HMS Temeraire (1798)

and dated 22 July 1789. Temeraire was ordered from Chatham Dockyard on 9 December 1790, to a design developed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir John Henslow. She was one of three ships of the , alongside her sisters and . The keel was laid down at Chatham in July 1793. Her construction was initially overseen by Master Shipwright Thomas Pollard and completed by his successor Edward Sison. Temeraire was launched in the rain on Tuesday 11 September 1798 and the following day was taken into the graving dock to be fitted for sea. Her hull was fitted with copper sheathing, a process that took two weeks to complete. Refloated, she finished fitting out, and received her masts and yards. Her final costs came to £73,241, and included £59,428 spent on the hull, masts and yards, and a further £13,813 on rigging and stores. ==With the Channel Fleet==

Under Eyles's command Temeraire finally put to sea at the end of July, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, and joined the Channel Fleet under the overall command of Admiral Lord Bridport. ==Mutiny==

On the morning of 3 December, a small group of sailors gathered on the forecastle and, refusing orders to leave, began to argue with the officers. Captain Eyles asked to know their demands, which were an assurance that Temeraire would not go to the West Indies, but instead would return to England. Eventually Rear Admiral Campbell came down to speak to the men, and having informed them that the officers did not know the destination of the ship, he ordered them to disperse. The men went below decks and the incipient mutiny appeared to have been quashed. The mutiny began with the crew closing the ship's gunports, effectively barricading themselves below deck. Having done so, they refused orders to open them again, jeered the officers and threatened violence. The crew then came up on deck and once again demanded to know their destination and refused to obey orders to sail for anywhere but England. Having presented their demands they returned below decks and resumed the usual shipboard routine as much as they could. Alarmed by the actions of Temeraires crew, Campbell met with Vice-Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell the following day and informed him of the mutineers' demands. Mitchell reported the news to the Admiralty while Campbell returned to Temeraire and summoned the crew on deck once more. He urged them to return to duty, and then dismissed them. Meanwhile, discipline had begun to break down among the mutineers. Several of the crew became drunk, and some of the officers were struck by rowdy seamen. When one of the marines who supported the mutiny was placed in irons for drunken behaviour and insolence, a crowd formed on deck and tried to free him. The officers resisted these attempts and as sailors began to push and threaten them, Campbell gave the order for the marines to arrest those he identified as the ringleaders. The marines hesitated, but then obeyed the order, driving the unruly seamen back and arresting a number of them, who were immediately placed in irons. Campbell ordered the remaining crew to abandon any mutinous actions, and deprived of its leaders, the mutiny collapsed, though the officers were on their guard for several days afterwards and the marines were ordered to carry out continuous patrols. News of the mutiny created a sensation in England, and the Admiralty ordered Temeraire to sail immediately for Spithead while an investigation was carried out. Vice-Admiral Mitchell was granted extraordinary powers regarding the death sentence and Temeraires complement of marines was hastily augmented for the voyage to England. On the ship's arrival, the 14 imprisoned ringleaders were swiftly court-martialled in Portsmouth aboard , some on 6 January 1802 and the rest on 14 January. After deliberations, twelve were sentenced to be hanged at the yardarm, and the remaining two were to receive two hundred lashes each. A further seven men involved were sent to prison hulks for life. ==West Indies and the peace==

After the executions, Temeraire was immediately sent to sea, sailing from Portsmouth for the Isle of Wight the day after and beginning preparations for her delayed voyage to the West Indies. She sailed for Barbados, arriving there on 24 February, and remained in the West Indies until the summer. During her time there the Treaty of Amiens was finally signed and ratified, and Temeraire was ordered back to Britain. She arrived at Plymouth on 28 September and Eyles paid her off on 5 October. Because of the drawdown in the size of the active navy as a result of the peace, Temeraire was laid up in the Hamoaze for the next eight months. ==Return to service==

The peace of Amiens was a brief interlude in the wars with Revolutionary France, and in 1803 the War of the Third Coalition began. Temeraire had deteriorated substantially during her long period spent laid up, and she was taken into dry dock on 22 May to repair and refit, starting with the replacement of her copper sheathing. Work was delayed when a heavy storm hit Plymouth in January 1804, causing appreciable damage to Temeraire, but was finally completed by February 1804, at a cost of £16,898. As a much forgotten part of history, Napoleon had assembled his Grand Army, 160,000 men, near Boulogne as part of a plan to invade England. The bulk of the French navy: 21 ships of the line, were harboured at Brest but were needed for the invasion plan. Temeraire now resumed her previous duties blockading the French at Brest, patrolling between Ushant Island and Cape Finisterre. Heavy weather took its toll, forcing her to put into Torbay for extensive repairs after her long patrols, repairs which eventually amounted to £9,143. During this time Harvey was often absent from his command, usually attending to his duties as Member of Parliament for Essex. He was temporarily replaced by Captain William Kelly on 27 August 1804, and he in turn was succeeded by Captain George Fawke on 6 April 1805. Harvey returned to his ship on 9 July 1805, and it was while he was in command that the reinforced Rochefort squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder intercepted and attacked a Franco-Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape Finisterre. The French commander, Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, was thwarted in his attempt to join the French forces at Brest, and instead sailed south to Ferrol, and then to Cádiz. When news of the Franco-Spanish fleet's location reached the Admiralty, they appointed Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson to take command of the blockading force at Cádiz, which at the time was being commanded by Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood. Nelson was told to pick whichever ships he liked to serve under him, and one of those he specifically chose was Temeraire. Collingwood replaced Calder on the Temeraire in August 1804. The ship sheltered with the Channel Fleet at Douarnenez Bay in France during the storms of November 1804. Further winter storms caused her to go to Torbay for repairs in January 1805 and she did not return to the squadron at Brest until April. Command returned to Calder again on 16 August 1805 and headed for Ferrol to intercept Admiral Vileneuve and the French fleet. The French unexpectedly turned south and the British fleet followed them down to Cádiz. ==Battle of Trafalgar==

Temeraire duly received orders to join the Cádiz blockade, and having sailed to rendezvous with Collingwood, Harvey awaited Nelson's arrival. Nelson's flagship, the 100-gun , arrived off Cádiz on 28 September, and he took over command of the fleet from Collingwood. He spent the next few weeks forming his plan of attack in preparation for the expected sortie of the Franco-Spanish fleet, issuing it to his captains on 9 October in the form of a memorandum. The fleet patrolled a considerable distance from the Spanish coast to lure the combined fleet out, and the ships took the opportunity to exercise and prepare for the coming battle. For Temeraire this probably involved painting her sides in the Nelson Chequer design, to enable the British ships to tell friend from foe in the confusion of battle. Nelson agreed to this, and signalled for Harvey to come past him. As Temeraire drew up towards Victory, Nelson decided that if he was standing aside to let another ship lead his line, so too should Collingwood, commanding the lee column of ships. He signalled Collingwood, aboard his flagship , to let another ship come ahead of him, but Collingwood continued to surge ahead. Reconsidering his plan, Nelson is reported to have hailed Temeraire, as she came up alongside Victory, with the words "I'll thank you, Captain Harvey, to keep in your proper station, which is astern of the Victory." Nelson's instruction was followed up by a formal signal and Harvey dropped back reluctantly, but otherwise kept within one ship's length of Victory as she sailed up to the Franco-Spanish line. Closely following Victory as she passed through the Franco-Spanish line across the bows of the French flagship , Harvey was forced to sheer away quickly, just missing Victorys stern. Turning to starboard, Harvey made for the 140-gun Spanish ship Santísima Trinidad and engaged her for twenty minutes, taking raking fire from two French ships, the 80-gun and the 74-gun , as she did so. Redoutables broadside carried away Temeraires mizzen topmast. While avoiding a broadside from Neptune, Temeraire narrowly avoided a collision with Redoutable. Another broadside from Neptune brought down Temeraires fore-yard and main topmast, and damaged her fore mast and bowsprit. Harvey now became aware that Redoutable had come up alongside Victory and swept her decks with musket fire and grenades. A large party of Frenchmen now gathered on her decks ready to board Victory. Temeraire and Redoutable , 1836 oil on canvas by Clarkson Frederick Stanfield. Stanfield shows the damaged Redoutable caught between Victory (foreground) and Temeraire (seen bow on). Fougueux, coming up on Temeraire''s starboard side, has just received a broadside. Temeraire then rammed into Redoutable, dismounting many of the French ship's guns, and worked her way alongside, after which her crew lashed the two ships together. Temeraire now poured continuous broadsides into the French ship, taking fire as she did so from the 112-gun Spanish ship lying off her stern, and from the 74-gun French ship , which came up on Temeraires un-engaged starboard side. Harvey ordered his gun crews to hold fire until Fougueux came within point blank range. Temeraires first broadside against Fougueux at a range of caused considerable damage to the Frenchman's rigging, and she drifted into Temeraire, whose crew promptly lashed her to the side. Temeraire was now lying between two French 74-gun ships. As Harvey later recalled in a letter to his wife "Perhaps never was a ship so circumstanced as mine, to have for more than three hours two of the enemy's line of battle ships lashed to her." Temeraire narrowly escaped destruction when a grenade thrown from Redoutable exploded on her maindeck, nearly igniting the after-magazine. Master-At-Arms John Toohig prevented the fire from spreading and saved not only Temeraire, but the surrounding ships, which would have been caught in the explosion. Temeraire had also suffered heavily, damaged when Redoutables main mast fell onto her poop deck, and having had her own topmasts shot away. Informed that his ship was in danger of sinking, Lucas finally called for quarter to Temeraire. Harvey sent a party across under the second lieutenant, John Wallace, to take charge of the ship. Temeraire and Fougueux Lashed together, Temeraire and Fougueux exchanged fire, Temeraire initially clearing the French ship's upper deck with small arms fire. The French rallied, but the greater height of the three-decked Temeraire compared to the two-decked Fougueux thwarted their attempts to board. Instead Harvey dispatched his own boarding party, led by First-Lieutenant Thomas Fortescue Kennedy, which entered Fougueux via her main deck ports and chains. The French tried to defend the decks port by port, but were steadily overwhelmed. Fougueuxs captain, Louis Alexis Baudoin, had suffered a fatal wound earlier in the fighting, leaving Commander François Bazin in charge. When he learned that nearly all the officers were dead or wounded and that most of the guns were out of action, Bazin surrendered the ship to the boarders. Temeraire had by now fought both French ships to a standstill, at considerable cost to herself. She had sustained casualties of 47 killed and 76 wounded. Before Sirius could make contact, Temeraire came under fire from a counter-attack by the as-yet unengaged van of the combined fleet, led by Rear Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley. Harvey ordered the few guns that could be brought to bear fired in response, and the attack was eventually beaten off by fresh British ships arriving on the scene. ==Storm==

Shortly after the battle had ended, a severe gale struck the area. Several of the captured French and Spanish ships foundered in the rising seas, including both of Temeraires prizes, Fougueux and Redoutable. Lost in the wrecks were a considerable number of their crews, as well as 47 Temeraire crewmen, serving as prize crews. Temeraire rode out the storm following the battle, sometimes being taken in tow by less damaged ships, sometimes riding at anchor. She took aboard a number of Spanish and French prisoners transferred from other prizes, including some transferred from Euryalus, which was serving as the temporary flagship of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was now in command as Nelson had been killed during the battle. Harvey took the opportunity to go aboard Euryalus and present his account of the battle to Collingwood, and so became the only captain to do so before Collingwood wrote his dispatch about the victory. The battle-damaged ships quickly became tourist attractions, and visitors flocked to tour them. Temeraire was particularly popular on her arrival, being the only ship singled out by name in Collingwood's dispatch for her heroic conduct. Collingwood wrote: A circumstance occurred during the action which so strongly marks the invincible spirit of British seamen, when engaging the enemies of their country, that I cannot resist the pleasure I have in making it known to their Lordships; the Temeraire was boarded by accident; or design, by a French ship on one side, and a Spaniard on the other; the contest was vigorous, but, in the end the combined ensigns were torn from the poop and the British hoisted in their places. A number of artists visited the newly returned Trafalgar ships, including John Livesay, drawing master at the Royal Naval Academy. Livesay produced several sketches of battle-damaged ships, sending them to Nicholas Pocock to be used for Pocock's large paintings of the battle. Temeraire was one of the ships he sketched. Another visitor to Portsmouth was J. M. W. Turner. It is not known whether he visited Temeraire, though he did go aboard Victory, making preparatory notes and sketches and interviewing sailors who had been in the battle. The story of Temeraire had become firmly ingrained in the public mind, so much so that when the House of Commons passed a vote of thanks to the men who had fought at Trafalgar, only three were specifically named. Nelson, Collingwood, and Harvey of Temeraire. ==Mediterranean and Baltic service==

The battle-damaged Temeraire was almost immediately dry-docked in Portsmouth to undergo substantial repairs, which eventually lasted sixteen months and cost £25,352. She finally left the dockyard in mid-1807, now under the command of Captain Sir Charles Hamilton. Temeraire arrived in May 1809 and was sent to blockade Karlskrona on the Swedish coast. The Melpomene was sent under a flag of truce to negotiate for their release, but on returning from this mission, was becalmed. A flotilla of thirty Danish gunboats then launched an attack, taking advantage of the stranded Melpomenes inability to bring her broadside to bear on them. Melpomene signalled for help to the Temeraire, which immediately dispatched boats to her assistance. They engaged and then drove off the Danish ships, and then helped the Melpomene to safety. She had been heavily damaged and suffered casualties of five killed and twenty-nine wounded. Temeraires later Baltic service involved being dispatched to observe the Russian fleet at Reval, during which time she made a survey of the island of Nargen. After substantial blockading and convoy escort work, Temeraire was ordered back to Britain as winter arrived, and she arrived in Plymouth in November 1809. ==Iberian service==

After a period under repair in Plymouth, Temeraire was recommissioned under the command of Captain Edwin H. Chamberlayne in late January 1810. Men from Temeraire were heavily involved in the fighting until July 1810, when Pickmore was ordered to sail to the Mediterranean and take up a new position as port admiral at Mahón. Temeraire was thereafter based either at Mahón or off Toulon with the blockading British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Pellew. Chamberlayne was replaced by Captain Joseph Spear in March 1811, and for the most part the blockade was uneventful. Temeraires one brush with the French during this period came on 13 August 1811. Having received orders to sail to Menorca, Spear attempted to tack out of Hyères Bay. As he tried to do so, the wind fell away, leaving Temeraire becalmed and caught in a current which caused her to drift towards land. She came under fire from a shore battery on Pointe des Medes, which wounded several of her crew. Her boats were quickly manned, and together with boats sent from the squadron, Temeraire was towed out of range of the French guns. Pellew ordered her back to Britain, and health gradually improved as she sailed through the Atlantic. ==Retirement==

Temeraire arrived in Plymouth on 9 February 1812 and was docked for a survey several weeks later. The survey reported that she was "a well built and strong ship but apparently much decay'd." Conversion work was carried out at Plymouth between November and December 1813, after which she was laid up in the River Tamar as a prison hulk. Temeraires service as a prison ship lasted until 1819, at which point she was selected for conversion to a receiving ship. She was extensively refitted at Plymouth between September 1819 and June 1820 at a cost of £27,733, and then sailed to Sheerness Dockyard. Her final role was as a guard ship at Sheerness, under the title "Guardship of the Ordinary and Captain-Superintendent's ship of the Fleet Reserve in the Medway". This final post as flagship of the Medway Reserve involved her being repainted and rearmed, and she was used to train boys belonging to The Marine Society. ==Sale and disposal==

Kennedy received orders from the Admiralty in June 1838 to have Temeraire valued in preparation for her sale out of the service. She fired her guns for the last time on 28 June in celebration of the Coronation of Queen Victoria, and work began on dismantling her on 4 July. Beatson was then faced with the task of transporting the ship 55 miles from Sheerness to Rotherhithe, the largest ship to have attempted this voyage. To accomplish this he hired two steam tugs from the Thames Steam Towing Company and employed a Rotherhithe pilot named William Scott and twenty five men to sail her up the Thames, at a cost of £58. ==Last voyage==

, on the River Thames, by artist J. J. Williams, 1838–39 The tugs took the hulk of Temeraire in tow at 7:30 am on 5 September 1838, taking advantage of the beginning of the slack water. They had reached Greenhithe by 1:30 pm at the ebb of the tide, where they anchored overnight. Temeraire was hauled up onto the mud, where she lay as she was slowly broken up. The shipbreakers undertook a thorough dismantling, removing all the copper sheathing, rudder pintles and gudgeons, copper bolts, nails and other fastenings to be sold back to the Admiralty. The timber was mostly sold to house builders and shipyard owners, though some was retained for working into specialist commemorative furniture. ==Legacy==

The immediate legacy of Temeraire was the use of the timber taken from her as she was broken up. A gong stand made from Temeraire timber was a wedding present to the future King George V on the occasion of his marriage to Mary of Teck, and is held at Balmoral Castle. A barometer, gavel, and some miscellaneous timber are in the collections of the National Maritime Museum, and chairs made from Temeraire oak are in the possession of the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, Lloyd's Register, London and the Whanganui Regional Museum, Whanganui. The mantelpiece can no longer be traced, nor can a plaque once fixed to Temeraires deck commemorating Nelson's signal at Trafalgar, nor a wooden leg made for a Trafalgar veteran from Temeraires wood. A fictionalized depiction of her launch was produced by Philip Burgoyne. Later representations of the retired Temeraire were also popular. Though no known contemporary image of her in the prison ship role exists, she was painted while a guardship on the Medway in 1833 by Edward William Cooke, and by William Beatson and J. J. Williams while laid up at Rotherhithe in 1838. More recently she has been the subject of paintings by Geoff Hunt. The most famous painting of Temeraire was made by J. M. W. Turner and titled The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838. Turner depicts Temeraire on her last voyage, towed up the Thames by a small black steam tug as the sun sets (or dawns). In choosing his title Turner created an enduring appellation, as previously she had been known to her crew as the "saucy" Temeraire. Turner presented it for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1839 with an accompanying excerpt, slightly altered, of Thomas Campbell's poem Ye Mariners of England. The flag which braved the battle and the breeze,no longer owns her. Turner's painting achieved widespread critical acclaim, and accolades from the likes of John Ruskin and William Makepeace Thackeray. It hangs today in the National Gallery, and in 2005 it was voted the nation's favourite painting in a poll organized by BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Books The Fighting Temeraire is a historical narrative written by Sam Willis and details the "extraordinary story of the mighty Temeraire, the ship behind J. M. W. Turner's iconic painting". It includes a detailed history of the ship, history of both the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and the Napoleonic Wars (1798–1815), and 50 full-color illustrations and 60 black-and-white photographs. The Temeraire series is a historical fantasy/alternate history written by Naomi Novik. While HMS Temeraire herself is only briefly featured, the ship becomes the namesake of the series' main character, a large black dragon who sees naval and aerial action alongside his British captain. The series takes place in an alternate version of the Napoleonic Wars, in which the various nations of the world fight with air forces made up of manned dragons. HMS Temeraire appears briefly in the ninth and final book, firing her guns as a salute while the dragon Temeraire and his captain fly off with their dragon legion toward the last battles with Napoleon. Poetry and songs Temeraire became the subject of a number of poems and songs commemorating her life and fate. An early work by James Duff written between 1813 and 1819 referenced her role as a prison ship, and was set to music in 1857 under the title The Brave Old Temeraire. ==Notes==