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Development of British Naval Gunnery 1815-53 This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Development of British naval gunnery 1815-53. MacMillan, D F The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 05. Oct. 2021 Development of British Naval auzmery 1815-53 by D.F. MacMillan .&BSTPACT 2 There had. been little chan e in ritish naval ordnance between the mid-sixteenth and. late ei hteenth centuries. The adoption of the carronad.e in 1779, however, to eth r with adv ces in gun casting and. po d.er milling after 1783, provided safer, more dependable weapons, well suited to the close-quarters, rapid-fire en agements preferred. by the Royal Navy. Brilliantly successful against the French Republic and. Empire, these weapons and. tactics proved. inadequate against the ion -guns and. long-range skills of the Americans. British losses in ship co bat during the War of 1812 caused European navies, including the Royal Navy, to adopt gunsights and. vent tubes, gunnery manuals and. intensive gunnery training. They also adopted. heavier ships capable of mounting more powerful ordnance, arid, attempted to standardize both ships and. ordnance. During the 1820's ritain and. France introduced, uniform calibre of maximum effect, thus bringing the sailing ship of the line to its apogee in size and po er. It was also during the twenties that steamers mounting shell guns first demonstrated their usefulness for warlike purposes. In 1829 the Ad.miralty commenced building war steam re and. ordered. that they, together with ships of the line, receive shell guns. 3 The shell eventually revolutionized naval architecture; it revo- lutionized. naval gunnery immedi tely. A gunnery school was established, aboard H.M.S. Excellent to provide seaman gunners capable of firing shells safely and accurately. Excellent also served as an experimental depot. Thus not only did. she train gunners, but she provided the navy with an unprecedented opportunity to study armament problems peculiar to naval service. By 1853 smooth-bore ordnance and smooth-bore gunnery had achieved something like perfection. 4 Table of Contents Abstract - Page 2 Table of Contents - 4 Abbreviations - 5 Preface - 6 Introduction - 8 Chapter Page 1 Armament Lessons of 1779 and; 1812 14 2 Sir Howard Douglas and the Gunnery Lessons of 1812 64 3 The Eighteen Twenties: Standardizing the Sailing Tavy 116 4 The Eighteen Twenties: Nouvel].e Force Maritime 167 5 The Establishment of H.M.S. Excellent 226 6 The Evolution of the Last Generation of Smooth-Bore Ordnance 263 Conclusion - 306 Appendices - 315 Bibliography - 331 5 Abbreviations Add.. MSS. Additional Manuscripts, British Museum, London. Adin. Admiralty records and. correspondence, Public Record. Office, London. C.H.R. Canadian Historical Review. D.N.B. Dictionary of Tational Biography. ELL/ Minto Papers, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. md.. Indexes under Ad.m.12 at the Public Record. Office. MLN/ Mime Pa ers, National Maritime Museum. M.M. Mariner's Mirror. N. L • S. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. MSS. Ordinary Manuscripts. N SR.S. Navy Records Society publications. See bibliography under various editors. P.P. Parli m ntary Papers, as numbered for the House of Commons series. W.N.D. Wellington, Duke of, ed., Disp tches, Correspondence and Memoranda of the Duke of VTellington (London, 1867-80). 6 PREFACE My purpose in this thesis is to describe the development of British naval ordnance and naval gunnery between the years 1815 and. 1853. Many authors have pointed out the influence of the War of 1812 on the development of naval armaments; others, notably J.P. Baxter in The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship, and. F.L. Robertson in The Evolution of Naval Armament, have dioussed. the influence of the adoption of shell guns on the development of naval architecture. But there has been no adequate account of the precise nature and. extent of the American influence on British. gunnery; neither has any close study been made of British research and experimentation on shells before or after their adoption in 1829. Practically nothing has been written on armaments developments between 1830 and. 1853. There is thus need. for a straightforward. narrative account of the improvements in naval ordnance and. gunnery between 1815 and. 1853. From this narrative conclusions will be drawn concerning the Admiralty's attitude towards innovation, and. the 7 manner in which development was carried out in a period of peace and. economic restraint. There ar. many people to whom I am indebted. for assistance in the preparation of this thesis. I should. like to thank the members of The Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire for the financial support they gave me during two years of research. I would. like to express my appreciation to Professor G.S. Graham of King's College for the help and encouragement he gave me while writing these chapters. I am also indebted. to Mr. N. Bridges for giving me access to the surviving persona], papers of his ancestor, General Sir oward. Douglas, and to Professor Michael Lewis for his suggestions concerning the last two chapters of this work. Most of the research has been carried out at the Public Records office and. I should. like to thank the directors and. staff for their help. I am also appreciative of the services of the staffs at the British Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Admiralty Library. Finally, I thank Mr.. Jane Barton for the conscientious and. abLe manner in which she has carried out a difficult typing chore. a INTRODUCTION Infinitesimal as naval progress in the first half of the nineteenth century might appear compared. with that of the second., the increasing tempo of warship and. armament development between 1815 and. 1853 was nevertheless unmistakable. During these years the shell system was adopted. and. steam machinery introduced. and greatly improved.. By the time of the Crimean War many ships of every class in the navy mounted. shell guns and. were fitted. with steam engines By that time, too, the Royal Navy had. replaced. the completely unsophisticated. attitude toward gunnery, commonly held. before 1812, with a scientific andL precise approach. Smooth-bore ordnance, and. the ship of the line with which this ordnance is generally associated, were alike brought to their highest development in size and power. Despite these innovations and. the considerable amount of study and experimentation necessary to bring them about, con- temporary writers give the impression that the years under study comprised a period. of cautious and. reluctant experiment carried. out by a succession of Admiralty Boards with a shared. prejudice against progress. This was simply not the case. The passing of 9 the ships and tactics and armaments that had defeated Napoleon was undoubtedly observed with reluctance by many, and even ignored by the diehards; the Admiralty, generally speaking, was more hard-headed. Every new device, every improved device and many suggested devices, whether discovered in England or abroad, were subjected to official consideration, and if promising, to official experiment. Every ten years a special review was held of armament equipment in service or suggested for service, during which the best material was selected and introduced gradually into naval service. The Royal Navy thus had a definite policy regarding the introduction of improvements into service. With few exceptions it was strictly adhered to, and. as the following chapters reveal, it served Britain well during these years of unprecedented armament development. For between 1815 and 1853 many changes took place in naval artillery and gunnery, whereas during the long war against the French Republic and. Empire there had been few innovations or improvements in naval armaments. Before the war there had been some slight improvement in the 17 80 ' s , and before then there had been very little development since the middle of the sixteenth century. 10 It was in the reign of Henry VIII that oared. war galleys were finally abandoned for the gun-carrying, ocean-going sailing ship. The earliest of these ehipa were no more than platform. built to charge and. grapple the enemy so that the soldier. aboard. could. engage in hand-to-hand fighting and. board. Armament, too, was anti-personnel rather than anti-ship in nature. It consisted of large numbers - as many as 200 - of small, breech- loading guns firing projectiles of very little weight, and was intended to repel boarders.1 Early in Henry's reign, however, the potential broadside strength of great-ships was recognized. Heavy ordnance, usually in the form of bombards, became increasingly popular. Bombards were hollow cylinders constructed of longitudinal bars, commonly of wrought iron, clamped.
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