More on "The Ship Under The Floor"

[anteros_lmc]

This week's podcast on historyextra.com, the website of the BBC History Magazine, includes an interview with Sam Willis about "the ship under the floor", the timbers discovered under the floor of the wheelwrights shop at Chatham Dockyard which were recently identified as HMS Namur. Willis talks about the ship's discovery, identification and history and also about two of her more famous crew members; Captain Charles Austen and former powder monkey and anti-slavery campaigner Olaudah Equiano. Willis makes some interesting observations on slavery and the Royal Navy, although I would query his assertion that Equiano more or less invented "a new genre of literary fiction, the slave narrative". I know there is considerable debate over Equiano's origins, however I certainly wouldn't describe his extraordinary narrative as "fiction".

That aside, later in the interview, Willis provides an interesting answer the question of how the Namur's timbers came to end up under the floor of the wheelwright's shop:

"Why are the timbers there? They are supporting a floor, but not all of them are doing a structural job. Some beams run the full width of floor but between the beams other timbers from the ship have been placed, very beautifully, all laid out together. One possible answer is that the Captain Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard in the 1830s, when this ship was broken up, was a chap called James Alexander Gordon and we know that he served aboard the Namur as a very, very young boy at the age of about twelve. It was his first ship, he was a young midshipman and he was serving aboard the Namur. Now this is when these ships were being broken up, in the 1830s Turner is painting his very famous painting The Fighting Temeraire, of the sun setting on the great wooden walls of the age of sail, and it’s possible I think to think of these timbers at Chatham in the same way. Possibly when the Namur come into this dockyard to be broken up, James Gordon has said “That was the first ship I went on. I’m going to make sure that it’s done with a measure of dignity," not literally torn to pieces. And he’s almost laying her to rest. Keeping her all together."

I do like that idea; the former midshipman laying his first ship to rest. And here she is, almost 200 years later...


You can download the podcast here and some new images of the ship and her timbers have been published here.

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I like that idea too. And I find it quite probable. What mixed feelings he must have had.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

It's a really touching thought isn't it? It made me quite teary to think about this.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Don't start me weeping, now!

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Heh, it made me all weepy too!

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

I certainly wouldn't describe his extraordinary narrative as "fiction".

That's very badly worded, I think the phrase they're looking for is 'literary biography'.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

It certainly is badly worded, but guess to be fair to Willis, it looks worse when you see it in writing. I do hope he meant to say "biography" rather than "fiction".

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

Lovely story, but I couldn't help smiling at James Alexander Gordon. I wonder if he's a relation...

"East Fife 1, Forfar 2"

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Hehe!

"And now to the Battle of Lagos, Britain 5, France nil" XD