HMS Bellerophon

Colin Pengelly

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Maritime
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781783462407
• eBook ISBN: 9781473837379
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The story of HMS Bellerophon is a record of the many and varied duties which the Royal Navy had to carry out in the period 1793 1815. It was involved in the first great fleet action of the War and was involved in the last moments of the struggle with the surrender of Napoleon.The 74-gun ship was the standard unit in the line of battle, Bellerophon was one of the most distinguished with a fine fighting record. Having fought at 'The Glorious First of June'; the battle of the Nile and at Trafalgar the ship saw more than her share of fierce ship-to-ship encounters. In between there were the varying duties of blockade and escort carried out with service in the Channel, the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Baltic and the West Indies. The ship saw every type of service which fell to the Navy in that period.All the many and various aspects of the ship's life are covered from construction through maintenance and refits to final disposal. Sadly the ship could not be been saved like Victory and the ship and her fine record were confined to the history books.

Contents

PREFACE by Prof. Christopher Lloyd
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD
1	Construction
2	Life on board a Sailing Ship
3	Skirmishing with the French
4	1794–1796 — The Glorious First of June
5	With Cornwallis and Bridport in the Channel
6	The Battle of the Nile
7	Trafalgar
8	The Long Blockade
9	In Northern Waters
10	Surrender of Napoleon
APPENDIX
I	Captains and Flag Officers who served in the Bellerophon 1791–1815
II	List of Sources
III	Glossary
INDEX

Author’s Foreword

IN choosing to write the story of the first Bellerophon, I was influenced by the fact that, with the exception of the Victory, no other single ship of the Royal Navy has ever had a book written solely about herself. It seemed to me that such a story as that of the Bellerophon was worth recording in detail.

The late Edward Fraser wrote a book on the whole line of Bellerophons, and his work is valuable to the present-day writer for the task of collating together the references which are gathered from other sources and especially that of manuscript material. The other two works which are invaluable to any naval historian of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars are: The Naval History of Great Britain by William James (1822) and Admiral Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire.

For original research for this book, I consulted the logs and journals of the ship preserved in the Maritime Museum and the Public Record Office. Also in the Maritime Museum are the Keith Papers, Flinder’s Journal, Collingwood Letters and a collection of papers on the battle of the Nile. I also made use of certain dispatches of Admiral Gardner while Commander-in-Chief Channel Fleet in 1808–9, which I have in my possession.

For the illustrations reproduced, I am in the main indebted to the staff of the Print Room of the Maritime Museum; and for the photographs of the Bellerophon relics at the Victory Museum, Portsmouth, I am grateful for the co-operation of the Curator, Captain Jackson.

I am indebted to Rear-Admiral Taylor and the Society for Nautical Research for the plan of Trafalgar. The plan of the Nile is reproduced from the Life of Nelson by Clarke and M’Arthur (1809).

For help in the preparation of this work, I acknowledge the help and co-operation of the staffs of the Maritime Museum and Public Record Office. For material reproduced from the Maritime Museum I am indebted for the permission of the Trustees. Material used from the records of the Public Record Office appear by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.* I must also express my gratitude to Mr Oliver Warner for his guidance in choice of subject, for agreeing to read the manuscript when completed, and for the suggestions which he made. I am also grateful to Professor Christopher Lloyd for writing the Preface.

Finally I must thank Mrs Rosemary Wilson for her work in retyping the manuscript in its final form, and my publishers John Baker Ltd for their co-operation while the book was being made ready for press. To all other persons who have helped in any way whatever, I express my sincere thanks.

C. A. PENGELLY

Weybridge
24th March, 1965

* See List of Sources, page 291.

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Construction

H.M.S. BELLEROPHON, the ‘Billy Ruffian’ as she was known to the ‘tars’ of the period, was one of the most outstanding ships of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She fought in three of the great sea battles and greatly distinguished herself in all of them: first under the flag of Lord Howe at the ‘Glorious First of June’ in 1794, later under the flag of Lord Nelson at the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. Her record in these battles has largely been forgotten, and she is only remembered today as the ship to which Napoleon surrendered after the battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Before recounting her story, it might be well to give a brief description of the construction of a wooden line-of-battle ship. The methods described in this chapter are standard for all wooden ships and can therefore serve as a general guide.

The Bellerophon was a 74-gun ship, and for the construction of a ship of that size the following materials were needed. First of all, 2,000 oaks, each at least one hundred years of age. The Admiralty specification for the construction of ships often stipulated ‘good Sussex oak’ as this was considered to be the toughest obtainable. By this time English oak was growing scarce, and timber and other materials had to be imported from the Continent. The shortage was due to the careless use of the timber reserves of the country by the Navy under the Commonwealth, Restoration, and in the early eighteenth century. During this period there was such an increase in construction that our forests became seriously depleted. By the time of the war of 1739–48 and the Seven Years’ War, the danger had been recognized and steps were taken to remedy the situation. By 1783, when the Bellerophon was begun, timber was once again in short supply because of the huge building programme necessitated by the American War.

Besides oak, one hundred tons of wrought iron were needed for all the various metal fittings in the ship, and thirty tons of copper nails and bolts for the joining of the wood.

The approximate time for the construction of a ‘74’ was two and a half years.

The Bellerophon was built to the design of Sir Thomas Slade who was also responsible for H.M.S. Victory. Sir Thomas Slade had died in 1772, and the design which was handed to the shipwrights was dated 1759 and was the original design for the first ‘74s’ introduced into the Royal Navy. This had been such a success that when such ships were wanted in a time of great emergency during the American War, the Admiralty decided to use it again.

The contract for the construction of the Bellerophon was given to the firm of Messrs Graves & Nicholson, who had their yards on the River Medway near Chatham. This firm had had several previous contracts from the Navy and was well equipped to carry out the construction of a ship of the line.

The art of the construction of large wooden sailing ships is now very largely lost to the world. Most of the material for this chapter comes from the excellent book by Nepean Longridge, The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships, which is a great mine of information for the enthusiast.

The first stage in the construction of any ship is to lay the keel, and in wooden ships the keel was composed of English elm, a wood capable of standing long periods of immersion in salt water, and obtainable in good lengths. The keel of the Bellerophon was 138 feet and consequently had to be made up of several pieces joined together. The joints used were called ‘scarphs’, and were often as much as 5 feet in length. After being cut to shape, the joints were bolted together with copper bolts which were found to have a greater resistance to corrosion than iron. At its deepest part the keel could be as much as 21 inches, and the width (amidships) also 21 inches. At a later stage of construction a false keel was added to the proper keel. The purpose of this was to prevent ‘hogging’, or the arching upwards of the central portion of the keel under the strain which was imposed on it by the rest of the ship. It also constituted a section which would become detached easily if the vessel ever went aground, and helped to prevent the ship ‘sagging’ to leeward when under way against the wind. The term ‘sagging’ meant the amount of leeway or sideways movement made by the ship when she was proceeding against the wind.

The first timber to be fitted to the keel was the sternpost, made of a single log of first-class oak, just under 30 feet long, 2 foot 2 inches square at the upper end, and tapering to I foot 4 inches at the keel. It was joined to the keel by a mortise and tenon and set with a pronounced rake aft. A groove, called the ‘rabbet’, was cut out of the sternpost to take the planking of the ship when it was eventually added. An innerpost was ‘fayed’ to the foreside of the sternpost. To ‘fay’ two pieces of wood means to join them so that the fayed or joined surfaces are completely in contact. Copper bolts were used to hold the innerpost to the sternpost.

The next timber to be fitted to the keel was the ‘deadwood’. This went on top of the keel and was made of oak. Its purpose was to enable the side frames or ‘square’ frames to be joined to the keel. It was composed of several pieces of oak scarphed together and held by copper bolts.

Following the deadwood, the stempost was fixed to the keel This, as its name suggests, was fitted at the bows of the ship. It was made of several pieces of oak scarphed together and joined to the keel with a forward rake. The joint of the keel and the stempost was called the ‘boxing’, and another timber, the ‘apron’, was laid over it for extra strength. Fixed to the other side of the stempost was the ‘stemson’, also made of oak. At this stage of construction, with the stem and sternposts fixed to the keel, the whole assembly was carefully lined up and plumbed for accuracy. Then the whole was ‘...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Contents