Maritime Portsmouth E-Book

Dr Paul Brown

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 286

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

For three centuries Portsmouth has been the leading base of the Royal Navy but the naval heritage of its port can be traced back to the Roman invasion of Britain. From the Roman walls of Portchester to the best-preserved Georgian dockyard in the world and the illustrious HMS Victory, Portsmouth is amongst the most important naval sites in the world. This fascinating book, in its new and fully revised edition, focuses on the history and present status of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard as well as the magnificent ships Victory, Warrior and Mary Rose that have been preserved and are now on display at Portsmouth. Drawing on impressive original research and illustrated by a host of colourful photographs, author Paul Brown has created a concise and helpful guide to the key maritime attractions in Portsmouth and Gosport, including the Submarine Museum, the sea forts, the Gunwharf and the commercial port.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

        Title

        Introduction

  1    The First Dockyard

  2    The Georgian Dockyard

  3    The Victorian Dockyard

  4    The Edwardian Dockyard

  5    The Dockyard in the First World War

  6    The Dockyard in the Interwar Years 1919–39

  7    The Dockyard in the Second World War

  8    The Post-war Dockyard

  9    The Run-down of the Dockyard

10    Portsmouth Naval Base

11    

Mary Rose

12    HMS

Victory

13    HMS

Warrior

14    HM Monitor

M33

15    Steam Pinnace

199

16    Portsmouth’s Shore Establishments

17    Fort Blockhouse and HMS

Dolphin

18    HMS

Alliance

19    Other Submarines

20    HMS

Hornet

21    Historic Military Powerboats

22    Gosport’s Naval Support Establishments

23    Old Portsmouth

24    The Spithead Sea Forts

25    The Commercial Port

26    Maritime Museums and Exhibitions

        Select Bibliography

        Copyright

INTRODUCTION

The maritime heritage of Portsmouth is described and celebrated in this book, and this new edition has been updated and revised to reflect all recent developments. For the past 300 years the port has been the leading base of the Royal Navy, but its origins as a military harbour date back to Roman times when Portchester was first fortified. Since the time of Henry I, expeditions have sailed from Portsmouth to wage naval and military campaigns in France, Spain and much further afield. Henry VIII established a permanent naval dockyard there and from the Napoleonic era onwards Portsmouth was the navy’s most important dockyard and base. Portsmouth’s history is thus inextricably entwined with the history of the Royal Navy and with some of the most momentous events in the history of the British Isles.

On 4 August 1960 Britain’s last battleship, Vanguard, was being towed by dockyard tugs out of the harbour to be handed over to Royal Fleet Auxiliary tugs at Spithead for her final journey to ship breakers. However, as this picture shows, she veered off course and ran aground close to Old Portsmouth’s Customs House Jetty on an ebbing tide. The dockyard tugs struggled but failed to free her and the larger RFA tugs had to be called to assist, it taking well over an hour to eventually free her.

The naval heritage of Portsmouth is manifested in the fortifications, buildings, docks and preserved ships described in this book. At Portchester are the 2,000-year-old Roman walls, whilst the Round Tower in its present form dates from about 1494 – shortly before the building of the Mary Rose. Portsmouth vies with Chatham as the best-preserved Georgian dockyard in the world. The original Georgian buildings survive and look much as they did in Nelson’s time, though their functions have, in many cases, changed. Within this setting is found the most illustrious survivor from the sailing navy, HMS Victory. This combination of a fully restored ship-of-the-line in its contemporary naval dockyard is unparalleled and is the city’s greatest attraction. The Victorian buildings that accompanied the navy’s transition from sail to steam are also mostly intact, and in good condition. As if that were not enough, all this is seen alongside the modern Royal Navy and its facilities – allowing fascinating comparisons to be made which illustrate the development of the navy and its ships over 300 years.

That this much has been preserved is something to be grateful for. Fortunately recent plans to convert many of the older buildings for residential and commercial use have been dropped. Parts of the historic dockyard, particularly redundant buildings, are still at risk. It would be far better to convert them into exhibition space (for related naval and maritime exhibits and museums) and even restore some of them to their original working facility so that they would become enhanced visitor attractions. There are lessons to be learnt from some developments of this sort which have increased the heritage and tourism appeal of Chatham Historic Dockyard. Access to many parts of Portsmouth Dockyard is currently prohibited – except on such rare occasions as the International Festival of the Sea – and needs to be improved. The tighter security introduced since the events of September 2001 has meant that only the immediate area between the Victory Gate (formerly known as the Main Gate) and HMS Victory is normally accessible.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Portsmouth Royal Dockyard was the greatest industrial complex in the world. Whilst the buildings have by and large survived, ships are, by nature, ephemeral – often with only short operational lives. Most of the famous ships that have featured in Portsmouth’s history have long since been broken up. Over the last thirty years or so there has been an awakening of interest in the preservation of the few historic ships that survive. As a result, at Portsmouth – in addition to the Victory – we can see an early Victorian battleship, a monitor from the First World War and the Royal Navy’s first submarine. There is, as yet, no significant survivor from the Second World War at the port. The submarine Alliance comes close to this, but, although designed during the war, she was not completed until after the end of hostilities and was heavily modernised in the 1950s. The best surviving British warship from the Second World War is HMS Belfast, which is moored near Tower Bridge in London.

The attraction of Portsmouth’s maritime heritage has been recognised and capitalised on by the local tourism industry. The creation of the National Museum of the Royal Navy – integrating the Royal Marines Museum, Submarine Museum, Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower and HMS Victory, as well as the Royal Naval Museum into its operations – has already led to an improved experience for visitors. The harbour also remains one of the country’s busiest, thanks in part to the growth of the ferry activity. Meanwhile, the navy continues to contract, through both relentless ‘salami-slicing’ and the more drastic cuts of periodic defence reviews. This adversely affects the economy of Portsmouth and slowly erodes the spectacle of the modern navy there. The decision to base the two large new aircraft carriers at Portsmouth has hopefully stabilised the future of the base. Yet we should welcome the fact that, by and large, the contraction in size of the navy and its support facilities has only been possible because of the absence of major wars in the last sixty years. In 1946, the navy had almost 500,000 personnel. In 1947 de-mobilisation had reduced this to 192,665 and now the overall strength of the navy is about 30,000 personnel. The operational capability of the Royal Navy is now quite limited, meaning that there is greater reliance than ever before on our defence alliances with other nations. Each war fought since the Second World War has been confined to a single theatre, has been of fairly short duration and (with the exception of the Falklands War) has been fought with the USA as the main alliance partner. Hopefully, these circumstances, and the absence of major conflicts, means that we will no longer have to send an entire generation to war: instead they can join us as we enjoy all that the maritime heritage of Portsmouth has to offer.

A view of Portsmouth Harbour from Gosport in 1905. On the left are two Gosport ferries, whilst in the centre is the floating bridge which linked Gosport to Old Portsmouth and to the right is the depot ship for submarines, HMS Dolphin. (Simply Novel)

An artist’s impression of King John’s Dock in 1212. It was from here in 1213 that King John’s Royal Fleet of galleys joined more galleys from the Cinque Ports to achieve the first great naval victory over the French at the Battle of the Damme. Building of the dock had been instigated by King Richard I, who needed an alternative port to Southampton to be free of the powerful merchants and their high taxes. He needed a harbour for his royal ships, the warships of the small fleet that travelled between England and his possessions in France. This was the birth of the future City of Portsmouth, which grew from a small fishing hamlet into a town with a Royal Charter in 1194, and over the centuries became the cradle of the navy – the premier naval base. (Rob Kennedy; caption courtesy of John Bingeman)

1

THE FIRST DOCKYARD

Portsmouth Harbour is a natural sheltered harbour that has for many centuries provided a haven for the navy and a port of embarkation for successive armies. It is complemented by the anchorage at Spithead which, like the harbour entrance, is shielded by the Isle of Wight from the prevailing south-westerly winds. These advantages have led to 2,000 years of maritime activity there, and to Portsmouth’s role as Britain’s most important naval port during crucial periods in its history.

The Romans built a stronghold at Portchester in the third century, as part of a chain of forts from Brancaster (in Norfolk) to Portchester. They kept ships there to repel Saxon raiders. Portchester was then known as Portus Adurni and, around ad 286, the Roman emperor Maximian appointed a Count of the Saxon Shore to take charge of operations against the raids by the Teutonic tribes of the Saxons and Franks. This man, Caius Carausius, was a Belgian sailor and he became rich and powerful through captured booty and proclaimed himself Emperor of Britain. Maximian and his brother Constantius retaliated by sending a fleet to fight Carausius. Before they could land, Carausius was killed in York in ad 293 by a fellow commander, Allectus. Allectus then assembled a large fleet at Spithead, which sailed to intercept the fleet of Constantius. However, the two fleets passed each other in thick fog and no battle took place. Allectus was later killed by Roman soldiers but his men seized London. Part of the Roman fleet arrived on the Thames and quashed the rebellion, rounding up and butchering Allectus’ men.

Portchester has the most complete Roman walls in northern Europe. They are 20ft thick, and the front face contains bastions which accommodated ballista (Roman catapults). By ad 501 the Roman occupation had declined and a Danish Saxon named Port came with two ships to ‘Portsmutha’ and seized land from a noble Briton. Other raids and invasions by Danes and Teutonic Saxons followed in the ensuing centuries. Portchester was used by the Saxons, probably as a defence against Viking attacks, until some control was gained by the ships of King Alfred and his successors in the late ninth and tenth centuries. However, Saxon kings were to rule England in the early eleventh century and Harold Godwinson sent his fleet to Spithead and the Solent in the summer of 1066, expecting an invasion by William of Normandy. After six months the fleet dispersed, many of the ships returning to London, and William landed at Pevensey.

Henry I built a castle within the Roman walls at Portchester and embarked from Portsmouth on several occasions for Normandy, as did his grandson, Henry II, in 1174. After Henry II’s death in 1189 his eldest surviving son, Richard the Lionheart, landed at Portsmouth as King of England. In 1194, King Richard I ordered the building of a dock in the area called the Pond of the Abbess, at the mouth of the first creek on the eastern side of the harbour, which was later to become the site of the gunwharf. Here ships could anchor, and on the creek’s mudflats they could be hauled out of the water for repair or cleaning. The dock was enclosed by order of Richard’s brother, King John, in 1212 and Portsmouth became a principal naval port, superseding the Cinque Ports. John directed the sheriff of Southampton to ‘cause the docks at Portsmouth to be enclosed with a strong wall for the preservation of the king’s ships and galleys’. It is believed that a lock was built near the high-water mark, which was blocked with timber, brush, mud and clay walls at low tide, with a wooden breakwater and a stone wall to protect it, and penthouses were built to store sails and ships’ equipment. The lock may have been built of stone and probably led into a wet dock or basin. A fleet led by the king sailed early in 1214 for La Rochelle and Bordeaux in an unsuccessful attempt to regain lost territory in France. Around 1228, but not for the first time, the dock was badly damaged by storms and high spring tides. It may have been this that caused Henry III in 1228 to command the constable of Rochester ‘to provide wood to fill up the basin and to make another causeway there, notwithstanding that King John had caused walls to be built close by for the protection of his vessels from storms’. The dock was abandoned and in 1253 Henry III demolished the wall and reused the stone to repair his town house. It seems that, given the paucity of sea defences at that time, the dock had not been well sited and subsequent naval docks were to be built further up-harbour.

The walls of Portchester Castle are the most complete Roman walls in northern Europe, and surrounded the ‘Saxon Shore’ fort built in the late third century. Within them now is a medieval castle, probably founded in the late eleventh century, which was a baronial castle taken under royal control in 1154. In the medieval period Portchester was an important port and the castle saw the embarkation of several campaigns to France led by England’s kings.

Despite the lack of enclosed docks, Portsmouth was used to prepare expeditions to France by Henry III, and in 1346 Edward III sailed from the port with a fleet for Normandy and victory at the Battle of Crécy. In 1415, King Henry V assembled his fleet at Portsmouth and Southampton and, embarking from Portchester Castle, sailed for France and the Battle of Agincourt. On his return, he ordered the building of the Round Tower, beginning the construction of the port’s defences. He also purchased land to the north of the old docks for the construction of ‘The King’s Dock’ but, as a result of his death in 1422, it was not built and most of the king’s ships were sold.

The Tudor Dockyard

The next, and highly significant, event was the ordering, in 1495 by King Henry VII, of what is usually said to be the country’s first dry dock. This was to be built on the land that Henry V had bought, in the area now occupied by No. 1 Basin. It was built to accommodate the new Sovereign and Regent which were bigger than their predecessors. The timber-lined dock was first used by the Sovereign, which entered in May 1496. Once in the dock, after gravity drainage at low tide, the entrance was sealed with wooden gates and clay, and the remaining water was then pumped out using horse-driven pumps. In 1497 the first ship was built at the new dockyard. She was the Sweepstake, of 80 tons, and was later renamed Katherine Pomegranate by Henry VIII in honour of Katherine of Aragon (the pomegranate was part of the coat of arms of the city of Granada). Shipbuilding temporarily became a more important part of the dockyard’s work when Henry VIII was on the throne, with the construction of the Mary Rose and Peter Pomegranate helping to establish a permanent navy. Henry VIII is often seen as the founder of the Royal Navy since he commissioned the first ships that had an offensive role rather than primarily being transports for the army. Thus the Mary Rose can be considered to be the first true English warship. The dockyard was expanded due to its strategic importance under the threat of French invasion and incursions such as that in 1545 when the Mary Rose sank. During this period the navy grew from having only twenty-one ships in 1517 to fifty-eight in 1546. Thereafter the dockyard went into relative decline, and the navy contracted so that by 1578 there were only twenty-four ships – rising to thirty-four in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada. Though small, the Elizabethan navy was very successful, and for the first time came to national prominence through the exploits of Drake, Frobisher, Grenville, Hawkins, Howard and Raleigh. They used both the queen’s ships and privateers, but their forward anchorage was Plymouth. In 1623 Portsmouth’s original dry dock was filled in.

An artist’s impression of Mary Rose leaving Portsmouth in 1545. This illustration is influenced by design evidence from the recovered hull. (The Mary Rose Trust)

Apart from the construction of one small ship in 1539, there had been no further shipbuilding at Portsmouth since the Peter Pomegranate in 1510. Shipbuilding resumed in 1649, under the Commonwealth, with the Fourth Rate Portsmouth and thereafter became a more or less continuous activity for 300 years. Portsmouth had been loyal to Parliament and prospered under the Commonwealth. Also, war had broken out with the Dutch and investment in the dockyards and the navy was at a high level. The navy grew rapidly to have 102 ships in 1652, when the first Dutch war started, and 173 ships in 1688. By 1656, when a new double dry dock was ordered, the yard at Portsmouth had a new ropery, a slipway and a surrounding brick wall of over 400 yards in length, as well as numerous workshops and storehouses. The dry dock was completed in 1658 but the dockyard’s growth was slow compared to Chatham which, like Deptford and Woolwich, benefited during the Dutch Wars from its geographical position. During the final years of King Charles II’s reign, Portsmouth received a mast house (1685), and, under King James, a further dry dock and twenty new storehouses were authorised. James’ successor in 1688 was King William III who recognised the importance of sea power and was to initiate a high level of expenditure on the navy and the development of the dockyards that is exemplified by the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth.

2

THE GEORGIAN DOCKYARD

In 1689, William III embarked on a war with France. Because of its Channel position Portsmouth experienced a period of renaissance and was second in importance to Chatham. A large ropery, mast pond, numerous stores and workshops, and dockyard officers’ houses had been built. Two new wet docks and two dry docks (later known as Nos 5 and 6 Docks) were constructed on reclaimed marshland to the north of the existing yard. By 1698, when the wet dock which became known as the Great Basin in the nineteenth century was opened, Portsmouth had again become the most important dockyard, serving a navy that had expanded rapidly during the eight years of war. By 1697 the fleet contained 323 ships, including 112 with fifty guns or more. The area now known as the Historic Dockyard is mainly of Georgian origin.

The Porter’s Lodge (1708) is the oldest remaining building in the dockyard. The dockyard porter lived there and guarded the boundaries, prevented theft by dockyard workers and rang the muster bell, closing the gate against latecomers. He also sold beer to the workers ‘to enable them to carry on their labour and not to distemper them’.

The dockyard includes, as its oldest buildings, a number built in the early eighteenth century, including the Porter’s Lodge (1708), the adjacent Main Gate (now known as the Victory Gate) and Dockyard Wall (1711), the elegant Dockyard Officers’ Houses in Long Row (1717) and the impressive Royal Naval Academy (1733). In 1717, new gates were fitted to the Great Basin (now known as No. 1 Basin, adjacent to the dry dock now occupied by the Victory). Two of the dry docks (Nos 5 and 6) in this area were built in 1698 and 1700 respectively and are the oldest remaining dry docks at Portsmouth. No. 5 Dock and a similar one constructed at Plymouth were the first stone-sided dry docks in Britain, though the floor of each dock was still made of wooden planks positioned on piles. Previously dry docks had had timber sides, and the new stone construction gave greater strength and water-tightness, as well as making it easier to shore up a vessel with timber baulks. No. 6 Dock was originally constructed of wood but was rebuilt with stone sides in 1741. The other dry docks (Nos 1–4) adjoining the Great Basin had stone sides and masonry floors, and were complete by 1803.

The early part of the eighteenth century saw battles with Franco-Spanish fleets during the War of Spanish Succession, and other wars with the French ensued, culminating in the Seven Years War of 1756–63. A large navy was maintained – in 1756 there were 320 ships, including 142 ships-of-the-line (First to Fourth Rates). Following peace, expansion and development of the dockyard continued, with an ambitious plan which took in new ground to the north and south-east, and made extensions to docks and slipways. No. 5 Dock, originally known as the Great Stone Dock, was altered in 1769 by moving it a little to the east so that the Great Basin could be extended. This allowed the basin to berth twelve ships-of-the-line for repairs afloat. When the Basin was enlarged, the original 1495 dry dock was uncovered. The other wet dock (the Upper Wet Dock) was converted into a vast reservoir into which the dry docks could drain, and from where water could be pumped. This reservoir still lies underneath the Block Mills. In 1770 the yard had a workforce of 2,155, compared to 1,080 in 1728.

The Great Ropehouse, some 1,030ft in length, was built in 1770. The upper floors were used for spinning yarn and on the ground floor this was twisted into rope as the forming machine travelled the length of the laying floor. Spinning and forming were manual operations but steam assistance was introduced to ropemaking in the early nineteenth century. Also remaining are the Hatchelling House, the Hemp House and the Hemp Tarring House (all built in 1771). Hemp stored in the hemp house was taken for hatchelling – straightening and untangling the fibres by drawing them across rows of spikes on boards. It was then transferred to the spinning lofts via a covered bridge. Some of these buildings replaced those lost in two disastrous fires in 1760 and 1770. There was another fire in 1776, started by the arsonist Jack the Painter, who was sympathetic to the American Independence cause. Because it was built of brick rather than wood, the new ropehouse survived but the interior had to be rebuilt. Jack the Painter was hanged on 60ft-high gallows at the dockyard gate and his remains were suspended in chains at Fort Blockhouse for several years as a warning to others. With the advent of the steam navy, demand for rope reduced and the ropery ceased production in 1868; the buildings were then used as storehouses. So effectively had the ropery split the dockyard in two that the opportunity was taken to drive an archway through it.

Short Row (1787) was a terrace of four houses for dockyard officers: the surgeon, the clerk of the ropeyard, the master ropemaker and the boatswain. It supplemented the earlier Long Row, which housed nine other dockyard officers.

Other buildings still surviving from this period include the three Great Storehouses (1763, 1776 and 1782), which can be seen on the left of the road between the Victory Gate and HMS Victory. Originally they stood on the water’s edge and there was a jetty on the harbour side of the buildings allowing boats to come and collect gear and stores, often for transfer to ships lying at Spithead, since sailing ships would usually avoid the tricky business of getting in and out of the harbour unless they were going into dock for repairs. The rudimentary jetty became part of the Camber (1785), which was built of stone (not to be confused with the commercial Camber in Old Portsmouth). This small inner harbour can be seen near the Semaphore Tower, behind the South Railway Jetty. The clock house on No. 10 Storehouse was installed in 1992, replacing the original which had been destroyed by German incendiary bombs during the 1941 Blitz on Portsmouth. No. 11 Storehouse, the oldest and most northerly of the three, now houses the Royal Naval Museum including the Sailing Navy Gallery and the Nelson Exhibition, whilst No. 10 houses the twentieth-century gallery.

The Great Storehouses were imposing symbols of the rapidly expanding navy, meeting demands from the fleet which grew from 272 ships in 1702 to 949 ships in 1805. Seen here are the Middle (No. 10) and North (No. 11) Storehouses which now house the Royal Naval Museum. Their interior structures are largely built of reused ships’ timbers.

Built around the same time as the Great Storehouses, and opposite them, running parallel with the Great Ropery, are three more storehouses – the East Sea Store, and the West and East Hemp Houses. Another group of four Georgian storehouses was constructed to the east of the Great Basin around 1782 of which three survive – the twin South-East and South-West Buildings and the North-West Building. The South-East (now No. 25 Store) is architecturally the most attractive, having been altered less than the other two.

The Royal Naval Academy (1733) was a college for naval officers with accommodation for a professor, a governor and forty young gentlemen aged 13–16, who were the sons of noblemen and gentlemen. The original curriculum included French, drawing, fencing and the use of the firelock, as well as Latin from 1749 onwards. However, the college was not welcomed by naval officers because it undermined their own privilege of patronage in appointing boys to their ships. The education given at the college was poor and the scholars gained a reputation for swearing, drunkenness and idleness. In 1766, an inquiry by the Port Admiral led to the dismissal of the headmaster, mathematics tutor and a number of scholars. In 1773 there was a series of reforms, and the admission rules were altered to allow boys as young as 11, who were sons of naval officers, to be accepted. By then the curriculum included writing, mathematics, navigation, gunnery, fortifications, dancing and the use of the firelock. Scholars could stay for up to five years – but problems with their behaviour persisted. They stayed out all night drinking at ‘bawdy houses’ and their heads ‘abounded in vermin’. In the summer they went to Grange, near Gosport, to fight with the gypsies who camped there. They had instructions ‘not to throw stones over the wall, or go to a billiard table’. In 1801 Lord St Vincent wrote, ‘The Royal Academy at Portsmouth, which is a sink of vice and abomination, should be abolished …’ It was not abolished but was reconstituted in 1806, renamed the Royal Naval College, and finally gained some respect and credibility. In 1874–75 the activity was transferred to Greenwich and later Dartmouth. The building continued to be used for officer training, and from 1906 to 1941 was the Royal Naval School of Navigation (HMS Dryad). It became a staff officers’ mess, but this closed on 14 June 2007.

The Royal Naval Academy opened in 1733 as a college for naval officers, and was latterly an officers’ mess.

Admiralty House (1787) also survives and was the grandest of the Royal Dockyard commissioner’s houses on account of the frequent visits to it by King George III. The king had reviewed the fleet at Spithead in 1773 and 1778, and in 1794 he went aboard the flagship Queen Charlotte at Spithead after Howe’s victory over the French on the Glorious First of June.

Building ships for the navy remained an important activity at Portsmouth throughout the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. Between 1750 and 1840, twenty-six ships-of-the-line (First, Second and Third Rates) were built, as well as over eighty smaller vessels. The largest ship-of the-line built at Portsmouth was the 110-gun Queen of 1839, but even she was a little smaller than the Chatham-built Victory. The ship had been laid down as the Royal Frederick but was renamed before her launch, in honour of the new queen. In 1842 Queen Victoria went aboard the Queen at Spithead during her first visit to Portsmouth after accession. She had arrived at Portsmouth by coach and four, and stayed at Admiralty House. Accompanying her were Prince Albert and the aged Duke of Wellington.

Admiralty House (1787) was the residence of the dockyard’s commissioner, and later that of the admiral superintendent.

The interior of the Block Mills, photographed in 1910. The steam-powered mills were said to be the world’s first use of machine tools for mass production. A seventy-four-gun ship required some 1,400 pulley blocks for the running gear of the sails and for handling the guns. Annual production peaked at 140,000 blocks during the Crimean War. As the navy changed from sail to steam the demand for blocks declined rapidly, but they continued to be produced on a limited scale until the 1960s, when the Block Mills closed. (Portsmouth City Council)

Technological change came to the dockyard in 1797 when a small steam engine was installed to replace a horse-powered pump, which emptied the Great Stone Dock’s sump into the reservoir and also powered the sawmills. This was the first use of steam power in a Royal Dockyard and was soon followed by the design of Marc Isambard Brunel (father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel) for a steam-powered blockmaking machine. These were the first powered mass-production machines and were installed in the Block Mills between 1802 and 1806. Blocks were simple wooden-enclosed pulleys used extensively on sailing ships. The building can be seen on the north side of the Great Basin. The new equipment allowed 110 skilled blockmakers to be replaced by only ten machinists. Examples of the original machines can be seen at the Science Museum in London and at the dockyard Apprentice exhibition in No. 7 Boathouse at Portsmouth. Despite these innovations the dockyard labour force continued to increase during the Napoleonic wars, reaching 3,900 by 1814. At this time the dockyard was the world’s largest industrial complex.

In 1832, a boiler shop was opened in the yard for the repair of both stationary and marine boilers and, in 1835, the first steam-driven warship to be built at Portsmouth was launched. She was the Hermes, a six-gun paddle sloop. Portsmouth was the last of the home dockyards to start building steam warships and would require new facilities to meet the emerging needs of marine engineering and iron ship repair and construction.

Marc Isambard Brunel, a farmer’s son, was born in 1769 in the hamlet of Hacqueville in northern France, and served in the French Navy for six years. As a royalist, he had to flee during the French Revolution to the United States, where he spent several years as an architect and engineer. He came to England in 1799 to show his method for making ships’ blocks by mechanical means to the Royal Navy. The plans were accepted and he was placed in charge of installing the machines at Portsmouth Dockyard. His son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was born in Portsmouth in 1806. He studied architecture in France and then joined his father’s engineering business during the early stages of construction of the Thames Tunnel. He went on to become the country’s leading engineer through his work on bridges, the Great Western Railway and the steamships Great Western, Great Britain and Great Eastern.

3

THE VICTORIAN DOCKYARD

The Victorian era brought enormous expansion and change to the dockyard, taking in the huge expanse of land to the north-east (much of it reclaimed from mudflats) to create Nos 2 and 3 Basins and the surrounding dry docks and workshops. Sail was giving way to steam and wood to iron, requiring extensive new facilities, technologies and crafts. In 1845 there were still 276 sailing warships in the navy, including eighty-seven ships-of-the-line, augmented by thirty-seven steam warships (none of which were ships-of-the-line). However, by 1860, sixty-four of the ninety ships-of-the-line were steam-assisted, and steam predominated in the fleet of 323 frigates, sloops and smaller vessels. In this era over half of the fleet was in ‘ordinary’, i.e. in reserve, including most of the sailing ships. Unlike previous developments to the dockyard, which had been prompted by wars, it was now technology that was driving change. Also, the navy was growing in size to police the worldwide territories of the British Empire, and the naval ambitions of France remained a factor.

The former Steam Factory and No. 2 Basin (the Steam Basin), with a French patrol vessel and a British minehunter alongside.

The mast pond was excavated in 1665 and was used to store mast timbers, which were left submerged to season for twenty to thirty years. In its present form it dates from the eighteenth century. It became a boat pond when the need for wooden masts ended. No. 6 Boathouse (1846) at the far end of the pond is a fine brick and iron-framed building which now contains an interactive exhibition about the modern Royal Navy. Although Victorian, the wooden boathouses on either side of the boat pond provide a reminder of the earlier timber buildings of the dockyard before Georgian brick buildings replaced them.

Facilities for the Steam Navy

In 1848, Queen Victoria opened the new Steam Basin (now No. 2 Basin) to the north of the old dockyard area. Excavation of the non-tidal basin had employed 1,200 convicts from hulks moored in the harbour, as well as 1,050 waged labourers, and the work took five years to complete. At the same time, two new dry docks (Nos 7 and 8) and a large Steam Factory were built, and were soon complemented by the Iron Foundry, Steam Smithery, and a further dry dock (No. 10). One of the cranes built to serve the Steam Basin was the first steam-powered crane in the dockyard, whilst the two others were still manually operated. Two months before the Steam Basin opened the last sailing ship to be built at Portsmouth was launched. She was the Leander, a fifty-gun Fourth Rate.