Geoffrey Winter has kindly got in touch from Australia because he was particularly interested in the construction of the Temeraire at Chatham Dockyard. His great great great grandfather, John Weekes, was the Assistant Master Shipwright at Chatham until his retirement in 1830. His work between 1815 and 1830 would therfore have perfectly straddled the period [...]
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Anniversary of the Capture of the Temeraire
August 19, 2010 – 11:43 pm
August is an excellent month for naval anniversaries. We had the 308th anniversary of Benbow’s Last Fight last week and today is the 251st anniversary of the capture of the Temeraire. The ‘Fighting Temeraire’ so famously painted by Turner being taken to the breaker’s yard in Rotherhythe was the second Temeraire in the Royal [...]
Benbow’s Last Fight
August 16, 2010 – 3:04 am
308 years ago on Wednesday, Admiral John Benbow fought his last fight in which he was wounded and later died. He was abandoned by his captains and ‘Benbow’s Last Fight’ has since become a famous example of naval cowardice that represents the bottom of the scale of British naval competence. Curiously, however, Benbow has never [...]
Navy Days Book Signing
August 2, 2010 – 7:13 am
I was lucky enough to do a book signing at the Royal Naval base in Portsmouth last weekend and witnessed the extraordinary popularity of the annual Navy Days celebration. Some 25,000 came through the gates and there were lengthy queues to see the new Type 45 destroyers Daring and Dauntless. A much earlier version of [...]
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