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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
29 December 1797 - HMS Anson (1781 - 44), Cptn. Philip Charles Durham, captured French corvette Daphne (20) off the coast of France.
HMS Anson was a ship of the Royal Navy, launched at Plymouth on 4 September 1781. Originally a 64-gun third rate ship of the line, she fought at the Battle of the Saintes.
The ship proved too weak to stand in the line of battle, so in 1784 she was razéed to produce a frigate of 44 guns (fifth rate). Stronger than the average frigate of the time, the razee frigate Anson subsequently had a successful career during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, mostly operating against privateers, but also in small actions against enemy frigates.
Anson was lost in a shipwreck on 29 December 1807. Trapped by a lee shore off Loe Bar, Cornwall, she hit the rocks and between 60 and 190 men were killed. The subsequent treatment of the recovered bodies of drowned seamen caused controversy, and led to the Burial of Drowned Persons Act 1808.
Class and type: Intrepid-class ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1369 bm
Length: 159 ft 6 in (48.62 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 44 ft 4 in (13.51 m)
Depth of hold: 19 ft (5.8 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament:
- 64 guns:
- 44 guns:
- Gundeck:
- 26 × 24-pounder guns
- QD:
- 8 × 12-pounder guns
- 4 × 42-pounder carronades
- Fc:
- 2 × 12-pounder guns
- 2 × 42-pounder carronades
- Gundeck:
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with stern quarter decorations, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for 'Anson' (1781), a 64-gun Third Rate, two-decker. Signed by John Williams [Surveyor of the Navy, 1765-1784].
Design and construction
The ship was ordered on 24 April 1773 as an Intrepid-class ship of the line of 64 guns. The lead ship of the class, HMS Intrepid, had entered service in 1771 and proved satisfactory in sea trials, so the Royal Navy increased their order from four to fifteen ships. Anson was part of the expanded order, named after George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, the victorious admiral of the First Battle of Cape Finisterre (1747).
Anson was launched on 4 September 1781 by Georgina, duch*ess of Devonshire. She was completed and entered service on 15 October 1781.
The Intrepid-class design had been originally approved in 1765, so by the time Anson was launched it was over 15 years old. During that period, the design of ships-of-the-line had evolved, with the standard size and layout now being the seventy-four. Anson was therefore rather small and less solidly built than most of her contemporaries.
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail and figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Anson' (1781), a 64-gun Third Rate, two decker, as built at Plymouth Dockyard. The plan also records in pencil the outline for when she was cut down to a 38-gun Fifth Rate Frigate in 1794. Signed by John Henslow [Master Shipwright, Plymouth Dockyard, 1775-1784].
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile for 64-gun Third Rate, two-deckers of the Intrepid class (approved 1765). As this plan is undated, it is unknown as to which of the class the plan refers to. The class was built in two batches: those ordered between 1765 and 1769 - Intrepid (1770), Monmouth (1772), Defiance (1772), Nonsuch (1774) and Ruby (1776), and then the second group ordered between 1771 and 1779 - Vigilant (1774), Eagle (1774), America (1777), Anson (1781), Polyphemus (1782), Magnanime (1780), Sampson (1781), Repulse (1780), Diadem (1782), and Standard (1782).
American Revolutionary War
Main article: Battle of the Saintes
Anson fought at the battle of Les Saintes on 9 April 1782 under the flag of Admiral Sir George Rodney against Admiral de Grasse. She was in the rear division, which was under the command of Rear-Admiral Francis Samuel Drake. In this engagement, Captain William Blair was one of the two Royal Navy post captains killed. In all Anson lost three men killed (including Blair), and 13 men wounded.
Inboard profile plan (ZAZ2399)
Conversion to a frigate
Experience with 64-gun ships throughout the navy, at the Battle of the Saintes and elsewhere, had shown that they were now too poorly armed and weakly built to stand in the line of battle against larger ships-of-the-line. Rather than dispose of the ships entirely, the Royal Navy subjected some ships to a razée – removing the uppermost deck (and its armament) to produce a large frigate. The subsequent razee frigate was more heavily armed and built than a typical purpose-built frigate, though was not as fast and easy to handle in strong winds.
sheer (ZAZ2398)
Anson was chosen for this process and in 1794 the ship was razéed. The original forecastle and quarterdeck were removed, and the former upper deck (now weather or spar-deck) was partially removed and restructured to provide a new forecastle and quarterdeck. The result was a frigate of 44 guns, with a primary gun deck armament of twenty-six 24-pounder cannon (most frigates of the time were too lightly built to handle such heavy guns, so were armed with 18-pounders). The new quarterdeck and forecastle also allowed the armaments stationed there to be substantially strengthened from the original design, including adding carronades. Anson was thus heavily armed for a frigate, and retained the stronger construction (and ability to absorb damage) of a ship-of-the-line.
Finely carved bust-length figurehead (no arms) which has been associated with the 'Anson', a 64-gun third-rate built at Plymouth Dockyard in 1781 but reduced to a 44-gun ship in 1794. It represents a bearded warrior in classical armour and plumed helmet, mounted on a fiddle-pattern (backward-turning) scroll. The pose, with the head looking upward to viewers right gives it unusual dynamism for a bust figurehead. The style of armour and helmet suggest neo-classical 17th- or early 18th-century prints as a source, and one of some commonality: FHD0120, from the 'Ajax' built in 1809 at Blackwall, is rather similar. It is possible that such early print sources were mediated through more popular ones such as fairground figures, puppets or stage costume. Whether it really is the head of the 'Anson' is open to doubt, first because of its size - which is small even for a 44-gun ship, let alone a 64 - and also because this may only derive from a traditional identification as from Anson's 'Centurion', which was what it was said to be when purchased by a previous owner from Portsmouth Dockyard in 1900. That is certainly wrong since 'Centurion', also a 64, had a lion figurehead known to have been 16 feet in overall height. If from the 'Anson' , that ship was wrecked on the Looe Bar in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, on 29 December 1807. The present natural-wood 'antique' finish of this head may be the result of earlier painting being removed, since it would be very unusual for a ship to have one that was unpainted, however simply. It was acquired in 1943
French Revolutionary Wars
At the Action of 16 July 1797, Anson and Sylph drove the French corvette Calliope on shore, where Sylph proceeded to fire on her. When Pomone checked a week later, Calliope was wrecked; her crew were camped on shore trying to salvage what stores they could. Pomone confirmed that the flute Freedom and a brig that had also been driven ashore too were wrecked.
Leviathan, Anson, Pompee, Melpomene, and Childers shared in the proceeds of the capture on 10 September 1797 of Tordenskiold.
On 29 December 1797 Anson recaptured Daphne, which the French had captured three years earlier in December 1794 and taken into service under her existing name. Daphné was under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Latreyte and transiting between Lorient and Bordeaux on her way to Guadeloupe when Anson captured her at the mouth of the Gironde. Anson fired several shots before Daphne struck. She was armed with 30 guns and had 276 men aboard, including 30 passengers. Two of the passengers were Civil Commissioners Jaiquelin and La Carze, who succeeded in throwing their dispatches for Guadeloupe overboard. Daphne had five men killed and several wounded.
On 7 September 1798, after a 24-hour long chase, Anson and Phaeton captured Flore. Captain Stopford, of Phaeton, in his letter described Flore as a frigate of 36 guns and 255 men. She was eight days out of Boulogne on a cruise. She had also served the Royal Navy in the American Revolutionary War.
Anson was unable to take part in the Battle of Tory Island on 12 October 1798, because she had sustained damage during poor weather and was unable to keep up with the rest of the British squadron. In the aftermath of the original engagement, on 18 October she joined the brig HMS Kangaroo and fought a separate action, capturing the damaged French frigate Loire. Anson was then under the command of Captain Philip Charles Durham, who struggled to manoeuvre his ship after having lost her mizzen mast, main lower and topsail yards during the earlier pursuit.
Anson sailed from Plymouth on 26 January 1799, and on 2 February, in company with Ethalion, captured the French privateer cutter Boulonaise. Boulonaise, of Dunkirk, was armed with 14 guns and had been preying on shipping in the North Sea.
On 9 September 1799 Captain Durham hosted a fête for King George III. During the course of the evening, the king was found on the lower deck surrounded by the ship’s company and talking to an old sailor.
On 10 April 1800, when north-west of the Canary Islands, Anson detained Catherine & Anna bound for Hamburg, Holy Roman Empire, from Batavia with a cargo of coffee.
On 27 April Anson captured the letter of marque brig Vainquer. Vainquer was pierced for 16 guns but only mounted four. When captured she had been on her way from Bordeaux to San Domingo with a cargo of merchandise.
Two days later, at daybreak, Anson encountered four French privateers: Brave (36 guns), Guepe (18), Hardi (18), and Duide (16). As soon as the French vessels realized that Anson was a British frigate they scattered. As Anson passed Brave going in the opposite direction Anson fired a broadside into her; Durham believed that the broadside did considerable damage, but he was unable to follow up as Brave had the wind in her favour and so outsailed Anson. Durham then set off after one of the other French vessels, which he was able to capture. She was Hardi, of 18 guns and 194 men. Durham described her as "a very fine new Ship just of the Stocks." The Royal Navy took Hardi into service, first as HMS Hardi, before shortly thereafter renaming her HMS Rosario. Lastly, Durham reported sending into port for adjudication a very valuable ship that had been sailing from Batavia to Hamburg with the Governor of Batavia as passenger. (This may have been Catherine & Anna.)
On 27 June Anson Constance came across some 40 or 50 Spanish merchant vessels on the Straits of Gibraltar. They were protected by some 25 gunboats. Two row boats came out from Gibraltar to assist Anson and the British were able to capture eight Spanish merchantmen, though the Spanish recaptured one.
These included:
- The mistico Jesus & Aminas, from Algeziras to Gibraltar and Barcelona, carrying 125 bags of sumac, ten chests of liquorice, and 250 bundles of wooden hoops.
- Thefelucca Virgen de Boyar, from Malaga to Cadiz, carrying five pipes of red wine and 300 bundles of "boss".
- The "lland" Virgen del Socous, from Malaga to Cadiz, carrying 61 casks of pitch and 60 casks and 13 chests of tar.
- The tartan Nostra Signora del Rosario, from Barcelona to Vera Cruz, carrying paper, brandy, oil, and cotton.
- The lland Saint Francisco de Paulo, carrying wine.
- The mistico San Antonio, alias El Vigilante, coming to Gibraltar, carrying 60 quarter-casks of wine and 313 quintals of barilla.
- The mistico San Joseph y Aminas, carrying 250 deal boards 4' long, 600 deal boards 4'10" long, 20 water jars, and 30 "alcarasses", with the assistance of the privateer Felicity.
- The lland Saint Francisco de Paulo, carrying wine, was cut out from the prizes in sight of Anson and Constance.
On 29 June Anson and Constance captured two privateer misticos: Gibraltar and Severo (or Severino). Gibraltar was armed with four guns and had a crew of 50 men. Severo was armed with two guns and ten swivel guns, and had a crew of 26 men.
On 30 June Anson cut off two Spanish gun boats that had been annoying the convoy she was escorting. The two proved to be Gibraltar and Salvador. The each mounted two 18–pounder guns in their bow, and each had eight guns of different dimensions on their sides. They were each manned by 60 men and probably sustained heavy casualties in resisting Anson.
In 1801 Captain W. E. Cacraft assumed command and Anson joined the Channel station, cruising from Portsmouth. In 1802 she was in the Mediterranean, and in November she sailed from Malta for Egypt. She went in for repairs in 1805 at Portsmouth.
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