

Fox [30]                                        8         45         33        Thomas Killingworth

Strombolo                                     8         45         31        Thomas Urry

Hopewell [30]                               8         40         45        William Jumper

 

 

BLUE SQUADRON – BRITISH

 

Van Division, Rear-Admiral Carter

3       Hope                                     70       460      362        Henry Robinson

4       Deptford                                50       280      240        William Kerr

3       Essex                                    70       460      391        John Bridges (elder)

2       Duke                                     90       660      640        R-Adm Richard Carter*

2nd William Wright

2       Ossory                                  90       660      590        John Tyrrell

4       Woolwich                              54       280      270        Christopher Myngs

3       Suffolk                                  70       460      382        Christopher Billop

4       Crown                                   48       230      220        Thomas Warren

3       Dreadnought                         64       365      309        Thomas Coall

3       Stirling Castle                        70       460      356        Benjamin Walters

4       Tiger Prize [31]                     48       230      168        Robert Sincock

Fireships

Thomas & Elizabeth [32]               10         40         33        Edward Littleton

Vesuvius                                          8         45         43        John Guy

Hunter                                              8         45         36        Thomas Rooke

Hawk                                                8         45          —        William Harman

 

Centre Division, Admiral Ashby

3       Edgar                                   72       445      352        John Torpley

3       Monmouth                            66       460      395        Robert Robinson

2       Duchess                               90       660      680        John Clements

1       Victory                                100       780      767        Adm Sir John Ashby

2nd Edward Stanley

2       Vanguard                              90       660      580        Christopher Mason

5       Adventure                             44       190      145        Thomas Dilkes

3       Warspite                               70       420      340        Caleb Grantham

3       Montagu                               62       355      343        Simon Foulkes

3       Defiance                               64       400      324        Edward Gourney

3       Berwick                                 70       460      381        Henry Martin

Fireships

Speedwell                                      8         45         40        Thomas Symonds

Griffin                                             8         45          —        Robert Partridge

Etna                                               8         45         43        Richard Carverth

Blaze [28]                                      8         45         45        Thomas Heath

 

Rear Division, Vice-Admiral Rooke

3       Lion                                       60       340      249        Robert Wiseman

3       Northumberland                    70       460      410        Andrew Cotton

4       Advice                                   48       230      193        Charles Hawkins

2       Neptune                                90       660      682        V-Adm George Rooke

2nd Thomas Gardner

2       Windsor Castle                     90       660      750        Peregrine Osborne, Earl

of Danby

3       Expedition                            70       460      430        Edward Dover

3       Monck                                  60       340          —       Benjamin Hoskins

3       Resolution                            70       420      289        Edward Good

2       Albemarle                             90       660      655        Sir Francis Wheeler

Fireships

Half Moon [32]                               8         35          —        John Knapp

Owner’s Love                               10         40          —        John Perry

Cadiz Merchant [30]                     12         45          —        Robert Wynn

Lightning                                         8         45          —        Lawrence Keck

 

Light Frigates and Small Warships, not in line

5       Falcon                                  42       180          —        Nathaniel Browne

5       Mary Galley                          34       160          —        Richard Griffith

5       Charles Galley                     32       180          —        Joseph Waters

5       Portsmouth                          32       135          —        John Bridges (younger)

5       Concord hospital [33]          30         45          —        Ralph Crow

6       Sally Rose                           22         80          —        Thomas Pound

6       Greyhound                           16         75          —        William Kiggins

6       Saudadoes                           16         75          —        William Prower

6       Fubbs yacht                          12         40          —        John Guy

6       Salamander bomb                10         35          —        Thomas Pinder

6       Shark brigantine [34]        4+8p         30          —        Jedediah Barker                          

 

 

Notes

 

  1. A L Van Schelven, Philips van Almonde, Admiraal in de Gecombineerde Vloot 1644-1711 (Amsterdam, 1947), 211, citing Adm. XI, 27).
  1. Carl Stapel, unpublished note, citing Nationaal Archieven, Archief Admiraliteitscolleges, Losse Aanwinsten, NA 1.01.47.36 inventaris 6.
  1. Historical Manuscripts Commission [HMC], Report on the Finch Manuscripts, vol. iv, 1692, F Bickley ed. (London, 1965). Many of the originals are in the Leicestershire Record Office [LRO], DG7 NM27, including Dutch fleet lists of 11/21 March, 8/18 May, 14/24 May, and 7/17 June.  Others including Dutch letters from the Portsmouth squadron are in the National Archives at Kew [TNA], SP 42/1 (Secretary of State, State Papers Naval), with ship lists of 6/16 April (pp. 108 and 112) and one from Almonde of 1/11 May (pp. 150 and 154).
  1. Finch iv, 183.
  1. Ibid., 187.
  1. Ibid., 26 (listing these two ships among the winter guard at Portsmouth), 173, 198; TNA ADM 52/123, Pearl master’s log, mentioning two Dutch escorts of 64 and 50 guns.
  1. TNA ADM 51/3932, Pearl captain’s log, reporting three Dutch escorts; Finch iv, 26 (11/21 March) does not list the Frisia in the winter guard, but the original in LRO DG7 NM27 shows that Almonde had no information on ships of Friesland; Finch iii (1957), 265 and 286, suggests that she might indeed have been in the winter guard, as were most of the others listed with her.
  1. Finch iv, 211-12; the printed list of 7/17 June erroneously omits the Haarlem (see above), but she is on the original in LRO DG7 NM27.
  1. Europische Mercurius (Amsterdam), June 1692, 184-5.
  1. LRO DG7 NM27, accompanying a letter from Russell to Nottingham of 9/19 May.
  1. J C de Jonge, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen, vol. iii (Zwolle, 1869), 721-2 and 730-49 (Bijlagen I and VII-XIX); A Vreugdenhil, Ships of the United Netherlands 1648-1702 (Society for Nautical Research, London, 1938); Europische Mercurius, June 1692, 150-196; J Bender, Dutch Warships in the Age of Sail 1600-1714 (Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley, 2014); and valuable unpublished information from researchers Carl Stapel and James Bender.
  1. HMC The Manuscripts of the House of Lords, 1692-1693, F J H Skene and E F Taylor eds (London, 1894), 225-9 for the 14 May list, 198-237 for other relevant papers; see also Finch iv, 122.
  1. W Laird Clowes, The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to the Present, vol. ii (London, 1898), 348-9.
  1. Notably W B Rowbotham, ‘The Devonshire and the Battle of Barfleur’, in The Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 44 (1958), 252; and P Aubrey, The Defeat of James Stuart’s Armada 1692 (Leicester University Press, 1979), 175-180. More recently, researcher Razvan Lipan has posted improvements in the Battle of Barfleur entry in the Romanian Wikipedia (ro.wikipedia.org).
  1. TNA ADM 8/3.
  1. Especially Finch iv, 170-185; R Allyn, A Narrative of the Victory . . . Near La-Hogue (London, 1744); and Europische Mercurius, June 1692, 150-196.
  1. TNA ADM 51 and 52, many volumes.
  1. The order is apparent from several logs and accounts, but particularly obvious from S Martin-Leake, The Life of Sir John Leake, G Callender ed. (Navy Records Society, London, 1920), 48.
  1. TNA ADM 8/3.
  1. House of Lords, 227-9; guns and complements added by the editors were from unreliable sources.
  1. Ibid., 225-6; Aubrey, 84.
  1. Finch iv, 183-4
  1. Ibid., 185; TNA ADM 8/3; Delavall’s account: Allyn, 55; or London Gazette no. 2769, 23-26 May 1692.
  1. From the winter guard at Portsmouth. These are mostly given by Almonde in his list of 11/21 March of ships planned for the main fleet in LRO DG7 NM27 (printed in Finch iv, 26); of these, the Maas was sent home and Almonde omitted the Amsterdam and frigates Anna and Zeijst.
  1. Also called Keurvorst van Brandenburg.
  1. Guns are from 1688; in 1692 all Amsterdam ships of 62-64 guns were assigned 325 men. Captain Van Zijll was the commander in the North Sea and joined the fleet on 15/25 May “with some of that squadron” (Finch iv, 162).  The frigates Harderwijk, Vlaardingen, and Herder plus the fireship Etna (of Zeeland) probably came with him from his command, but the Wapen van Medemblik that arrived about the same time had been intended for the main fleet from the start.
  1. Set afire by a French shot and destroyed at Barfleur 19/29 May; Aubrey, 104; D J Hepper, British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail 1650-1859 (Jean Boudriot Publications, Rotherfield, 1994), 15.
  1. Expended at Cherbourg 22 May/1 June; London Gazette no. 2769, 23 May 1692; Allyn, 56; Aubrey, 114; Hepper, 15.
  1. Station unknown but this division is implied by TNA ADM 51/269, Dragon captain’s log.
  1. Expended unsuccessfully at Barfleur 19/29 May; Aubrey 176-7; Hepper, 15; Allyn, 36.
  1. This division, station unknown; TNA ADM 51/4371, Tiger Prize captain’s log; House of Lords, 227.
  1. Ran ashore and burned at La Hogue 24 May/3 June; Finch iv, 300 and 514; Aubrey, 118-21 and 180; Hepper, 15. The Half Moon was not present at Barfleur 19/29 May.  Late leaving the Thames, she passed through the Downs 21/31 May; TNA ADM 51/3890, Lark captain’s log.
  1. Hospital ships were classed as fifth-rates for officers’ pay scales.
  1. She had 4 carriage guns and 8 ‘pedreroes’, or light swivels; TNA ADM 8/3.

 

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Carl Stapel and Jim Bender for helping with details of the Dutch squadron, Richard Endsor and Sylvia Spalding for photographing documents in the National Archives, and Paul Ambrose of the Leicester Record Office for hunting down many hard-to-find papers.  Finally, I am most grateful to David Davies for his encouragement – and for his indefatigable efforts at getting the pesky columns in these tables to line up!

(Thanks Frank. A nice Speyside this time, I think. – D)

 

 

 

 

The Warship Anne

by

This week, I’m delighted to welcome Richard Endsor as my guest blogger! Richard will be known to many of you as the leading authority on the design and construction of seventeenth century British warships. His book The Restoration Warship, focusing on the Third Rate Lenox of 1677, has justly become a classic, and has, indeed, inspired an ongoing campaign to build a modern replica of that great ship at Deptford, on the site of the dockyard where the original was built. He has a new ‘big book’ coming soon, as he explains at the end of this post, but he’s also found the time to produce a new work about the Lenox‘s sister ship Anne, the remains of which, exposed at particularly low tides at Pett Level on the Sussex coast, constitute the largest survival of King Charles II’s navy. I’ve visited the site myself and have blogged about it more than once on this website – have a look here and here. So now, over to Richard to explain more about his new book on the Anne!

***

Inspired by David Davies’s recent blog about his new book, Kings of the Sea, I asked him if he would be so kind and gracious enough to allow me to do a similar bit of blatant self-promotion for my own new book about the seventeenth century navy. Although we have long been friends with a similar interest, we are in no way rivals. He will, in his new book, brilliantly grasp the overall view of the Navy as if he were himself, a long serving Lord of the Admiralty. [Note: I’ve paid him absolutely nothing for this bit, honestly – D] I on the other hand, am down in the dirty dockyard worrying about scarphing of futtocks and how ships were built. Our previous non-fiction works, Pepys’s Navy and Restoration Warship, which came out at about the same time a few years ago, complemented each other.

My new book, The Warship Anne, will similarly complement Kings of the Sea. Work started on it a couple of months after a conference “All about the Anne” was held in July last year at St Clement’s Church, Hastings. Needless to say, David Davies attended and was a sparkling speaker at the event. [Nor for this bit – D] The Warship Anne book is 160 pages long and 250mm square, or nearly 10 inches in old fogies’ terms. It contains about images 150 images, all in full colour of which about 100 were created by me.  I completed the book in only nine months and my publisher, Bloomsbury, with whom it has been such a pleasure to work with, reckon they will have it on the bookstands by 25 February next year. Please don’t gasp in admiration at this remarkable productivity as I have been researching and painting the Anne over a period of some 25 years. I am involved in the Anne as the technical historian for the Warship Anne Trust which owns her, a subsidiary of the Nautical Museum’s Trust. The Trust also runs the Shipwreck Museum in Hastings. The book was written to publicise the surviving remains of the ship as widely as possible. I am so grateful to Bloomsbury who have helped a great deal by keeping the retail price down to only £25 a copy.

The Anne is sometimes visible at low tide at Pett Level, near Hastings and is one of the most important shipwrecks along the southern coast of England. The whole of the lower hull survives intact, as shown in the second image, and is the most substantial known remaining shipwreck from the Navy of Charles II and Samuel Pepys. She was lost in 1690 after the Battle of Beachy Head, while defending the country from invasion. Sadly, her remains and the men who died aboard her are now largely forgotten. The battle prevented a French invasion which, had it been successful, would have dramatically and permanently changed English and European history.  The exiled Catholic King James II would have been restored to the throne, his Catholic faith almost certainly imposed and the country dominated by the French.

Although the importance of Beachy Head ranks alongside the Armada Campaign and the Battle of Trafalgar, it was not a glorious victory to celebrate and be remembered. In fact the outnumbered English and Dutch allies were forced into ignominious retreat during which the dismasted Anne was run ashore between Rye and Hastings.  She became the only English loss when she was burnt to prevent capture.

My book follows the history of the Anne in chronological order. The first chapter deals with the events that led up to her building in 1678 as part of a new fleet of 30 ships. A fleet that would see the start of the British Navy’s domination the world’s oceans until the end of the days of sail. The ships were built a few years after the end of the third Dutch war. A war that was pursued by King Charles after the Dutch made their famous raid on Chatham dockyard at the end of the second Dutch war. The Dutch raid on Chatham followed the less famous English attack on the Dutch merchant fleet in the Vlie, known as Holmes’s bonfire. If you’re Dutch, it might be best if you skip the rest of this chapter as I found, to my surprise, that the damage done by Holmes’s bonfire was much greater than the damage done by the Dutch raid on Chatham. Not only that, but it caused the enraged Charles II to join the French and pursue the third Dutch war to the ruin of the Dutch economy. I reckon the Chatham raid was the Dutch ‘Pearl Harbor’ and it turned out to be as much a disaster for them as it was for the Japanese. A controversial view I know, but I examined the losses in terms of the well documented value of ships, something which appears not to have been done before.

In the second chapter, Phineas Pett II who built the Anne, offers himself as a character whom a fiction author would have difficulty inventing. [We’ll see! – D] A likeable rogue who lets his perceived success go to his head to the annoyance of all those about him: except King Charles, with whom he has much in common. He receives an amusing come-uppance came at the hands of Mrs Elizabeth Brooker to whom his wife owed money. Just as interesting is the building of the Anne. The delays and difficulty Pett had in finding keel pieces were found in the extensive historic record as were many, many other details of the ship’s construction. The most rewarding discovery for me, was recently finding and being able to interpret the actual recorded lines of a sister ship of the Anne, built by Pett to the same draught. From them a reconstructed draught of the Anne was made, which is of course included in the book.  Also printed across two pages is an image of the contemporary model of another sister ship, probably the Elizabeth. The image is photographic but all the distortions of perspective have been removed so that it is a true draught. Also included are the ship’s recorded hull lines traced from the models frames. The book also includes the complete draughts of another of the 30 ships made by Thomas Fagge in about 1680.

Chapter three and four takes the reader through the history of the Anne up until 1688. After launch, she and all the other new ships suffered from decay and repairs were made led by a commission under Samuel Pepys. There followed a voyage in 1687 when she acted as the flagship of a small fleet taking a German princess to Lisbon to marry the King of Portugal. From there she went on into the Mediterranean to confirm peace treaties with the Barbary States and negotiate the release of slaves. With the serious business finished, she visited the Grand Harbour, Malta, a view of which is shown on the book cover painting. During her voyage all sorts of stories emerge: King James’s fascination with Anne’s troublesome experimental pumps, special moveable steps made for the queen to leave Anne with dignity, John Shaw from the Pearl being tried aboard for murder, and a girl slave named Sarah Hawkins freed and her name entered into the Anne’s pay book. The most significant series of events for the ship was the continuing failure of her rotten masts and rigging. Some of the most important ropes stretched and became an inch thinner in circumference. The tops of the masts split for which special iron hoops had to be made to strengthen them. Pepys was ultimately responsible as his commission had supposedly repaired the ship. It resulted in a bitter dispute between him and Cloudesley Shovel, the Anne’s captain, which reveals how devious Pepys could be. He set up his own enquiry, which unsurprisingly found that no ship could be better fitted out.

The following chapter, chapter five, concerns the Battle of Beachy Head. It is painful to read of the damage inflicted on both the French and English ships near the head of the Blue squadron where the Anne was stationed.  Exposed and outnumbered, she was gradually shot to pieces until her masts were lost. Twenty nine men were killed while awful wounds were inflicted on 41 others. Even after all this time, some of the sadness suffered by the men’s families can still be felt. Barbra Cunningham from Jarrow was pregnant when her husband, Thomas, joined the Anne as an Able Seaman. He was killed in the battle before Barbra gave birth. Barbra named her baby daughter Thomasin, in honour of her dead father.

I was lucky in that so much documentation remains concerning the guns of the Anne. Magnificent brass guns were given to her when she went to the Mediterranean with a reduced armament of 62 guns. The 70 iron guns used at Beachy Head are also recorded and I have produced many drawings showing them and their gun carriages, as well as drawings showing where the guns were mounted. Two guns survive today that probably served aboard her.

Finally, the last chapter deals with the Anne today, the archaeology and the hopes for preserving her. I also cover the extent of her remains and ownership by the Warship Anne Trust. Lengthy appendices give details of all the timbers used in ships of her type, together with the transcription of a contract for building a similar ship.

With The Warship Anne book completed, I have returned to my long term project. This is The Master Shipwright’s Secrets, a work dealing with the practices used by the master shipwrights when designing ships. The book is very nearly finished and with any luck, will also be out next year.

The Return of That Other Guy

by

Conference season again. Last week – ‘Statesmen and Seapower’ at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth. This week – Naval Dockyards Society conference at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Next week – hitting my head slowly and repetitively against a wall in yet another attempt to remind myself that agreeing to give papers at two conferences just a week apart is a staggeringly stupid idea. Looking further ahead, though, I’ll also be speaking at a ‘conference by any other name’ in Hastings on 4 July, of which more anon, and will also be off to the big conference on the Tudor and Stuart Age at the National Maritime Museum later in July, albeit this time as a common-or-garden delegate.

A couple of years ago, I posted a delegate’s guide to maritime history conferences, so here’s my summary of the ‘Statesmen and Seapower’ conference using the criteria that I set out there.

  1. Purpose – all boxes ticked and principal criterion met, i.e. ‘academic historical conferences exist solely so that delegates can meet up again with people they met at previous conferences, and to bitch about the people who haven’t turned up to this one’.
  2. The Conference Programme – ‘One of the most abiding laws of conferences is that the programme is never, ever, right.’  Well, this time it was, thanks to the excellent organisation by Duncan Redford and Simon Williams, although it was unfortunate and beyond the organisers’ control that several speakers had to withdraw at the last minute for personal reasons.
  3. The Graveyard Shift – Tell me about it; I was speaking in the last session of the day, when delegates were keen to get to HMS Victory for drinks on the quarterdeck. No pressure on timing at all, then.
  4. Sleep – Less of an issue at this conference than at many I’ve been to in the past, except during the one paper that overran. And overran. And overran some more.
  5. Victuals – Dinner on the lower gun deck of Victory, on mess tables slung in between the cannon. Let’s face it, for an experience like that, it wouldn’t matter if you were eating rancid pigeon burgers – not that the caterers’ splendid fare resembled them in any way.
  6. That Guy – You know the one I mean. He’s the one who always asks a question, whatever the topic is. He usually sits at or near the front. The question will be very, very long, and will often bear no relationship to the topic. Or else it won’t be a question at all, and will be an extremely long-winded anecdote based on the individual’s own experience, which, again, usually has no relevance whatsoever to the topic under discussion. Yes, he was there.
  7. That Other Guy – Yes, so was he. (See the original post.)

My own paper was entitled ‘The British Navy under the Later Stuart Monarchs: Royal Plaything or Instrument of State Policy’. It looked at the role of Charles II and James II in naval affairs, and drew in part on some material I’ve previously published in this blog – notably in my three posts (this one, this one, and this one) on the naming of Stuart warships. I was on a panel with Alan James, who was looking at very similar questions in relation to Louis XIV’s France, and Gijs Rommelse, who examined the use of the navy in the ideology and imagery of Dutch republicanism. By coincidence, these papers dovetailed remarkably well with a couple of those in the previous session: Beatrice Heuser’s on the sixteenth century origins of English naval strategy, which covered aspects of the ‘sovereignty of the sea’ and the importance of the ‘myth’ of the Anglo-Saxon king Edgar that I then continued in my talk, and Benjamin Redding’s on aspects of English and French naval policy from the 1510s to the 1640s, which raised the question of the political importance of ship names that I continued to develop in my paper. I’ve never known such completely coincidental dovetailing to work so well at a conference!

Anyway, I’m looking at a completely different theme on Saturday, at a NDS conference focusing on the royal dockyards during the Napoleonic Wars. I’m talking on ‘The Strange Life and Stranger Death of Milford Dockyard’ – an odd tale of xenophobia and political skullduggery during the brief history of the short-lived predecessor of Pembroke Dockyard, featuring such figures as one of the principal characters from The Madness of King George, Sir William Hamilton, and, yes, Horatio Nelson himself. My paper is also a bit of a ‘detective story’, in which our intrepid hero sets out to discover whether anything actually remains of undoubtedly the least known royal dockyard in the British Isles.

Finally, to Hastings on 4 July, and what promises to be a fascinating day entitled ‘All About the Anne‘ – the wreck of an important Third Rate man-of-war of Charles II’s navy, lost during the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690, and the subject of several previous posts (here, here, and here) on this site. This study-day-cum-conference is taking place under the auspices of Hastings’s splendid Shipwreck Museum, and will feature a number of talks about the ship herself and her times. I’ll be speaking on ‘Pepys’ Navy’, and will also be reading Frank Fox’s important study of the ship losses during the battle, which first appeared in this blog and provides an almost certainly definitive identification of the so-called ‘Normans Bay wreck’. So if you fancy a day at the seaside, complete with ice cream, Punch and Judy, and some seventeenth century naval history, then head down to Hastings in July!