THE DESTRUCTION OF HMS VICTORIA
A Unique Wreck
Ever since he first heard in 1996 about the loss of the battleship HMS
Victoria more than a century earlier, Christian Francis, of Lebanon
Divers, has been, in his words, 'passionate' about the ship's history. It
is a passion which came to a stunning conclusion in 2004 when he found the
wreck, uniquely standing on its bows. He has been talking to NHCRA
secretary RICHARD TAYLOR, who in this article explains his own reasons for
delving into the story of this 19th century catastrophe.
The tragic sinking of the 10,470-ton
HMS Victoria remains the Royal Navy's biggest peacetime disaster so it is
little wonder that it has become an obsession for Lebanese-Austrian diver
Christian Francis. It did, after all, happen within sight of his home
shore. On 22 June 1893 twenty-two officers and 334 of her crew were
drowned after HMS Camperdown
accidentally rammed the Mediterranean flagship in an elaborate and
ill-judged fleet manoeuvre ordered by Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon, who
intended to bring his battleships to anchor off Tripoli.
Photographs of those who died that day are scarce, except for the familiar
features of the fearsome, bearded Adm Tryon. Images of ratings from HMS
Victoria are especially rare so it was with a sense of excitement I found
just such a man's photo - admittedly foxed and showing its age - being
offered for sale on eBay by a great great nephew, together with a picture
of the family headstone and the seaman's bedridden mother.
When Leading Seaman Benjamin Lester, born at Burley in Hampshire in
September 1863, joined the Navy as a boy in August 1980, he lied about his
age, pretending he was a year older. After a series of sea and shore
postings he was sent to HMS Victoria on 1 April 1893, less than three
months before the incident in which he was to lose his life.
He had a patchy disciplinary record, according to his service details held
at The National Archives (ADM 188/141). In 1882, while a teenage ordinary
seaman with the iron armoured frigate HMS Northampton, he was given fourteen
days in cells and reduced to second class for conduct. He kept out of
trouble long enough to earn his first good conduct badge in 1886 but he
was to lose it twice, once on 2 January 1889 and again on 30 December
1890. Perhaps he was too enthusiast with his Christmas and New Year
celebrations.
Benjamin was a gunnery rating in the VICTORIA, which had been built by
Elswick and launched in 1887. She was completed in March 1890, armed with
a pair of massive 16.25-in guns, the biggest in the world at the time, but
it is not known if Benjamin served on these or the ship's single 10-in, or
perhaps even her 6-in or 6-pdrs. After completion, HMS Victoria was
immediately commissioned as flagship in the Mediterranean where the C-in-C
from August 1891 was Vice Admiral Tryon, a man with a reputation as a
brilliant but intimidating naval officer.
The fatal collision which ended her story occurred when the fleet was
preparing for a complicated manoeuvre before anchoring off Tripoli. The
warships - eight battleships, three armoured cruisers and two light
cruisers - were drawn up in two columns each steaming parallel about 1,200
yards apart. The plan was for both columns to turn in towards each other
in single file so that when the move was completed they would be sailing
400 yards apart in the opposite direction. The final action would be to
turn the entire fleet 90 degrees to port then drop anchor. If it worked
smoothly, it would be an impressive display for the thousands of
spectators watching intently from the quayside at Tripoli.
Two of Tryon's officers reminded him that 1,200 yards was too close for
the two lead ships, HMS Victoria & HMS Camperdown, to turn towards each
other. They urged that the columns should be at least 1,600 yards apart.
Tryon agreed but for some reason later reissued his order to close the
columns to the original 1,200 yards. As both ships swung towards each
other, it became obvious that the two would collide. Despite this the
admiral had to be asked three times before he gave permission for the
propellers to be reversed. It was too late. HMS Camperdown struck
HMS Victoria on the starboard side below the waterline and 13 minutes later
the flagship sank.. As she went down, Tryon, who was still on the bridge,
is reported to have said "It's all my fault."
The events surrounding the disaster, the tensions among officers leading
up to the incident and the aftermath, including the subsequent court
martial at Malta, have been written about at length on many occasions,
most notably by Richard Hough in his 1959 book Admirals in Collision. At
the court martial it was ruled that Tryon, no longer there to defend his
actions, was at fault for ordering the inwards turn within too short a
distance. Rear Admiral Albert Hastings Markham, who had been in the
HMS Camperdown, was criticised for not querying the order even though he had
doubts about it. Hough wondered if Tryon had been a scapegoat for reasons
of convenience and expediency. He went on to say there was strong evidence
in the admiral's favour that was 'withheld or understated before, during
and after the court martial'. Here the author was referring mainly to
arguments which supported a theory that Tryon was ordering an unorthodox
but safe and feasible manoeuvre in which HMS Camperdown's column turned
outside that led by HMS Victoria.
While the story may be well known to students of the Victorian Navy, the
wider public was provided with a vivid reminder of the incident when
divers searching for HMS Victoria found her in 2004 - and were astonished
to discover she was embedded vertically in the sea floor, her bows firmly
buried in a thick layer of mud. The project to locate her was led by
Christian Francis, of Lebanon Divers, who had been searching for her
resting place for nearly a decade with an unremitting passion. Christian
and his team concluded that she had been dragged downwards into a vertical
position by the 111 tons of her two forward-mounted main guns in their
huge turret, the ship still being driven forward by her churning
propellers as she plunged to the bottom at near-maximum revolutions.
Mark Ellyatt was with Christian and later wrote in Diver magazine: "As we
neared the object, we realised that the shadow before us was the wreck of
the century. It was the most unbelievable sight - a very large,
steel-hulled battleship that could hardly have been anything other than
HMS Victoria. And it was standing completely vertical, its bows surely
buried into the seabed deep below...
"The bronze of the enormous twin propellers still shone in places, and was
remarkably clear of fishing nets and lines. The rudder was in the
straight-ahead position, as the sinking accounts suggested it would be.
HMS Victoria was making a frantic dash for shallow water after the
penetrating ram of HMS Camperdown had perhaps prematurely been removed
from Victoria's wound... She would have listed to starboard almost
immediately as she sped away, before minutes later capsizing and driving
towards the sea bed at almost top speed."
Christian says that as discoverer of
HMS Victoria, he has personally been granted exclusive access to the wreck
by the Lebanese government. He and his team have organised four dive
expeditions at the site, with 24 divers of various nationalities. He has
himself dived on the wreck no fewer than 30 times, on most occasions for
the purposes of videoing. Altogether, he has gathered about 200 minutes of
footage, which has been edited into a documentary. He said: "HMS Victoria has been declared a military grave but
dives are allowed by the British Admiralty's Second Sea Lord's office as
long as the wreck's sanctity is respected."
Christian says the subject of
HMS Victoria is of the "utmost importance"
him. As part of his continuing quest for information about the ship, he
visited the cemetery in Tripoli which still marks the last resting place
of some of the battleship's crew. How these men came to be there is told
by Petty Officer Patrick Riley, Chief Gunnery Instructor on HMS Edgar, one
of the cruisers serving with Adm Tryon's Mediterranean Fleet. In his 1928
book, Memories of a Blue-Jacket, he explained how HMS Edgar's boats were
launched to rescue HMS Victoria's men who were in the water.
Riley, whose home was at Knowle, Bristol, wrote: "All boats were lowered
and were quickly away on their errand of mercy, trying to save as many as
possible. It was awful to see HMS Victoria disappear in broad daylight and
without a ripple on the water, the sea was so calm. The last thing we
could see of her was her port propeller churning up the water and playing
havoc with the poor fellows who had got within the sweep of the blades.
While the boats were away we hoisted out our sailing pinnace and took
soundings near where HMS Victoria went down; finding a muddy bottom and 70
fathoms of water. At 5.10 all boats returned and were hoisted, and the
fleet proceeded to Tripoli, anchoring at 6.30pm.... The dead bodies of
Fleet Paymaster (Valentine) Rickcord and five men were picked up by the
boats. They were buried in the Turkish Cemetery at Tripoli, funeral
parties being landed to attend the burial."
In fact, in the confusion created by events not always clear to those who
were involved, Riley's version conflicts somewhat with the description
included in a lengthy letter, written the day after the accident by George
Crichton to his father and published in full in The Review in Autumn 1992
(Vol 5.2). George, who went on to become an engineer commander, was killed
when HMS Black Prince blew up at the Battle of Jutland. In 1893 he was
serving in HMS Victoria's sister ship, the SANS PAREIL, from where he
wrote that Fleet Paymaster Rickcord was pulled from the water and died of
his injuries overnight. The two accounts do agree, however, that Rickcord
was buried at Tripoli. In later years the town's Allied war cemetery was
to become known as the Victoria Cemetery.
But how did Their Lordships notify the relatives of those who died in
HMS Victoria collision? One of those who lost his life was a chief stoker
about whom the Admiralty wrote on 6 July 1893, apparently after being
pressed for information by his wife: "Madam, In reply to your letter of
the 5th instant, I much regret to have to inform you that information has
reached this Department that Her Majesty's Ship "Victoria" was lost on the
22nd instant, off the coast of Syria. It is my painful duty to add that
there is reason to fear that Samuel Thomas, Chief Stoker, Official No
90569, whose name does not appear on the list of those saved, was on board
at the time, and was among the number of those drowned, but as all the
Ship's Books were lost in the Ship some time must elapse before positive
information can be obtained. Further communication will be made to you
immediately on the receipt of further information." Thomas's photograph,
in which he is wearing his Egypt Medal and Khedive's Star, appears on the
website
www.battle-cruisers.co.uk/hms_victoria.htm and was submitted by
his great grandson, Steve Clark. On the same page is a photograph of
Portsmouth-born George Lander, who drowned in the same incident.
Destined to become the best known of the survivors, John Jellicoe, then a
young officer suffering from a fever, later gained fame as commander of
the Grand Fleet during the Great War. A more humble survivor was
Stoker
James Curran whose vivid and previously unpublished account of the
disaster was offered for sale a few years ago by auctioneers Phillips.
Curran felt the ship shudder from stem to stern: "The men sprang from the
port side in scores and as the Victoria capsized they were smashed or
killed on the vessel's rolling chocks and those that went to fur (sic)
were cut to peices (sic) by the propellers which were churning with
frightful speed at the time."
Curran, who was sucked below the surface a number of times, described the
sinking as "...like the charge at Balaclava, someone had blundered and it
is blunders such as this as makes wives widows, children orphans and cost
so many of our British Blue-Jackets their lives."
Click Here
Stoker James Curran
Footnote: A full and fascinating account of the first dive on the wreck of
the VICTORIA can be found at
www.lebanondivers.com. An Internet search
will identify similar articles on a number of other websites, including
www.divernet.com and
www.inspired-training.com.
Sources not mentioned in text:
British Warship Losses in the Ironclad Era 1860-1919, by David Hepper
(Chatham 2006)
British Battleships, by Oscar Parkes (Leo Cooper reprint 1990)
The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, by Wm Laird
Clowes (Chatham reprint 1997)
The Guinness Book of Naval Blunders, by Geoffrey Regan (Guinness 1993)
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