The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
I was accordingly appointed to the _Thunderer_ as commander. Her
captain was John Crawford Wilson (afterwards Rear-Admiral). The Navy
lost one of the best officers that ever sailed the seas when he died in
1885. He {147} was mentioned in the Admiral's dispatch for gallant
conduct in the affair of the Peiho Forts in 1859, served on the Pacific
Station, and was commodore of the Australian station. He was commander
of the _Bombay_ screw wooden first-rate, when she was burned off
Montevideo on the 14th December, 1864, and when 97 officers and men
perished. Many of those who were lost had climbed out on the bowsprit,
and when they were forced overboard by the heat, the melting lead of
the gammoning (the lead covering to the chain gammoning securing the
bowsprit) dropped on them and killed them. It was largely due to the
splendid discipline maintained by Wilson that the loss was not far
greater. The men held their posts although the flames were licking up
through the skids, so that the falls of the last boat, lowered from the
yard-arm, were actually burned through. It should be added that in
this disaster the Royal Marines enhanced their unrivalled reputation,
34 out of 97 lost belonging to the corps, the sentries dying at their
posts.
The _Thunderer_ was of 9190 (4407) tons, 6270 (800) h.p., and belonged
to the Channel Squadron. She was an improved central battery
twin-screw ironclad, designed, with the vessels of a similar type,
_Devastation_ and _Dreadnought_, by Mr. E. T. Reed, C.B. In these
ships there was no propulsion by mast and sail power. They also
embodied the idea of limiting the armament to heavy guns, the secondary
armament of lighter guns being omitted. This arrangement, after having
been wisely abandoned for many years, was repeated in the _Dreadnought_
of the year 1906, only to be once more recognised as a mistake. One of
many reasons why a secondary armament was essential, particularly with
muzzle-loading guns, was that, lacking it, the men might have been
exposed to the enemy's fire for some time before they could reply, a
most demoralising position. These considerations were constantly
represented by Captain Wilson to the Admiralty. While the science of
gunnery progressed, the element of time has remained a {148} factor in
the problem, though under different circumstances. The _Thunderer_
carried two pairs of muzzle-loading guns in two turrets; the foremost
pair being 38-ton guns, hydraulic loading, the after pair 35-ton guns,
hand-loading. She was belted with 14-inch armour along the water line;
and the armour projecting squarely from the hull, its edge struck the
water so hard when the ship rolled, that she was shaken throughout her
structure. To remedy this defect, wedge-shaped pieces were fitted
along the lower edge of the armour. Before I joined the ship she had
burst a boiler, the escaping steam causing great loss of life. Captain
Wilson, who was in the engine-room at the time, was saved by his
stature; although he was scalded, his face was above the level of the
steam, being between the deck-beams where there was an air cushion.
That the boiler exploded was due to the remarkable coincidence of two
factors. The box safety-valve jammed, owing to the two different
metals of which it was constructed expanding in different degrees. And
the pressure-gauge tell-tale, which was fitted in a cogged circle, had
the needle forced right round the circle twice or more, so that it
showed a normal pressure. The actual pressure must have been terrific.
And after I left the ship one of her guns burst. This accident
contributed another instance in favour of breech-loading as opposed to
muzzle-loading guns.
The accident occurred during practice at quarters in the Gulf of Ismid,
on 2nd January, 1879, in the fore-turret. Captain Alfred John
Chatfield had succeeded Captain Wilson in command. Two officers and
nine men were killed, and thirty-five persons injured. The muzzle was
blown off from about two feet in front of the trunnions. There was
much discussion then and subsequently concerning the cause of the
accident. The probability is that the bursting of the gun was due to
its having been double-loaded, after a previous miss-fire, which, in
the simultaneous discharge of the rest of the guns, had not been
noticed. The committee {149} which reported on the matter on 1st
March, 1879, adopted this hypothesis, in preference to the theory that
there had been a flaw in the material.
Captain Edward Seymour (afterwards Admiral of the Fleet the Right Hon.
Sir E. H. Seymour), who was then in command of the troopship _Orontes_,
in his book, _My Naval Career and Travels_, thus refers to the
incident:--
"From Malta I brought home the main part of the ship's company of
H.M.S. _Thunderer_, on board which ship the terrible explosion of the
38-ton muzzle-loading gun had lately occurred in her foremost turret.
Both turret guns were being fired simultaneously, but evidently one did
not go off. It may seem hard to believe such a thing could happen and
not be noticed, but from my own experience I understand it. The men in
the turret often stopped their ears, and perhaps shut their eyes, at
the moment of firing, and then instantly worked the run-in levers, and
did not notice how much the guns had recoiled. This no doubt occurred.
Both guns were then at once reloaded, and the rammer's indicator,
working by machinery, set fast and failed to show how far home the new
charge had gone. This, too, may seem unlikely, but no doubt it
happened; and the gun on being then fired burst, killing two officers
and several men, and wrecking the turret. Experiments made with a
similar gun double-loaded, burst it in exactly the same way."
I agree. I have frequently been in the turret during practice, and I
have myself fired several rounds and I can testify that the concussion
was so tremendous that it was impossible to hear whether one gun was
fired or both guns were fired. Without insisting upon details, it was
also the fact that the men in the turret could not tell by the position
of the hydraulic rammer whether or not the gun had already been
charged, as the rammer was three-jointed and telescopic: the indicator
which was designed to show the position of the rammer was totally
unreliable; while the actual loading of the gun was done upon the
battery deck below the turret. {150} Hence the loading crew must also
have been unaware that there had been a misfire. The system in use in
the _Thunderer_ was experimental, and after the accident its defects
were remedied. I then wrote to _The Times_ explaining what the system
had been and how it had been improved, in order both to remove any
misapprehension there might have been with regard to the efficiency of
the officers and men who perished in the disaster, and with regard to
the future safety of guns' crews. I was reprimanded by the Admiralty
for having published the letter while on full pay in the command of the
_Osborne_; but the reprimand was (like the Bishop's apron) a mere form,
for I also received a private letter of thanks.
After the bursting of the boiler, but before the gun accident, the
Prince of Wales at my suggestion very kindly came on board, in order
that the men's belief that the _Thunderer_ was an unlucky ship should
be removed. The Prince fired the fore turret guns at a target from the
captain of the guns' firing position, and made a rattling good shot.
The _Thunderer_ was employed in experimental work, such as measuring
her turning-circle (the diameter of which is the smallest distance the
ship can set between the point at which she begins to describe a
semi-circle and the point at which she ends it), and noting her
behaviour under various circumstances and stresses of weather. I
gained much valuable experience in her, and I shall always remember
Captain Wilson as one of those officers from whose skill and experience
I learned the most.
While I was in the _Thunderer_ (1876-7) I made one of the first working
models of the telephone used in this country, and had the honour of
presenting it to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales. The invention was first
exhibited before the British Association by Mr. W. H. Preece on 23rd
August, 1877; and it was shown to Queen Victoria at Osborne on 15th
January, 1878. The Telephone Company was established during the same
year.
The _Thunderer_ was sent to blow up a vessel which had {151} capsized
and which was floating in the Channel, a danger to mariners.
Explosives attached to her side tore pieces out of her, but the wreck
continued to float. In these cases it is necessary to disintegrate the
vessel, whether sunk or floating, into fragments. I suggested that the
hull should be girdled with an iron hoop to which explosives were
attached at intervals, and the device was successful. The explosion
cut her into holes like the perforations of a sheet of postage stamps
and she broke up.
The _Thunderer_ was lying off Queenstown, and I was watching a cutter
which was running out of the harbour. On the deck was a group of Irish
farmers. The cutter suddenly gybed, the boom knocking down the
farmers. Getting up, they instantly fell upon one another with sticks;
and they were hard at it when over came the boom again, and again
felled them all to the deck. It could be they had had a drop of liquor
taken, which confused their intellects.
In the year 1878 I married Miss Jeromina Gardner, daughter of the late
Richard Gardner, M.P. for Leicester, and of Lucy Countess Mandelsloh,
whose father, Count Mandelsloh, was for some years Minister in London,
representing Würtemberg.
Shortly afterwards I was appointed to command the royal yacht
_Osborne_. The _Osborne_ was used by the Prince of Wales (afterwards
King Edward VII). In those days she was not kept in commission for
more than a few months in each year.
Several cruises were made to Denmark, and there were many shooting
expeditions. On one such occasion I was the only person present who
was not either a king actual or a king prospective. There were the
King of Denmark, the King of Norway and Sweden, and the King of Greece,
the Prince of Wales, the Cesarewitch, the Crown Princes of Denmark, of
Norway and Sweden, and of Greece. We shot foxes, hares, deer, and
anything that came along; and I was laughed at when my instincts
forbade me to shoot a fox.
{152}
Upon a return voyage, when all the Royal children were on board, a gale
sprang up just off the Skaw. The starboard paddle-wheel was smashed
upon some wreckage; and the next thing I saw was a small craft being
driven on a lee shore. The _Osborne_ dropped anchor, in order both
that the paddle-wheel should be repaired and that the crew of the
driving vessel might be assisted. The only way to rescue them was to
veer a boat astern with a hawser. Just as the arrangement was ready,
to my delight I perceived the crew--there were four--embarking in their
own boats. They reached the shore in safety, but their ship was
wrecked.
It was then the system in the royal yachts to retain the officers in
her for long periods. One officer had been in the _Osborne_ for
fourteen years. I ventured to suggest to the Prince of Wales that
under these conditions his acquaintance with the officers of the Fleet
was necessarily limited, and that by means of restricting the time of
service in the _Osborne_ to two years, he might become acquainted with
a succession of officers. With his habitual courtesy and address, the
Prince adopted the suggestion.
Queen Victoria was, however, a little perturbed by the change. Her
Majesty said to me that she hoped I should not endeavour to change the
officers in the royal yacht.