FROM TRAFALGAR
TO THUNDERCHILD
AND THE ODYSSEY

In 1757 James Sk(e)y, a Shipwright, took his discharge from the Plymouth dockyard and with his wife, Catherine and their children, crossed the breadth of England to ply his trade at the Sheerness Dockyard on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Nine years later, a few miles away at Eastchurch, Isaac and Elizabeth Barrows had their son, Isaac, Christened and at the end of that year, Catherine Sky, Isaac's future wife, was also Christened, but at the Dockyard Church.
The Sheerness dockyard had but a single slipway and as far as Royal Navy ships were concerned, Sheerness built mainly 4th and 5th Rate Ships, with the occasional 6th Rate. However, during the period 1776 to 1782 the ship on the stocks was to be HMS Polyphemus, a 64-gun 3rd Rate Ship of the Line. Ordered in 1773, her keel was laid in 1776. During that time James was a Cabin Keeper/ Rounder and Isaac was part way through his 7 year Apprenticeship as a Shipwright, so it seems quite reasonable to take it that both James and Isaac had a hand in her construction. Polyphemus would go on to serve her Country with distinction and was to be the only Sheernesss built ship to take part in the Battle of Trafalgar.
On October 21, 1805 the British fleet under Admiral Lord Nelson, attacked the allied French and Spanish fleet. Nearly a fortnight before, the captains had received Nelson's Trafalgar Memorandum and its inspiring lines " no Captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy". The British were formed into two columns, with Nelson leading the Weather Column and Admiral Collingwood the Lee Column. The Polyphemus was in the Lee Column. She fought well, although her Captain, Robert Redmill, was taken ill during the battle and command passed to his First Lieutenant, George Moubray. After the battle, on the 24th, Polyphemus took the badly damaged HMS Victory in tow, but the next evening the ferocious gales nearly caused the Victory to run into her and the hawser had to be severed. On the 26th it fell to HMS Neptune to renew the tow and take Victory on to Gibraltar. Also in Gibralta and on board the Polyphemus, an Ordinary Seaman named Henry Blackburn would write home with a description of the battle, little knowing that 200 years later it would take part in the bi-centennial celebrations at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

HENRY BLACKBURN’S LETTER

Polyphemus Gibraltar Bay November 29 1805

Honerable Mother

This comes with my dutiful respects to you hoping you are in Good Health as i am at present Thank God for it and for his Goodness to spair me to see the 21st of October over and to help us in fighting Against our Enemes that day when they were so superier in Number to us both in men and Ships but we may well say the Lord was on our side when men rose up against us to destroy use for if the Lord had not been on our side they would have swallowed us up the Combined fleet of France and Spain saild out of Cadis on the 20th of October and see them to Luward of us on the 21st at Break of Day Consisting of 33 Sail of the Line 5 Frigates and 2 Brigs formed in a Line on the Starboard tack and at Six bore up and mead all the Sail we Could and saw the Ememies fleet in a Confused State on the Larboard tack the Victory Lord Nelson made the telegraph signal to prepare for Battle and Hope Every English Man would beheave with his usual hersism and exert every means to destroy the Enemies of there Country Lord Nelson wish was told our Ships Compy and was returned by the Dreadnought then on our Larboard beam observed the Royal Sovering Break the Enemies Lines in the Center and Place his self a Long Side of a Spanish 3 Decker resiving at the same a havey fires from numbers of the Enemies Lines the Victory formost and Bellisle also standing on to Break the Enemies Lines also we were a Bout the Eight Ship in action in the Same Line was about an houre after the Royal Sovarign fired the first shote the Ships was Engaged were the French berwick and Spanish agumant and Le archille we Bore up to take off the firey Edge from the Belisle that was totally dismasted by the archille and others and would have Certenly gone Down had we not gone to his assistance we Lay along Side of the archille Until we Dismasted hir and set hir on fire and about Sun Set Blew up with a great Explosion about 2 Hundred men saved Besides Giving and Receving Shote from many others for they were all around us But Before dark I had the Pleasure to see most of them Stricke and the Rest to run away but there arose Such a trable Storm that Night and we all Being in such a Crippold Condition we Could dew nothing with them But Burn and Destroy them and the Rest were Wrecked on Shore if the weather had Been fine we would have taken and destroyd the whole Give my Love to my Brothers and Sisters and all enqyiring friends so no more from your dutifull Son Henry Blackburn

One hundred years after the first HMS Polyphemus was launched, the third vessel to bear the name was commissioned. This Polyphemus was a real one-off, a Torpedo Ram, carrying a bow tube and four broadside tubes and a strengthened spur ram. For her own defence she carried six 1 inch calibre twin barrelled Nordenfelt Machine Guns. Although the spur ram was an integral part of the design, it was meant as a weapon of last resort. That having been said, she did show her capabilities at Berehaven in Ireland, when she gave a demonstration by charging the Harbour Boom at full speed and rendering it to matchwood. This had taken place in front of a huge crowd and the Polyphemus must have looked an awesome sight cleaving the waves at her full speed of 18 knots, low in the water and sending out sheets of spray and smoke, followed by the explosive crash of the impact and the ensuing silence no doubt swiftly broken by the applause of the crowd. Whether H G Wells was in the crowd, or read glowing reports of that demonstration, it may well be that when he wrote his War of the Worlds he used the Polyphemus as the model for "the Torpedo Ram, THUNDERCHILD". As always in the race between methods of attack and defence, things move on and the Polyphemus was not only re-boilered, but her Nordenfelts were replaced by 6-Pounders. It was the advent of the very 6-Pounder, as a weapon, that marked the end for not only HMS Polyphemus herself, but also the concept behind her. Her 14 inch torpedoes had an effective range of 400 yards, while the range of a 6-Pounder was 1000 yards. So even at her full speed of 18 knots it would take something like a full minute to close the distance and in that time a single 6-Pounder could get off say 15 to 20 rounds.
Although as a design she was scrapped, it was not the end for Torpedo Boats. Designs continued to improve in a number of ways and examples meriting comment must include HM Torpedo Boat 80. Built by Yarrow and the first British Torpedo Boat to be fitted with the "turtle back" bow, she was eminently seaworthy with a top speed of 23 knots. Her armament comprised one 14 inch Bow tube, Twin Deck tubes and 3 3-Pounders. She had a complement of 21. Lighted by candles for the most part, with electric light confined to the machinery areas and canvas used for protection and screening off the makeshift toilet, life on board was primitive to say the least with the crew caught between the devil (in this case the heat, smoke and ash from the boilers) and, with little in the way of protection on deck, literally the deep blue sea. Living cheek by jowl meant that the formalities of the "big ships" were not always followed. This meant that torpedoes were not the only things the crews of Torpedo Boats would have in common with Submariners. In 1911 one of her crew was Seaman Petty Officer Henry Charles Haselgrove, only fairly recently married to Eleanor Kate Vaughan. Eleanor was the great great grand daughter of Isaac Barrows, the Shipwright and the Daughter of Eleanor Susan Barrows and John Ulick Vaughan. John had been Christened John but styled himself Ulick. He had an older brother, Ulick, but the poor lad had died in infancy also their grandfather was a Ulick, an Ordnance Board mariner on the Lower Shannon.
Ulick is said to be the Irish version of Ulysses, the hero of the Odyssey and on his long journey home Ulysses had been captured, along with his crew, by a Cyclops. Ulysses had escaped after blinding the Cyclops. And the name of the Cyclops was POLYPHEMUS.