June 2011 Edited by Jonathan Seagrave EDITORIAL 3 REPORTS
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83 The Newsletter of the SOUTH WEST MARITIME HISTORY SOCIETY ` ISSN 1360-6980 CONTENTS –NO. 83 – June 2011 Edited by Jonathan Seagrave EDITORIAL 3 REPORTS OF MEETINGS Swansea 21st May 6 ARTICLES Newspapers On Line Gary Hicks 8 REVIEWS Closing Down Sail Martin Benn rev. David Clement 13 Dynasty of Engineers NLHT rev. Mike Bender 15 Hero of the Fleet William Stone rev. J Seagrave 16 BOOKS RECEIVED 18 LETTERS NOTES AND NEWS 19 WEBERY 27 WELCOME ABOARD 33 UPCOMING EVENTS 36 OFFICERS and COMMITTEE back cover WEBSITE. http://www.swmaritime.org.uk/ Individual contributions © Individual contributors. Entire journal © South West Maritime History Society 2011. Views expressed are the authors’ and not necessarily those of the Society or editor. 1 Irene passes under Tower Bridge © Laithwaites wines ( See Notes and News) Annual Subscriptions Due 1st April. £14.00 or £12 if paid by Standing Order. Students can take advantage of our special annual subscription of £7. 2 EDITORIAL Firstly, my apologies for the small print in SWS82- this was unintentional, and a result of undue haste in getting the magazine out with calling notices. Your Editor has duly lost pay and rum ration! The Committee has been considering matters of governance and strategy. At the AGM, proposals to update the constitution in line with recent Charity Commission recommendations were agreed. Our thanks are due to Helen Doe for undertaking the laborious task of identifying the differences between our current Constitution-itself approved at the time by the Commission- and the new model version. Unsurprisingly in this day and age, it is about 3 times as long, but actually says pretty much the same things. Nonetheless, it is right we should keep in line with changing ideas about best practice. It does sharpen the duties of the Trustees. Old and new versions are on the website. In total there are around 20 pp. Anyone wanting hard copy should contact the Secretary, George Stephenson, with a large A4 sae and preferably, something to cover printing costs. One change from the Commission model is that we have agreed to exclude the model provisions for holding property. This is in line with previous discussion where members were clearly not in favour of the Society being directly involved with preservation. We expect to continue as an “information” organisation. It was felt that, if anyone were to give us a large sum, we would need to consult you all, and there would certainly be time to amend again if necessary. Also, if additional resources were to become available to us we would, without change, have the opportunity to enhance our existing modest programme of grants and awards. There is no shortage of organisations we could support ! 3 Dale Thomas, our Chairman, has also proposed that the Committee undertake a wider review of the Society’s activities and options for the future. In this we are following in the footsteps of the SNR, which has been similarly engaged. Dale introduced this at the AGM, and any member with views should send these to Dale as soon as possible. One of the driving forces for change is technology. Members will recall our limited experiment with Echoes some years ago. Pongo was perhaps ahead of time, but there is no doubt that Kindle and other e- readers have now taken off, are entirely practical, and will change the way all publishing is done- already more books are sold by Amazon in the US as Kindle downloads, than in print. As an initial step we will, from around end of the year, make Soundings available as a pdf on the member side of the website. If any member would like to try out Soundings on an e-reader before then, please get in touch, I will email a pdf, or you can download SWS82 from the events section. It would be most useful to have feedback sooner rather than later. Experience to date suggests that landscape (sideways) is easier to read. We are looking at possibly block booking for the Queens Jubilee parade on the Thames on 3rd June next year. Places on moored up vessels are more likely to be available. It is unlikely to be cheap, but should be very memorable. It would help enormously if you could indicate initial interest asap, as places are likely to be taken up rapidly now that ships can register. Email me at [email protected] or via the web form. I would also draw your attention to the photo competition run by National Historic Ships, details on p.36, which has some good prizes. Our best wishes for summer sailing, reading, photography and relaxation Jonathan Seagrave Next copy date: August 20th 2011 4 FUTURE MEETINGS AND OTHER EVENTS June 11th AGM, Topsham Exeter June 20th AFW Admiralty House, Mount Wise, Preparation for the Falklands War ffi Martin Hazell July 6th RM Barracks Plymouth sees calling notice. Ffi Martin Hazell September 9th to 11th Maritime History Conference, Exeter. “Health Medicine and Mariners” ffi 01392 723289 October 1st 24th Bere Ferrers Will Stirling – boatbuilding ffi Dale Thomas 8th October Lyme Regis details tbc ffi David Clement Festivals 29th –31st July Bristol Harbour festival 5-7 August Gloucester Harbour festival September 10-18th Americas Cup World Series 2, Plymouth 20th November Clovelly Herring festival (Italics indicate an event of interest but not organised directly by the Society) Confirmation of events will be published either in the next edition or in calling notices for bookings, which will be sent to members at the appropriate time. 5 REPORTS OF MEETINGS Joint meeting, Waterfront Museum Swansea, 21st May 2011 We met with our sister Society, the West Wales Maritime Heritage Society, some 25 in all, at the Swansea Museum, kindly made available by David Jenkins. Both Societies had displays to enhance mutual awareness. The meeting started with a welcome from David Jenkins, who outlined the origins of the modern museum, a joint venture between Swansea City Council and the National Museum of Wales. There followed a brief introduction to SWMHS by Dale Thomas, our Chair. Our first speaker was Prof Huw Bowen, who has researched the East India Co extensively, noting Welsh involvement on the way! He described the career of John Jones, who rose from seaman to become a very successful commander, after a spell in the RN. Huw described in detail the private trading Jones had undertaken from surviving ledgers. It was clear this wasn’t just modest perks, but tonnage trading, which initially at least, must have been financed by outside investors. Successful commanders were not just very good seamen, but entrepreneurs and investors, negotiating with traders in their own right for very substantial deals. The analogies with today’s investment bankers, in both risks and rewards, were very apparent; as was a certain casualness about the rules! Significant gaps in the record of his career remain, but Jones retired to buy St Helens and become a respected if not always popular figure in Swansea society. This is written up in Maritime Wales. Rev. David Reed, Chairman of WWMHS, then introduced us to their activities. Unlike SWMHS, they have a base, albeit prone to move, and own some small craft and undertake activities with members’ vessels 6 too. Ultimately, they would like to run a small heritage centre. He was followed by David James, their long time secretary, who illustrated some key events in Milford maritime history with slides and pictures, sometime using his own fine and detailed models. Milford had a history of RN construction, from Napoleonic times to the Pembroke dockyard specialising in royal yachts, building no less than 7 under Victoria; and the Hiei, the first warship for the Imperial Japanese Navy. After lunch Dale took us on a brief tour of the limestone trade from Gower to N Devon, mentioning some of the last survivors such as Agnes, and the polacca rigs used. He had seen and photo’d some of the last survivors in his youth. Pwll Du was the main source of stone. The trade is widely mentioned, and many kilns of course survive in Devon, but there is a need to bring all the information on this trade together. The next day your Editor visited Pwll Du, looking for the shadows of Chugg family vessels in what must have been a notably risky trade, despite the wide sandy beach. As for the other coves….Gary’s article below gives an account of one of the losses sustained in this trade. Colin Rees gave us a brief rundown on his next book, Prisoners and Privateers in the Bristol Channel. It will cover both seizures by Barbary pirates and prisoners taken and held e.g. at Dartmoor. We wound up with Richard Haines, a PhD student at Swansea University, which now has links with the Museum. He gave us some early results of his analysis of ownership of vessels on the Swansea register from 1845 to the early 20th century. Initially diverse, there was a clear pattern of narrowing ownership and specialisation in the role of shipowner as the century progressed. Ownership of vessels on the 64 ths system was locally focussed. In closing, Dale thanked David Jenkins, not only for his hospitality, but his unfailing helpfulness to members of both Societies engaged on research. Recalling his own youthful enthusiasm, he commended the museum for the hundreds of primary students who could be seen exploring its many interactive displays. He was also pleased to say that both Committees had agreed to donate any surplus to the Museum, in recognition of its hospitality and ongoing work. It was generally agreed that further joint meetings would be well worthwhile.