Julian writes in a small study surrounded by a special collection of tangible links to the Great Age of Fighting Sail - his collection of eighteenth century artefacts. He can reach out and touch - and in some cases, smell - a world of over 200 years ago. Many of the artefacts were recovered from the wreck of HMS Invincible, a 74‑gun ship‑of‑the‑line wrecked in the English Channel in 1759. |
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SEA SERVICE CUTLASS
The cutlass was the chief weapons used for boarding enemy
ships, cutting out (boat actions), and repelling boarders. The one in
Julian's collection was issued to a man‑o'‑war in the year of Trafalgar,
1805, and was used by seamen serving in His Majesty's Navy at that time. It
must once have been bright with enemy blood. Little nicks on the cutting
edge have been ground away - a testimony to the fact that this cutlass was
certainly used in combat and returned by a victorious combatant.
GUN TACKLE BLOCK
This 10‑inch gun tackle block was one of those each side of a chest‑high
32‑pounder cannon, the standard big gun of a line‑of‑battle ship. Men hauled
on the tackle to run out the cannon which weighed three tons and had to be
run out again after every broadside. These cannon could send a cannon ball
as big as a man's head through three feet of solid oak at a distance of a
mile. The sheaves in the block are hewn by hand from lignum vitae, an
iron‑hard Caribbean wood. In the early nineteenth century the process of
making these blocks was famously mechanised.
TARRED CABLE
As it is tarred, this eight‑inch cable must be standing rigging, and was
possibly used for the fore‑shrouds. It still reeks of 200 years of tar and
the sea, and is one of the most evocative items in Julian's collection. A
ship o'‑the‑line needed vast quantities of rope and cable, and stretched end
to tend would extend over twenty miles!
SEAMAN'S TANKARD
This was made by a modern cooper but using eighteenth century shipwreck
timber to the exact specification of an ancient tankard of the times. Seamen
would have drunk small beer in this. When the beer had run out after some
time at sea, a half pint of rum would be issued each day.
MUSKET AND PISTOL BALLS
The smaller shot are for the flintlock boarding pistol, a robust weapon
carried by boarders. The larger are musket balls carried by marines and
landing parties. Nelson died as a result of a wound to the spine caused by
the largest type of musket ball.
THE TIMES
Another special item in his collection is the Times newspaper, Friday 8
February 1793, printed the very day Tom Kydd was press‑ganged...
WORLD'S FIRST PRODUCTION LINE
In 2006 we commemorated the birth of Isambard
Kingdom Brunel but we should also raise our glasses to his father, Marc Brunel -
for it was he who gave us the first factory assembly line ‑ and something that
was of great importance to Britain's continuing naval dominance.
A sailing man‑o'‑war in Kydd's day typically needed over 25 miles of rope, much of which was used to raise and lower the sails with the help of wooden pulley blocks. Blocks were also needed to work the great guns and for a variety of other functions throughout the ship - anchors and their associated gear, ship's boats and storing ship. In total, well over 1000 blocks were required for each ship. HMS Victory carried 768 blocks (the largest being 26 inches long, the smallest six inches) for her rigging and 628 for her guns.
At the end of the eighteenth century blocks were all made by hand by a firm called Taylor Walker in Southhampton. The Navy required more than 100,000 of these a year.
Marc Brunel approached Sir Samuel Bentham, the Inspector‑General of Navy Works with a scheme for making blocks with a suite of special machines he had patented - and was given the go‑ahead.
Brunel now needed a skilled mechanic and he approached Henry Maudslay. The story goes that Brunel was so impressed with the precision screw that Maudslay had displayed in the window of his premises in Wells Street, that he took in a drawing of one of the 26 machines that he had designed to have him make a small prototype. Brunel was anxious to keep his invention secret until he was sure he could trust Maudslay.
A week later when Brunel went back to see his work he showed Maudslay a second drawing who immediately grasped what he had in mind and exclaimed, “Ah! Now I see what you're thinking of; you want machinery for making blocks”.
Brunel and Maudslay collaborated on building models of the machines, some of which have been preserved in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Then they went ahead and built the full‑size machinery and set up the world's first production line in the block-making house in Portsmouth.
The block‑machines were made entirely of metal; the final design also had input from Bentham and Simon Goodrich, Mechanist to the Navy Board. As well as ensuring exceptionally accurate products, the process was far less labour intensive - ten men could achieve what formerly required 110.
By about 1807, Brunel's block-making machines met the Royal Navy's entire requirement and some were still in operation when Julian was at sea!
The machines attracted an enormous amount of interest from the time of their installation, ranging from Nelson on the morning of the day he embarked from Portsmouth for the Battle of Trafalgar, to the Princess Victoria at the age of twelve, who was shown them as part of her education.
During the course of the Napoleonic War there was a steady stream of foreign dignitaries and military men wishing to see the machines for themselves. They were also described and illustrated in a number of contemporary encyclopaedias.
They became such a popular tourist attraction that Brunel urged Bentham to erect a fence around the mill to keep visitors at bay.