HMS Namur - the ship beneath the floor

[anteros_lmc]

Earlier this week Chatham Historic Dockyard announced the identity of a ship whose timbers were found beneath the floor of a wheelwrights shop during renovations on the dockyard site. The remains were discovered in 1995 but it has taken the dockayrd this long to identify them conclusively after examining shipwrights marks stamped on the timbers. The ship is none other than HMS Namur, a vessel that saw 47 years of service and nine fleet engagements, including the Battle of Lagos in 1759. Namur is also notable for her connection to two very different historical figures; Olaudah Equiano, the writer and anti-slavery campaigner, who wrote of his experience as a powder monkey aboard Namur at the Battle of Lagos, and Charles "brother of Jane" Austen, who was Namur's captain from 1811 - 1814.

    

Links to various news reports:

From BBC news: Fighting ship's identity revealed in Chatham Dockyard.
From the Guardian: Discover me timbers: experts identify remains of 18th century warship. Terrible headline there!
Chatham Historic Dockyard: The Ship Beneath the Floor.

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I just want to lie down and rub my face on them. (I think I have an unhealthy relationship with Naval history!)

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Not at all. That strikes me as an entirely healthy relationship with Naval history! I can just imagine you rolling about on those timbers like a big pussy cat! I'd do it too :)

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

History that you can touch-- the best kind.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

!!!!!!!

speechless.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Impressive eh? Though perhaps not as impressive as the Constitution under sail! :)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely be posting some of Hearts' good pictures soon.

And I discovered that the precious wee schooner that startled us all by saluting the fort before the Constitution came in view? Is the one I have discount tickets for! So sometime before October, I'll be sailing on the Fame!

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I'll look forward to the pics then!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_likimeya/]

I've been there! :D But that was eight years ago. Couldn't they have hurried up with the identification??!

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Really? Have you been to Chatham?! Oooh, I'm jealous!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_likimeya/]

I've been to Chatham and the Medway towns five times! I guess it was inevitable that I ended up at the dockyards at some point, although at the time I didn't know enough to be able to really appreciate what I was seeing. :/ I had even forgotten all about it, until recently something brought up a memory of the rather horrifying tour I took through the submarine there. *shudders*

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Five times? How did you come to visit the Medway five times?!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_likimeya/]

I went there twice on a language learning holiday when I was a teenager, and later, after I'd finished school, I worked for the organisation, supervising the students. I stayed with families in Gillingham each time. Back in the 90s, the main meeting point and the venue where the classes were held was in Chatham, but for safety reasons they had to move it to the historic centre of Rochester, which in my opinion is the cutest place on earth! :)

Feeling rather homesick for it now… :/

[vespican.livejournal.com]

Very interesting to discover where these old ships ended up. I did notice that one of the links referred to Namur as a second rate, yet the drawing shows what is probably a 74, a third rate.
Dave

[vespican.livejournal.com]

I may have posted the above in a bit of haste. Did a bit of google-search to find that Namur had been built and launched as a 90 gun second rate. Later was razeed and became a 74. Also, no way of telling if the drawing shown in the links is actually of the Namur.
In looking this up, found that there had been an earlier ship of the same name, also built as a 2nd rate and later cut down. What was interesting was the drastic change in dimensions such as length and breadth. Makes one think that this was more of an administrative rebuild... The old vessel was scrapped at the same time a new one, perhaps to a completely different plan or design was built. As far as official records go, the ship was rebuilt, but in fact was a completely new and different ship. This seems to have been a fairly common practice in both the Royal Navy and the early US Navy.
Dave

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating, I didn't know Namur was a razee. There are lots of plans and representations of Namur, including the ones used in the articles above, on the NMM collections site here, they might provide a bit more info.