|
by
Richard Taylor
 Alfred Messum joined the Royal Navy in 1840 as a master's
assistant. He goes on to see extensive service in various parts of the
world until his retirement in 1870 from the Coastguard. He died on the
retired list in 1893. His only award was the 1842 China Medal for service
in HMS Wanderer.
His RN paymaster brother, Julian, was one of those who
lost their lives when the controversial low freeboard turret ship HMS
Captain overturned and sank in the Bay of Biscay on 6 September 1870.
A number of members of his family served in the Navy, and
their details are given separately (Click Here). What follows is Alfred Messum personal
chronology.
-
1 January 1807 William Messum marries Sarah Coates at
Wymering, Hampshire. (William may have been the son of Thomas and Eleanor Messum, baptised at
St Mary's, Portsea, on 4 August 1776. Another child of the same name, born
to the same parents, was baptised at St Mary's on 2 July 1775. This child
presumably did not survive
-
Thomas married Eleanor Callaway at St Mary's, Portsea, on
26 January 1761)
-
19 May 1814 Alfred Messum is born, the son of solicitor
William Messum and his wife Sarah, of St James Street, Portsea. Other
children, all baptised at St John's, Portsea, include:
Caroline bapt 4 July 1809
Maria bapt 31 March 1811
Emma bapt 5 November 1812
Sarah bapt 16 April 1816
Matilda bapt 21 April 1818
William bapt 31 August 1820
Julian Alexander bapt 24 June 1823 (later Paymaster RN)
Felix Theodore bapt 11 August 1825 (later Clerk RN)
-
16 June 1814 Alfred is baptised at St John's Church,
Portsea
-
19 May 1815 His Royal Navy service record gives this as
his date of birth
-
10/11 June 1840 Enters Royal Navy at HMS Britannia and
joins HMS Wanderer as
Master's Assistant (Britannia was a 120-gun first rate launched at
Plymouth in 1820.
Wanderer was a 16-gun brig-sloop launched at Chatham on 10 July 1835. She
was broken up in 1850)
-
1840 Wanderer, commanded by Cdr the Hon Joseph Denman
(senior naval officer on that part of the coast) is sent to the Gallinas
islands at the mouth of Gallinas River, about 160 miles from Sierra Leone.
Here Prince Mauna, son of King Siacca of the Gallinas, had detained two
British subjects for a pretended debt. Sir R Doherty, governor of Sierra
Leone, ordered Mauna to surrender to Cdr Denman, or have every building in
the Gallinas levelled to the ground.
Denman recovered the prisoners and also induced Siacca to agree a treaty
by which the British forces destroyed all the factories of the Spanish
slave traders in the Gallinas and freed the slaves themselves.
These moves were backed by the British government when they became aware
of them and Denman was promoted to post captain on 23 August 1841. The
slave traders, however, began an action for damages which was not resolved
until 1848 when a jury in the Court of Exchequer decided in Denman's
favour
The Gallinas River operations took their toll of Wanderer's ship's
company. Sixteen men were struck down by malaria after they and others had
waded in waist-deep muddy brackish water and often slept in wet clothes on
damp, marshy ground
-
7 January 1841 The Times, in a list of RN ships and their
stations, shows Wanderer on
the coast of Africa, still commanded by Denman
-
1842 Wanderer, one of the ships taking part in the First
China War, earns the battle honour China 1842, when she was commanded by
Cdr Edward Norwich Troubridge from 23 August 1841 until succeeded on 6
November by Cdr Stephen Grenville Fremantle, who stayed with her until 31
July 1842. He was promoted to captain on 26 February 1842
-
19 July 1842 Fleet, including the Wanderer, moors abreast
the city of Chin Kiang Foo at the entrance of the South Grand Canal on the
Yangste-Kiang. Progress up river had been slow because of the strong
current and navigation difficulties, but there had been no serious
opposition
-
21 July 1842 London Gazette (1842; pp 3387-97 and 3401-05)
records Wanderer's
involvement in the attack on a Chinese entrenched camp and the storming
and capture of Chin Kiang on this date.
Chin Kiang was the hardest fight they had had up to that point. Tartars
who survived the battle killed their families and then themselves, leaving
the widows and orphans of those who were killed in action to drown
themselves in shallow ponds and wells. There was a great deal of looting
after the fall of the city
Note 1: William Laird Clowes says that at the rear of the city there were
entrenched camps, whose defenders were driven off
Note 2: Paymaster Josiah Young Messum, probably a cousin of Alfred Messum,
saw action as a clerk in HMS Jupiter which was involved in the capture of
a number of cities, including Chin Kiang Foo
-
27 Feb (1843?) Messum is sent his China Medal. Capt
Douglas-Morris records that
12 officers from the Wanderer received the medal, plus 59 ratings and 20
boys. Fifteen RM officers and men from the ship were also awarded the
medal. According to Douglas-Morris, only nine medals from the Wanderer are known
to have survived.
-
February 1844 Wanderer, now commanded by Cdr George Henry
Seymour, with the
Harlequin, attacks pirate settlements on the coast of Sumatra, where they
inflict considerable damage, although they suffer some loss
-
1844 Paid off from Wanderer
-
20 August 1844 Joins HMS Volcano on the East Indies
station. Paid off on October 31
but rejoins the following day. (Volcano was a wooden paddle sloop armed with two 9pdrs. Launched at
Portsmouth on 29 June 1836, she became a floating factory in 1862. Battle
honours Baltic 1854-55 and China 1856-60; broken up in 1894)
-
21 August 1845 Leaves Volcano to join HMS Formidable until
he is paid off in October 1845. (Formidable, an 84-gun 2nd rate, was stationed in the Mediterranean. She
was built at Chatham Dockyard from frames captured in 1814 on stocks
in Genoa and was launched on 19 May 1825. She was lent as a training ship
in 1869 and sold in 1906
-
6 January 1846 Joins HMS Viper at Devonport as Second
Master (Viper was a sloop of 1842. Broken up in 1876, she earned the battle
honour Black Sea 1854-55)
-
25 April 1846 Posted to HMS Alarm in the Pacific
(A 28-gun 6th rate, Alarm was launched at Sheerness Dockyard on 22 April
1845. She became a coal hulk in 1860 and was sold in 1904)
-
February 1848 The Alarm (Capt Granville George Loch), with
the six-gun paddle warship HMS Vixen, arrives off Nicaragua's east coast
at Bluefields after an appeal by the British Consul-General to Rear-Adm
Charles John Austen, commander-in-chief on the South American Station.
Colonel Salas, of the Nicaraguan Army, had carried off two British
subjects from San Juan de Nicaragua. Some 260 naval officers and men made
their way in 12 boats to tackle the colonel, who held a fort at Serapaqui,
30 miles up river. Two men were killed in the attack, but the Nicaraguans
broke ranks and fled when the British came ashore. Capt Loch was made a CB
for this successful expedition
-
25 March 1848 With HMS Imaum, receiving ship at Jamaica,
until 24 March 1849
(Imaum was a former East Indiaman, the Liverpool, launched at Bombay. A
3rd rate, she carried 76 guns. She went into harbour service in 1842 and
was broken up in Jamaica in 1863)
-
22 June 1849 Passes for Master, qualifying for line of
battle ships
-
12 December 1849 To HMS Excellent, the gunnery training
ship at Portsmouth, until
16 July 1851
-
17 July 1851 Promoted to Master
-
4 November 1851 Appointed to the three-gun brig HMS Rapid
on the East Indies station
(Rapid was launched at Portsmouth Dockyard on 3 June 1840 and sold in 1856
to MacDonald & Co at Singapore)
-
20 December 1855 To the wooden paddle sloop HMS Styx,
which had earned the
battle honour Burma 1853 (Built at Sheerness Dockyard, Styx was launched on 26 January 1841. Broken
up in 1866)
-
29 March 1856 To HMS Impregnable, Devonport flagship,
until 2 April 1856
-
27 May 1856 To HMS Virago, on the Pacific and South
America station, until 28 December 1857 (Virago, armed with six guns, was launched at Chatham Dockyard on 25 July
1842. Broken up at Chatham in 1876)
-
25 February 1859 Messum shown as in Navy Lists as
appointed to Hull District Coastguard 'for service in Lively' tender to
HMS Cornwallis, headquarters ship for the Hull district where she is
stationed on the Humber. The district covers the east coast from Berwick
to Cromer
Subsequent lists show him as Master at Hartlepool Coastguard station from
this date. Service papers give his date of transfer to CG as 10 March
While serving at Hartlepool, he is borne as an additional with the
Cornwallis (Cornwallis was a 3rd rate 74 launched at Bombay in 1813. She was undocked
as a 60-gun screwship in 1855. In 1864 she handed over her duties on the
Humber to HMS Dauntless and in the following year she was made into a
jetty at Sheerness
Lively was a wooden steam gunboat of the Albacore class, built by Smith of
Newcastle and launched in February 1856. She was wrecked on 23 December
1863 on the Dutch coast; salved and later became the mail steamer
Helgolanderin)
-
1 April 1864 Messum, still serving at Hartlepool, is now
borne as an additional with HMS Dauntless on the Humber
(Dauntless was a wooden steam frigate launched at Portsmouth in 1857. Sold
in 1885)
-
17 July 1866 Appointed Staff Commander
-
7 June 1870 Service papers show Messum retiring under
Admiralty Orders of 30 May 1870, but the Navy List gives his
retirement date as 19 May 1870. Retired pay shown on his service record is
£255 10s a year
-
6 September 1870 Alfred Messum's brother, Paymaster Julian
Alexander Messum, dies when his ship, the controversial low-freeboard
turret ship HMS Captain, capsizes and sinks in a squall in the Bay of
Biscay. Only 18 men from a crew of nearly 500 survived. Those who lost
their lives included the ship's designer, Capt Cowper Phipps Coles
-
January 1893 Messum's death while on the retired list is
recorded in Lean's Navy List. Actual date of death not given
Sources:
 |
Alfred Messum service record (PRO: ADM 190/21) |
|
|
China Medal roll for HMS Wanderer (PRO: ADM 171/12) |
|
|
International Genealogical Index for Hampshire |
|
|
4 Navy Lists |
|
|
The Greetham Family - A Portrait, by Doug Greetham (1999)
- for information on Portsea |
|
|
Naval Medals 1793-1856, by Capt Kenneth Douglas-Morris |
|
|
A China Medal 1842 - Article by Tim Ash in Medal News,
November 2000 |
|
|
The Dragon Wakes, by Christopher Hibbert (1971) |
|
|
The Royal Navy Vol VI, by William Laird Clowes (1901) |
|
|
Ward's Trade Directory of Hartlepool (1861) |
|
|
History of Hartlepool, by Sir Cuthbert Sharpe (1851) |
|
|
1881 Census for Hampshire, Surrey, Devon and RN |
|
|
Chamberlain's Portsmouth Directory (1887-88) |
|
|
Accountants of the Royal Navy, by NHCRA member Bernard
Austerberry (unpub MS) |
|
|
Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor, by John Winton |
|
|
The Story of HMS Dryad, by Vice-Adm B B Schofield (1977) |
|
|
Coastguard! by William Webb (1976) |
|
