Greenwich for tourists is best known for the Cutty Sark, the preserved sailing ship sitting in its riverside dry dock. Almost noone will be aware that there were once considerable plans to bring another historic ship to Greenwich, or rather to Thamesmead, as a feature for the new town. This ship was ten years older than Cutty Sark, and unlike her, built locally - and very, very different indeed.
Coincidentally, I was also watching on TV the episode of Dan Snow's series on the Royal Navy called 'How the navy forged the modern world. Much of it focused on a ship which Dan described as the 'embodiment of the industrial revolution'. As he talked I became more and more aware how much about the construction of the ship had connections to Greenwich.
I must admit here that it is taking a lot of nerve for me to write about a historic ship, so near the National Maritime Museum - where they know all about these things. But this ship was also about industrial innovation and Thameside expertise.
Today if you go to Portsmouth Harbour Station, just off the train, you are very aware of a big old ship just across the harbour. This ship was the cutting edge of mid-nineteenth century ship building design. To quote from its website "The fastest, largest and most powerful warship in the world ... a lasting influence on naval architecture and design ...the ultimate deterrent . Had my house on the hillside in Westcombe Park had existed in 1859 I could have looked out of my bedroom window and seen on the other side of the river a massive ship taking shape. It was built on Bow Creek - on the east bank, technically in what became Canning Town. (I once met a man who used to go down to Portsmouth and harass them to change 'built in London' on the signs to 'built in Essex).
Of course, a lot of big ships were built on the Thames in those days - Brunel's Great Eastern launched a bit upriver only the previous year. Keep in mind that then London River was at the heart of world ship building. Vessels had been built at the mouth of Bow Creek since the Vikings but a modern shipyard had been developed from the 1830s. The company had been re-structured as Thames Ironworks in 1857 by Peter Rolt, a timber merchant and MP for Greenwich. The yard had a workforce of over 4,000 and has been described as 'by far the most innovative, successful and enduring iron shipbuilding site on the River'.
The Admiralty had been slowly coming round to the idea of building ships from iron when it became known that the French were to build an iron clad. They issued a design specification for a new warship 'a frigate of 36 guns cased with wrought iron plates'. The result was 'the greatest single development in the history of warship design'. As the ship was built, over in Bow Creek, she would have easily been seen from Greenwich - but our contribution to her was much more than that.
The ship was not just 'modern' in the use of iron, but, despite the masts and sails, there were steam engines from John Penn and Sons. Several leading firms in marine steam engine manufacture with 'accumulated experience at the highest levels of competence' were in what is now south east London. Penn's works was on what we know as the Wickes site on Blackheath Hill. His contract for the engines for the new ship was worth £74,409.
The Dan Snow TV programme gives a tour of the engines now on the ship -although I am afraid they are specially built replicas. Also replicas are her Armstrong breech loading rifled guns of a revolutionary design. I do not know if they were made at the Armstrong works at Elswick or, here, in the Royal Arsenal. Certainly some of the work was done was in the Royal Carriage Department at Woolwich. I would guess many of the other items among the fixture, fittings and instrumentation were made locally. Perhaps someone has written all this up from the records and will write in and correct me on all this.
The ship survived eventually as an 'oil fuel hulk' at Pembroke Dock. In 1967 the South East London Mercury reported that the National Maritime Museum and the Duke of Edinburgh were part of a scheme for restoration and a new home for the vessel in the new town of Thamesmead. This never happened; the ship was restored in Hartlepool and then taken 'home' to Portsmouth where a visit is a very, very worthwhile experience. (Did I tell you I had dinner on board once?)
What I think I want to say is that in Portsmouth Harbour is this amazing cutting edge vessel built with the skills and expertise of Thameside workers - many of them from Greenwich and Woolwich. I am not sure we give them any credit for it, or in any way celebrate their contribution. It is all very well to talk about Greenwich and the Navy - but somehow not about the skills, ingenuity and technological expertise to provide the hardware which made their achievements possible. Warrior.
Go to Portsmouth, visit what was a technological marvel in the 1860s and remember her origins on the Thames. Sources - I don't set myself up to be an expert or even particularly knowledgeable about naval ships their history and construction. Books I have used for reference have been Tony Arnold's 'Iron shipbuilding on the Thames' and John Wells’ ‘‘The Immortal Warrior' and quotations are from them. Warrior's own website is http://www.hmswarrior.org Williams the Pirate –
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