How Chatham’s Shipwrights Prepared for Dangers on the High Seas
By Paul Tritton
This engraving of Chatham dockyard, about 1790, clearly indicates the variety of work undertaken. Along the dockyard waterfront ships are seen both under construction and under repair; one of the ships moored in the river is having her masts stepped. The huge clouds of smoke emanate from the smithery.
Insights into the lives of Chatham Royal Dockyard’s most highly-paid artisans in the 17th and 18th centuries - its shipwrights - can be gleaned from transcriptions of their Wills, nearly one hundred of which can now be downloaded free of charge from the Kent Archaeological Society’s website. The shipwrights earned up to two shillings per 12-hour day (equal to about £150 in today’s money) and were an elite workforce, wealthy enough to make provision for their families and dependents and leave generous bequests to others in need. They had good reasons for such foresight. Not only did they work in hazardous conditions, they often embarked on dangerous voyages in the ships they built and repaired, while completing unfinished work and carrying out urgent repairs and maintenance on the high seas.
The Wills were registered with the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and are an invaluable resource for family historians seeking their shipwright ancestors, and for researchers wishing to learn more about the lives of the men who helped Britannia rule the waves. Until the Wills were transcribed and posted on-line by KAS volunteers they could be read only by visiting the National Archives at Kew or by subscribing to specialist websites.
With the transcriptions there are indexes and cross-referenced links to useful additional information, including names of executors and witnesses; place names; trades and occupations; and lists of ships on which the testifiers named in the Wills worked. Some of the Wills were made by men who worked at Chatham before and during the days when Samuel Pepys inspected the shipyard as Chief Secretary to the Admiralty. Some of them would have witnessed Chatham’s very own “Day of Infamy” in 1667, when the Dutch navy destroyed much of King Charles’s fleet at anchor in the Medway and captured his flagship, the Royal Charles.
Among the 18th century Wills are those of shipwrights who worked at Chatham when HMS Victory (launched in 1765) and other warships were built for fleets commanded by Lord Nelson and his predecessors.
Among the Wills are those of:
Edmond Twymer who testified in 1632 that he was about to sail to the East Indies in the ‘good ship Comfort, belonging to the right worthy company of merchants of London trading to those parts’. He wrote that he was ‘in good health and perfect mynde and memory, but considering the fickle estate of this transitory life and how many casualties may happen’ he instructed that in the event of his death, any wages owed to him by the East India Company should be paid to his brother, Robert. Edmond died three years later.
William Houghton was preparing to sail from Chatham on board HMS Breda in 1690, ‘knowing the casualties of the seas and hazards and dangers of war’. His Will was proved in February 1691. Perhaps he was killed when the Breda, a 70-gun third rate ship of the line,’ was destroyed in an accidental fire in 1690?
He left property at Alton Eastbrook (Hampshire) to his wife Elizabeth.
Gervase Mund made his Will in April 1631 but died only two months later. After providing for his family he left 20 shillings to the ‘poor people of Chatham’ and 10 shillings ‘to the poor of St Margaret’s parish, Rochester,’ where he was born.
Jonathan Lash sailed in 1689 on HMS Warspite, a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line, launched in 1666. ‘Considering the dangers of the sea and the uncertainty of this life’ Lash made a Will in which the sole beneficiary and executor was his loving friend Judith Goter of Chatham, Spinster. He died within 12 months.
Thomas Cullen joined Captain Gore’s crew of the merchant ship Society of London in May 1683 for a voyage to the East Indies, ‘not knowing whether it may please God I shall live to return home.’ He died that same year, leaving money and possessions to his brother Caleb.
In 1799 John Stubbs left investments standing in my name in the books of the Governor of the Bank of England’ worth a total of £1,500 an enormous sum, equivalent to about £150,000 today. Stubbs’s beneficiaries were his niece, Mary Kitson, wife of Jeremiah Kitson, Wirer, blacksmith (£200); his niece Elizabeth Winder, wife of John Winder, sadler, (£200), his nephew William Stubbs, a seaman in the Royal Navy (£250), and his nephew, John Stubbs, carpenter, serving on HMS Emerald (a 36-gun fifth-rate warship launched in 1795) £850.
James Jarno is one of the few Chatham shipwrights whose graves have been found. He made his Will on 6 June 1751 and died on 25 September 1751, aged 59. His grave in St Mary’s Churchyard, Chatham, is marked with an elaborately carved headstone. James left more than £500, divided among various friends and relatives, and also bequeathed his ‘family tankard’ to his cousin, John Diggins of Portsmouth, shipwright. Elizabeth Barnes whose husband Henry had been a silversmith but who was now a labourer at Chatham Dockyard, evidently having fallen on hard times, received £30; £5 was donated to buy bread ‘for poor widows that do not receive alms of the parish’; and Richard Banks, barber, and Richard Demetrius, shipwright, each received one guinea to buy a gold ring.
Richard Grinyear made his Will in 1740 and served on board HMS Grafton, a 70-gun third rate ship of the line launched in 1709 and broken up in 1744. His sole beneficiary was ‘my true and trusty friend, Mary Comferry of Chatham, widow’.
William Wall signed his Will on 20 May 1709 before joining HMS Queen, a 100-gun first-rate ship. Launched during Charles II’s reign, she was originally named Royal Charles and served as Admiral Sir George Rooke’s flagship. In 1693 she was rebuilt and became the second of six ships to be named HMS Queen. Wall died in about February 1710.
John Robinson had only a brief career on HMS Royal Sovereign, a 100-gun first rate ship and the second of six ships to bear that name. He joined the ship in June 1724 but by September he had died.
John Crookenden served for four years after making his Will in August 1730. He joined HMS Princess Louisa, a 42-gun fifth-rate ship, launched as HMS Launceston in 1711, but died in the summer of 1734.
In 1719 Francis Eastwood became Master Carpenter on HMS Sandwich, a 90-gun second-rate ship launched at Harwich in 1679 and rebuilt at Chatham Dockyard, where she was relaunched on 21 April 1712. Eastwood died in 1728.
Nathaniel Ball, formerly a shipwright and now a carpenter’s mate on the Houghton, was perhaps fearing the worst in October 1731 when due to sail for the East Indies. He made a Will bequeathing his money and property to his mother, Grace Ball of Gosport. His Will was proved in May 1735.
Thomas Emery testified in 1645 that he was ‘bound forth on the good ship Sara’ and made bequests to ‘my loving mother Elizabeth the now wife of Peter Ellis of Chatham,’ and his sisters Ann Clay and Mary Gamball. He died 13 years later.
Kent had four Royal Dockyards, Chatham being the last to close, in 1984, after Sheerness (1960) and Woolwich and Deptford (both 1869).
Website links:
17th century Wills: https://goo.gl/4S3sCs
18th century Wills: https://goo.gl/9GUC9N
or type shipwrights site:kentarchaeology.org.uk into Google’s search window.