Kingsbridge, Salcombe and the South Hams During the French
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Kingsbridge, Salcombe and the South Hams during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815 Roger Barrett Kingsbridge Estuary U3A History Group, April 2021 Revolutionary France’s declaration of war against Britain in 1793 ushered in a generation of global conflict that finally ended with the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile to St Helena in 1815. The South Hams played a small but not insignificant part in these long wars. The area provided grain to feed a hungry nation, men to defend its shores and was the scene of both first and the last naval events in home waters: the Battle of Prawle Point in 1793 and, in 1815, the transfer of Napoleon to the ship that would take him into exile. Kingsbridge, Salcombe and Dartmouth in the late 1790s At the close of the eighteenth century, Kingsbridge was a thriving market town at the centre of a rich grain-growing district. According to Richard Polwhele in 1793, Kingsbridge was one of the chief corn markets of the county and more corn was shipped from there than ‘from any other port in Devon Shire’.1 In 1801, the town (with its neighbour Dodbrooke) had a population of 1700 and was noted for its production of woollen cloth used in the manufacture of army uniforms, as well as rope for naval use. The Quaker’s, Walter Prideaux & John Roope, began the manufacture of serge cloth in 1798 when they converted Town Mill, formerly the corn mill, in Mill Street. Cloth was also weaved in Lavers’ mill in Duncombe Street.2 Rope for ships was made in Bonker’s ropewalk in Western backway and, in 1804, Kingsbridge made a further contribution to the war effort when an army barracks for over 600 men was built on the Warren to the south of the town. Salcombe’s contribution was on a smaller scale. Its population in 1791 only amounted to 271 and, according to the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, the town ‘at the commencement of the French Revolutionary Wars consisted of only a few scattered sheds for the habitation of fishermen’.3 Abraham Hawkins, writing in 1818, described the town as ‘a little seaport consisting of a few narrow streets, irregularly built, the fifty or so houses being low mean structures in general’.4 Although fishing and shipbuilding were the principal legitimate activities, far more profitable was the ‘free trade’ in contraband from Guernsey and Brittany – so much so that Abraham Hawkins complained that the fishermen at Salcombe ‘are too fond of following 1 contraband communications with the opposite shores of Brittany, and unfortunately prefer visits to Roscoff to the task of enclosing productive shoals’.5 The boats built in the town’s three small yards for the smuggling trade often rivalled the Revenue cutters for speed and by the end of the eighteenth century local shipwrights were well known for building fast, weatherly vessels. In 1805 one of them, John Ball, launched the 179 ton Falmouth Post office packet brig Lord Hobart. The packet brigs, which were said to be capable of out-sailing most things afloat, carried despatches, VIPs and bullion to the outposts of empire. A Falmouth Post Office Packet brig similar to the 179 ton Lord Hobart built by John Ball of Salcombe in 1805 (National Maritime Museum Falmouth) Salcombe never built ships for the Royal Navy, unlike Dartmouth which launched 11 sloops, 3 gun brigs and the 36 gun, 952ton frigate Dartmouth between 1804-1813.6 However, although Admiralty contracts helped to offset the wartime decline in building ships for Dartmouth’s longstanding Newfoundland trade, they failed to revive the 2 prosperity of the town. As many as 150 vessels had sailed in the pre-war Dartmouth fleet but, by 1808, three-quarters of these had been lost, primarily through enemy action.7,8 These losses led to a period of stagnation in the town’s economic fortunes which lasted well into the nineteenth century. Admiralty Signal Stations When war broke out in 1793, the threat of invasion and of commerce raiding by enemy privateers prompted the Admiralty to set up a series of ‘early warning’ signal stations in prominent coastal locations. West Sewer Signal Station, which was established in 1795 between Bolt Head and Bolt Tail at a cost of £120, had visual contact with the Prawle station to the east and South Ground station near Kingston, to the west.9 It is thought that the station’s stone tower, which is still standing at its full height in a field east of Soar Mill Cove, was topped by a fifty-foot topmast and two flanking thirty-foot flagstaffs. To the east, the rectangular stone base of the signal station at Prawle can still be seen on what was then known as Hurter's Top, but is now Signalhouse Point. Further east, Start Point station was sited on the 394 feet (120m) hill above Start and Peartree Points. (Many years later a radar station was erected on the same spot above the modern car park). (Author) Coded messages were sent between stations and to naval ships in the offing by various combinations of pennant, flag, or ball. For example, a flag flying on the mast while three balls hung from the gaff, signified ‘enemy landing to the westward’. For night signals furze faggots or tar barrels were burnt in a beacon. Suspicious coastal shipping was then investigated by fast naval cutters, after warnings had been passed along the chain to Maker Heights above Plymouth.10 3 (South Hams Newspapers) (Author) 4 A typical Napoleonic War Coastal Signal Station (John Goodwin) At times of greatest threat of invasion, a mounted trooper would also be on hand to carry messages to the local army commanders. The stations were commanded by a half- pay naval lieutenant, assisted by a petty officer or midshipman and two men – generally sailors who were considered too old or unfit for service at sea. Salcombe Sea Fencibles After 1798 the men serving in the signal stations were drawn from the local corps of Sea Fencibles. This was a naval ‘home guard’ largely made up of fishermen and local mariners who, by volunteering, gained immunity from impressment into the Navy and from the ballot for the militia. This was a boon for local smugglers as impressment was often used as a punishment for smuggling. Formed in 1798, the Corps of Sea Fencibles continued to operate until 1810, with a break of a few years after the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. The Salcombe force numbered about 140 in 1799 but the strength was reduced in later years as the threat of invasion diminished – 104 men in 1805 and 42 in 1808. Salcombe was part of the Teignmouth to Rame Head District and, with Beesands (Start Bay) and Thurlestone (Bigbury Bay), formed a sub-district under the command of a naval captain with a lieutenant as second–in– command. In 1805 the Beesands force had 59 men and Thurlestone 48, making a total, with Salcombe’s 104, of 211 men.11, 12 5 The roles of the Corps were ‘to use the pike and, where appropriate, the cannon; to assist with coastal signal stations; help the revenue services and eventually to man small boats and gunboats in coastal defence’.13 The men initially attended drill once a week, but in later years this was reduced to once a month. Payment for attendance was a shilling a day. The bosun’s mate received four shillings. In 1804 the captain’s pay was £42 whilst the lieutenant received £11 18s. per month.14 The names of 85 men receiving payment for training in 1805 are listed below. The 85 Salcombe Sea Fencibles receiving payment for training in January 1805 Source: Salcombe Maritime Museum 6 The Sea Fencibles (John Thomson) The Battle of Prawle Point 1793 In June 1793, the first naval action of the war in home waters took place off Salcombe. The Battle of Prawle Point, as it was later dubbed, was between HMS Nymphe, commanded by Captain Edward Pellew, and the French National Frigate Cleopatre. According to the Naval Chronicle, ‘the capture of the Cleopatre, 40 guns, 320 men, by the Nymphe, 36 guns, 250 men, on the 18th of June 1793, was accomplished with a gallantry not to be paralleled in any country but our own, and vindicated the superiority of the British navy’ 15, 16 Equally jingoistic in its tone is this stirring account of the action recounted by Ellen Luscombe of Salcombe in 1861: Mr. Edwards, now resident at Addlehole, saw this battle from Prawle Point; and doubtless, as his eye kindled, and his blood swept through his veins in quickened rout, he longed, as any Englishman would long, to be in the midst of the fury of the fray. He saw the Nymphe, commanded by Pellew beating up channel, on the morning of 18th June 1793, a few miles to the south-west of the Start. At 6am she fell in with a French ship of war, the Cleopatre. A furious cannonade followed, which was kept up until seven o'clock by both vessels, when the Nymphe was skilfully laid alongside of her opponent; and in ten minutes every Frenchman was driven from the decks of the Cleopatre by the irresistible rush of the sailors of Pellew, who had thus gallantly won the first-fruits of the long series of naval engagements which immediately followed. 17 7 The Battle of Prawle Point, 18 June 1793 (Author) Fighting their way aft, the British sailors reached the Cleopatre's quarterdeck and hauled down her colours.