Hms Gorgon (1 results)
[Informed attack on the design of HMS Gorgon (1837).] Long Manuscript Letter, lacking signature, addressed to Benjamin Sharpe of the Royal Navy, containing detailed criticism and informed criticism, following an inspection of the ship.
[Samuel Read (1796-1863) of Chatham Dockyard and the School of Naval Architecture?; Commander Benjamin Sharpe (d.1883), Royal Navy; Sir William Symonds; HMS Gorgon]
Published by Devonport. 13 April, 1839
- Hardcover
- Manuscript
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HMS Gorgon was designed by Sir William Symonds and launched in 1837. Her direct-acting engines (in which the engine's cylinders are placed under the crankshaft), built by Seaward and Company, were the first to be fitted in any vessel. She was scrapped in 1864. 4pp., 4to. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, but wi…th the signature torn away. Addressed, with seal in black wax, to 'Benjamin Sharpe Esq | 19, Fleet Street, | London' (Sharpe's father had been resident partner at that address in the banking firm of Gosling & Sharpe. The first paragraph reads: 'Dear Sharpe, | I have just returned from the Gorgon, and my visit to her has verified the substance of our Conversation on Thursday last. | Her present armament consists of 4 32-pounder (bored) guns & 2 84-pounders (10-inch) on the weather deck. if properly armed she would also carry 12 32-pounders on the main-deck, but she is deficient in these. Her draft of water is about 15th. & 15 . 6 which, I believe, is what she ought to draw if her armament were complete, with the full compliment of men, water, provisions, munitions &c.' The letter continues with detailed criticism, with reference to a trail 'in the river in July last, with Ld Minto & other lords of the Admiralty on bd', the fact that 'her displacement had been sadly miscalculated',an incident on the coast of Spain, her engines and paddle-boards. 'To judge of Gorgon, whether she be a failure or otherwise, she should be tried as an armed vessel, carrying 16 32-pounders & 2 swivel guns [.] We have no more money that we know what to do with - no more workmen than we to keep pace with our wants in the shipwright department - & yet we are sacrificing both to the vain endeavours of adventurers in naval architecture, while there are plenty of persons in the service who might be advantageously employed in preventing the occurrence of these & other discreditable blunders if it were not the fashion to prefer speculative notions to the plain & unerring principles of the of naval Construction'.