This week I thought I would write about an elusive entity called ‘The Woolwich Navy’- which I’m not entirely sure I believe in although I’m sure that some of it existed in some form or other. I have been unable to find any sensible references to it in the whole of Google Search or even any non-sensible reference. Also my ever reliable -up till now - contacts in the Royal Arsenal history group have never heard of it either - so there you go!
I picked up a reference to it many years ago in a book called ‘London
Ship Types’ by Frank Bowen published in 1938 by the East Ham Echo, cost 5/-.
It describes a River – London River- which is so long gone that most
people will have no idea that it ever existed and who think the River is busy
if they see both a Clipper and a disco boat at the same time. It’s a river that I remember very vividly
from my Gravesend childhood in the aftermath of the Second World War. My infant school must have been a mile from
the River but our ears were still filled with the noise of it - but real river people kept themselves to
themselves and didn’t speak to the likes of us.
Frank Bowen’s book describes many, many types of vessel the likes
of which has long gone now, and are long forgotten. He lists 90 different types
of boats and I’m sure some of them were pretty obscure even by the standards of
the 1930s. I can see almost nothing on the list which I would recognise as a
type of vessel which you might see today - except he mentions by name the Massey
Shaw. Of course she is very much still
around, although retired and preserved.
In the book she is just an example of an active fire fighting vessel
with her role in the blitz and at Dunkirk still ahead of her. .There is no
mention of her pumps, designed and built in Greenwich by Merryweather's, or of
her ability to put on a fine display out
in the middle of the River of water pumped upwards by them.
So - the Woolwich Navy. Mr Bowen gives some details about its antecedents
and its position as a
‘small Naval Service in its own right’. He says that when people see their boats, and
wonder what they are, that the flag is difficult to identify -’a blue Ensign
defaced by gold guns’. What does he
mean by ‘defaced’ or was there a different meaning to the word in the 1930s
than there is now??
He says the boats themselves are painted black ‘with a buff funnel and a black top’. Also, ‘they do not carry their names painted
on their bows like ordinary merchant ships but man of war fashion, in very
small letters on the stern which are generally difficult to read’.
They were apparently a totally separate and independent service with
a headquarters on the Arsenal site and men would spend their entire careers in it
from boys to captain. They were ‘generally
men of a superior steady type who have a good job and looked after it well’. They wore ’a uniform of sorts’ - whatever
that means! It’s described elsewhere as
‘blue serge .... with brass
buttons”. He also says that “the discipline is not to be compared with either the Army
or the Navy’. I think that means
they were a scruffy bunch who did what they liked. There is the distinct impression that the
actual Navy was a bit sniffy about them.
The work though could be dangerous and for the risks they
took, its said that these sailors enjoyed benefits almost unknown elsewhere on
19th century waterways - job security, sick pay, hospital care, and a pension.
Mr Bowen says that the Ordnance Department had maintained a fleet
of some sort ‘from time immemorial’ at various ports and naval bases. The boats
themselves were all owned by the War Department or what we would now call the Ministry
of Defence. So this was a national organisation with its headquarters in the Arsenal.
They must have operated all around the country and I don’t suppose for one
moment that government boats operating out of --let’s say Portsmouth or
Liverpool - would refer to their personnel as part of the ‘Woolwich Navy’.
So I guess it was just a term used on the Thames and maybe at the same
time having a bit of a laugh at these Woolwich based sailors.
Clearly locally, the Arsenal will have needed an office to manage
service vessels coming and going on all sorts of river related tasks. On the River itself a large fleet of sailing barges
was needed to carry ammunition and stores of all sorts from Woolwich to places
like Shoeburyness. - Although I was under the impression that lots of this work
would have been done by the ordinary commercial vessels of the day. However Mr Bowen seems to imply that the War Department
had its own fleet of barges – although it is not easy to identify them in the
many, many web sites which cover these barges. Some web sites mention a War Office department
called ‘RASK’ – what does that stand for?? ‘Royal Arsenal .. ships?? Shipping’
??? and I have no idea about what that ‘K’ is for?? Does someone out there
know??
There were links with the Royal Engineers. Mr.Bowen says that this
Woolwich organisation was very successful in regard to submarine mines. He explains
that after the American Civil War when such mines ‘had
proved their worth’ the Royal Engineers were put in charge of all the mining
defences of the country ...’for the Navy
regarded the mine as an ungentlemanly weapon‘. The submarine mining vessels were stationed
at various points along the coast and practised mining and counter mining on
commercial waterways. The Navy however ‘was quite unprepared for the pitch of
perfection which the German Navy had brought that to by 1914.’
He says that the War Department boats in the 1930s were very busy transporting guns from Woolwich down to Shoeburyness and other such places as well as handing the movement of stores, food and occasionally troops. I thought that the big guns and so on were taken out on special transports from the slipways which have recently been restored on the Woolwich riverside (See https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=woolwich%20barge%20slip). So, was that work done by the ‘Woolwich Navy’ – two special barges fitted with railway lines and with specially shaped bows and called ‘Gog’ and ‘Magog’ after the giants who guard the ‘City of London.
Magog was built in 1876 in Limehouse. Gog was much larger to carry even bigger guns, but also built in Limehouse in 1885. There are considerable remains of specially built berths at Shoeburyness.
Only one vessel is mentioned in connection with the Woolwich Navy
in Bowen’s article. This is the Sir Evelyn Wood which he says was ‘well known
on the river for over 40 years’. She was built in Paisley in 1896 as a ‘steel
screw steamer on the lines of a superior coaster’ and the ‘majority of her work
was the carriage of big guns’. She was still working in the 1930s when Bowen
wrote ‘which is a fine tribute to her original construction and the way she’s
been maintained by the army ‘. I’m sure
there must have been others boats as well as this particular vessel - but they
are not mentioned.
Sir Evelyn Wood survived the Second World War and was then used
for dumping ammunition in the Irish Sea.
She was disposed of in the 1950s and new owners renamed her ‘William
Radcliffe’. She apparently went for scrapping, maybe in 1959 – but it’s a bit
unclear.
It seems to be most likely that most of the vessels used were
sailing barges and one is actually still around which was built specially for
the War Department as late as 1931. She was built locally by H.A. Oliver at Albion
Wharf in Rotherhithe to carry chemicals – gunpowder, explosives, whatever was needed
- between Woolwich Arsenal and the Waltham Abbey Chemical Works. They were both Government institutions and
there was a great deal of care taken in case of accident. Waltham Abbey works itself had originally been
a gunpowder mill and as much transport as possible on site was undertaken by
water in order to cut down the risk of explosions from any form of sparking from
metal or stone roadways. Visitors today
can see the network of internal canals.
Lady of the Lea could carry up to 500
barrels of explosives in the main hold which would have been principally
cordite. She was built small enough to
pass under bridges of the River Lea and then cross the Thames, going between
the two works. That involved both canal,
and open river navigation, so she was equipped for both horse towing and sail
operation. This was dangerous work and there were all sorts of regulations for
these barges loaded with explosives.
Bridges were closed by the police as they passed under them. She had a crew consisting of a master and
three men, who wore ‘Woolwich Navy’ blue serge uniforms.
Eventually, In 1943, the production of cordite was
transferred away from Waltham Abbey and Lady of the Lea was fitted with
a petrol engine by the Royal Navy. At
the end of the war she was withdrawn from service and sold in 1946. She
was based in Sittingbourne but then she was converted to a houseboat.amd moored
at Tring. In 1990 a new owner rebuilt and re-rigged her as a Thames sailing
barge. She has since been used for private charters, and is based in Faversham.
and races regularly in the Thames barge races.
If you go to the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham
Abbey –and you really should go at once if you haven’t been already - there is
a display about Lady of the Lea at work on the Lea and the Thames.
There is also a model of the barge in the London Canal Museum – which is
somewhere else you should go at once, it’s at Kings Cross.
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