Ann Wyatt (1658-1757) Her Life and Her Ships
Tobias Philbin (Text and Illustrations)
Richard Endsor (Plans)
Warships for the King
Ann Wyatt (1658-1757) Her Life and Her Ships
Tobias Philbin – Text and Illustrations
Richard Endsor – Plans
SeaWatch Books, LLC
Copyright © 2012 by Tobias Philbin
Plans Copyright © 2012 by Richard Endsor
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preface: the Lady and her ShIpS
Part I: Ann Wyatt: Her World
chapter I: ann wyatt and burSLedon
chapter II: ann and the wyattS
chapter III: the wyattS and theIr worLd: ShIpS, trade and eMpIre
chapter IV: ann and wILLIaM wyatt and the fortuneS of war
chapter V: ann wyatt ShIpbuILder
chapter VI: ann wyatt, danIeL defoe, ceLIa fIenneS, and the cuLLuMS
concLuSIon
3
Part II: Seven Ships for the King
IntroductIon
chapter VII: oVerVIew: wyatt ShIp productIon In context: the ShIpS; the 80 Gun 3rd rate ISSueS; a ShIp’S tour of hMS LancaSter
chapter VIII: hMS deVonShIre, 80 GunS, 3rd rate
Ix: hMS wIncheSter, 60 GunS, 4th rate
25
chapter x: two at once: hMS LancaSter, 80 GunS, 3rd rate and hMS wIncheLSey, 32 GunS, 5th rate
xI: hMS wIncheLSey, 32 GunS, 5th
xII: hMS cuMberLand, 80 GunS, 3rd
xIV: hMS SaLISbury, 50 GunS, 4th rate
hMS cuMberLand contract
Warships for the King
List of Illustrations
Preface: List of Illustrations
1. An English Fleet in the Downs, Peter Monamy, private collection, London.
2. HMS Sussex, 80 Guns, 3rd rate, Charles Sergison Collection, U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) Museum. Photo by the author.
3. Portrait of a Young Woman, probably Ann Wyatt, associated with Sir Godfrey Kneller or a follower, early 18th century. Photo courtesy of the Courtauld Institute.
4. Anne Wyatt Cullum, daughter of Ann and William Wyatt by Sir Godfrey Kneller or follower. Photo by the author, painting courtesy of the Moyses Hall, Bury St. Edmunds.
5. William Wyatt letter to the Admiralty courtesy of the UK National Archives, PRO/Admiralty 106. Photo by the author.
6. Ann Wyatt letter to the Admiralty, courtesy of the UK National Archives, PRO/Admiralty 106. Photo by the author.
7. Sergison Diary, sample page, courtesy of the National Maritime Museum (NMM). Photo by the author.
Part I: List of Illustrations
8. Contemporary Bursledon. Many of the houses have Georgian facades on much older structures. Photo by the author.
9. Jolly Sailor Public House. This is the oldest and lowest portion of the pub which has 17th, 18th and 19th century parts. Photo by the author.
10. A Southwest view of the Hamble River flowing toward Southampton Water from above Wyatt’s probable original Merchant slipways. The land to the right was inherited by William Wyatt from his father. Photo by the author.
11. Hard alongside the Jolly Sailor, probable location of Merchant shipways for Wyatts. Photo by the author.
12. 1950s Aerial View of the Hamble flowing toward Southampton Water. William and Ann’s naval yard is located at Bursledon Point which is the spit of land in the center of the picture. Photo courtesy John and Judith Madin.
13. A Southern view from above the village, with renewed heavy forestation in evidence, three centuries on from the Wyatt’s time. Photo by the author, 2008
14. Adrian van Deist, The Battle of Bantry Bay, courtesy of the NMM. Much of Ann’s fortune was driven by the needs for ships and shipbuilders illuminated by the results of this battle.
15. Southwest exposure St. Leonard’s Church, Bursledon where Ann was christened in 1658. Photo by the author, 2008.
16. St. Leonard’s church yard where William Wyatt was buried in 1693. Photo by the author, 2008.
17. Edmund Dummer Map of Burseldon and Hamble River in Ann Wyatt’s time, 1698. Courtesy of the Hampshire Country Council.
18. Exterior of Ann and William Wyatt’s House (Walnut Tree Cottage) in Bursledon. Photo courtesy of the current owners, 2008.
19. Hearth, Ann Wyatt’s House. Photo courtesy of the present owners, 2008.
20. Churchyard, All Saints Hawstead, Ann Wyatt’s final resting place. Courtesy of the Warden and Vestry, All Saints. Photo by the author 2008.
21. A contemporary sketch of a 4th rate by Edmund Dummer, showing a method for mooring a vessel in stream in ordinary. Photo by the author, courtesy UK National Archives, Admiralty 106.
22. Launch of HMS Winchester, 60, 4th rate, 16 April 1693, by William and Ann Wyatt. Painting by the author, photo by Janet Reel, 2010
23. Charles Sergison, Clerk of the Acts and Secretary of the Navy Board. Ann Wyatt’s senior interlocutor with the Royal Navy. Photo courtesy of the Navy Records Society.
24. Launch of the Cumberland, 80, in November 1695. Painting by the author after Richard Endsor draught.
25. Hawstead Place, Ann Wyatt’s longtime final residence 1722-1758, courtesy of the Suffolk Country Library. Photo by the author, 2008.
26. Daniel Defoe, portrait by Tavernier from Daniel Defoe, His Life by Paula Backsheider, courtesy of the e-books @Adelaide. au.
27. Starboard broadside of a model of HMS Nassau, 70 guns, 3rd rate, showing likely appearance in service of Wyatt 80s when fully rigged. Photo and model courtesy of the Thompson Collection, Museum of Ontario.
28. A contemporary model of a 3rd rate 70 gun ship, possibly HMS Northumberland of 1702, photo courtesy of the Kreigstein Collection.
Part II: List of Illustrations
29. Photograph of a 60-gun 4th Rate. She fits the critical dimension of length on the gun deck (LGD) for the Wyatt 4th rate, HMS Winchester. External decorations aside, she could be HMS Winchester. Model number SLR 0389, NMM. Photo by the author.
30. Port bow of a model of the model of HMS Nassau70 guns, 3rd rate, of 1694, showing likely appearance of Wyatt 80s when fully rigged. Photo and model courtesy of the Thompson Collection, Museum of Ontario.
31. NMM Draught 1162, HMS Montague, 4th Rate, 60 guns. This ship closely resembles model SLR 0389 above and is only five years later than the Winchester
32. Another view of the Nassau, giving an inkling of the power and purpose of a 3rd rate, as seen from the port bows waterline. Model and photo courtesy of the Thompson Collection, Museum of Ontario.
33. HMS St. George, 90 Guns, 2nd Rate, which represents the outsize ship Ann Wyatt was regarded as capable of building by the Admiralty. Sergison Collection, USNA Museum Photo by the museum.
34. Another perspective, a builder’s plan for HMS Triumph, 2nd rate, built in William III’s reign. Image courtesy of the NMM. NMM, ZA 20 500/338.
35. Carr Laughton’s illustrations of ship nomenclature, the Head or Bows, as seen in Old Ship Figureheads and Sterns. Reproduction courtesy of Dover Publications.
36. Carr Laughton’s illustrations of ship nomenclature, the Broadside, as seen in Old Ship Figureheads and Sterns. Reproduction courtesy of Dover Publications.
37. A large Dutch two decker of the 17th Century, by Willem van de Velde the Elder. Photo courtesy of the Kreigstein Collection.
38. French ship LeSuperbe by Willem van de Velde the Elder, as seen in Brian Lavery’s Deane’s Doctrine of Naval Architecture, credited to the National Maritime Museum.
39. The 3rd rate HMS Royal Oak, by van de Velde the Elder. From the collection of Mrs. R. C. Anderson, on loan to the National Maritime Museum. Image courtesy of Frank Fox.
40. Admiralty draught of the 27 Ship Programme 80s as represented Admiralty by Boyne, Russell and Humber. Image courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, J2415.
41. John Charnock’s plan of the 1710 replacement for Ann Wyatt’s Cumberland Image courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, Charnock collection, 0177.
42. Launch plan for HMS Norfolk, 3rd rate of 80 guns, about 1714, based on the Royal flag and her full three deck modifications. Cumberland probably did not look like this when she was lost, rather like the enclosed plan. She still existed at the time in French hands. This may be a later ship as her chain plates are located above the 2nd gun deck, as compared to the arrangement on the Sussex and Boyne models illustrated elsewhere. Plan and photo courtesy of the Kriegstein Collection.
43. Builder’s draught of HMS Cumberland of 1695 by Richard Endsor.
44. HMS Boyne as built in 1694. She was a sister ship of the Cumberland; NMM Model Number SLR 0006. Photo by the author.
45. This is a model of the Chichester about 1705. She shows a full deck in her waist, but no third deck gun ports and an open forecastle. NMM Model 0391. Photo by the author.
46. HMS Sussex as in 1694, port broadside model number 8, Sergison Collection, U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) Museum, port broadside, USNA. Photo by the museum.
47. HMS Sussex hold interior looking forward, USNA. Photo by the museum.
48. HMS Sussex, main gun deck, looking forward. USNA. Photo by the museum.
49. HMS Sussex, upper gun deck looking forward to midship stairs. USNA, photo by the museum.
50. HMS Sussex, stern, USNA Museum. Model Number 8. Photo by the author.
51. HMS Sussex, port quarter galleries, USNA Museum, Model Number 8. Photo by the author.
52. HMS Boyne, port quarter galleries, NMM Model SLR 006. Photo by the author.
List of Illustrations
53. Upper finishing HMS Boyne, showing quarter galleries of another of William and Mary’s 80s. NMM Model SLR 006. Photo by the author.
54. Old Ship’s Figureheads and Sterns, “Stern Nomenclature,” by permission of Dover Publications.
55. HMS Sussex, main deck at the ships waist, facing the capstan with its magnificent black and gold carved backdrop which includes the ships bell and belfry. USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
56. HMS Sussex, A view aft to the great high poop with a series of gilt rails and decks looking fine in the sun. USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
57. HMS Sussex, bow lacking seats of ease. Photo by the author.
58. HMS Sussex, fore-peak and figurehead. Photo by the author.
59. HMS Sussex, abaft the quarterdeck. Photo by the author.
60. HMS Sussex, starboard bows and forecastle. Photo by the author.
61. HMS Sussex, starboard forecastle showing fore-chains and gun port wreath carvings. Photo by the author.
62. HMS Sussex, amidships showing entry port, main chains and gun port wreath carvings. Photo by the author.
63. HMS Sussex, view of port quarter, stern galleries and lanthorns from above. Photo by the author.
64. The Admiralty Board Offices at Crutched Friars, near the Tower of London where Ann Wyatt did much business. Courtesy of the Navy Records Society.
65. Title page contract cover, HMS Cumberland of 1695, Admiralty 106/3071, courtesy of the UK National Archives. Photo by the author. For full transcription by Richard Endsor, see Appendix.
66. A view inside of Walnut Tree Cottage, the house from which William Wyatt ran his business interests, and the room in which he may have produced the draughts promised for Edmund Dummer, Surveyor of the Navy. Photo courtesy current owners, 2009.
67. HMS Sussex, stern walk as discussed with Admiralty in Wyatt Document. USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
68. A port quarter view of the Boyne without the stern walk. Model courtesy of the NMM. Photo by the author.
69. A view of the stern of HMS Chichester, showing stern walk, model courtesy of the NMM. Photo by the author.
70. Photo mosaic of the wreck of HMS Sussex. Image courtesy of Odyssey Marine Exploration.
71. Area of critical weakness of the 27 Ship Programme 80s designs. Note the lack of a full deck fore and aft of the capstan. USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
72. HMS Restoration, ancestor of the Wyatt 80s. From van de Velde the Elder, Boymans 408, in Frank Fox Great Ships 161, No. 202. Image courtesy of Frank Fox.
73. Duguay Trouin taking Cumberland from The Memoirs of Duguay Troin. Image courtesy of the USNA Museum.
74. Cumberland and Devonshire lost in action 1707, Bataille du Caplizard, by Jean Antoine Theodore Gudin. Public domain.
75. Possible HMS Winchester model. The scale of the main gun deck is analogous to that of Winchester of 1693. NMM Model Number 0389. Photo by the author.
76. 4th rate, model number 12 Rogers collection, USNA Museum, before restoration; note similarity with Figure 78 with quarter galleries. Model and photo courtesy of the USNA museum.
77. NMM, Model 0389, port quarter detail from above. Photo by the author.
78. Edmund Dummer draught of a 4th rate showing the ship moored in a river in ordinary, NA/Admiralty 106/516. Photo by the author.
79. This is what the Victory; (ex-Royal James) looked like, as represented by the newly restored model in the Kriegstein collection. Winchester served for a time as replacement for the then very leaky Victory according to her log in NA/ Admiralty 51.
80. Starboard bow, 4th rate, 1705. Note lack of wreaths around gun ports. USNA Museum. Photo by the museum.
81. 4th rate, USNA Museum model number 33 Rogers collection, believed to be HMS Portland in 1693. Photo by the museum.
82. Starboard broadside 1693 4th rate of 1693, Model Number 33. USNA Museum photo.
83. Sinking of Winchester, September 1695, off North Key Largo, Florida, called at the time Cape Florida. Painting by the author, photo by Janet Reel.
84. Starboard quarter looking forward from the waterline, 4th rate, 1693, Model Number 5, USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
85. Port waiste forward, Model Number 5, USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
86. 1693 4th rate, forecastle detail, USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
87. 1693 4th rate, mizzenmast from port quarter, USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
98. 1693 4th rate, port quarter, aerial view, USNA Museum. Photo by the author.
89. Progress Report on Lancaster and Winchelsey, courtesy of the UK National Archives. Photo by the author. NA/PRO/Admiralty 106/417.
90. Robert Woodcock, The Launch of a 50 Gun Ship. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s, from F.B.Cockett, Early Sea Painters, p. 131.
91. Reconstruction of 17th Century Hull Framing, Peter Goodwin, English Man of War. USNI Press, by permission.
92. Midship Section 17th century 3rd rates under construction, Goodwin, USNI Press by permission.
93. A 5th rate galley frigate of 32 guns about 1695. Courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
94. HMS Adventure 5th rate. Photo courtesy of the Kriegstein collection.
95. Unknown 5th rate, Rogers Collection, Model number 14, USNA Museum, likely to resemble Winchelsey. Photo by the by museum.
96. 4th rate of about 1705, broadside. Photo courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum Oxford, 1886.1.1665.
97. 4th rate of about 1705, starboard quarter. Photo courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1886.1.1665.
98. 4th rate of about 1705, port bow. Photo courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1886.1.1665.
99. 24 gun 6th rate, USNA Museum, Rogers collection, Model Number 14, starboard aerial view. Photo by the museum.
100. Port broadside view of a 24 gun 6th rate galley frigate about 1695, very likely similar to the Burseldon built Seaford. Model and photo courtesy of the USNA Museum.
101. 5th rate, 32 gun galley frigate, photo courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, number 1886.1.1667. The Winchelsea/Winchelsey, 32 probably looked like this.
102. 5th rate, 32 guns, starboard quarter, photo courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, number 1886.1.1667. This can be considered another view of Winchelsea
103. 5th rate, 32 guns, broadside view, photo and model Pitt Rivers Museum.
104. 5th rate, stern detail, USNA Museum Rogers collection Model # 13, 32 guns. Photo by the museum.
105. HMS Cumberland of 1695, starboard broadside appearance by Dustin Minnick, after Richard Endsor Draught. (1/48 scale in end- pocket).
106. HMS Cumberland of 1695, section by Richard Endsor. (1/48 scale in endpocket).
107. Typical example of a floor rider, John Franklin, Navy Board Ship Models, Figure 19, by permission, USNI Press.
108. Inset of Ann Wyatt and her shipwrights aboard Cumberland, November 1695, by Richard Endsor. Endsor says she is berating them.
109. Cumberland boarded by the Glorie and Chester. Duguay Trouin Memoirs, image courtesy of the USNA Museum.
110. HMS Cumberland stern by Dustin Minnick. Photo by the author. (1/48 scale drawing in end-pocket.).
111. H. Vale, Battle of Cape Passaro. This painting contains Cumberland as Principe de Asturias; the Spanish ship in the center is Real San Felipe, but the Spanish two decker showing the Wyatt Stern and three lanterns is to the right is probably Cumberland. Image courtesy of Lane Fine Art Galleries.
112. HMS Lizard, 24 guns, 6th rate, port bow. Photo courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
List of Illustrations
113. HMS Lizard, 24 guns, 6th Rate, stern. Photo courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
114. Unidentified contemporary 6th rate from the USNA Museum Rogers Collection, Model Number 13, deck overhead view. Photo by the author. Seaford could have looked like this less the lack of quarter galleries and pink stern.
115. 6th rate, pink stern, USNA Museum Rogers collection. Photo by the museum.
116. 6th rate, starboard bows detail, USNA Museum Rogers collection. Photo by the museum.
117. 6th rate amidships detail, USNA Museum, Rogers collection. Photo by the author.
118. 6th rate, USNA Museum, Rogers’s collection, detail abaft port stern. Photo by the author.
119. Unidentified 48 gun 4th rate, 1693, courtesy of Arnold and Henry Kriegstein. This ship is equipped with a rare topside scaffold, probably for supporting an awning in tropical service. Winchester saw tropical service and may well have carried such a scaffold. Model and photo courtesy of the Kriegstein collection.
120. 1693 4th rate, NMM Model number SLR 0381, starboard broadside. Photo by the author.
121. 1693 4th rate, NMM SLR 0381, starboard forecastle. Photo by the author.
122. 1693 4th rate, NMM SLR 0381, broadside detail. Photo by the author.
123. 1693 4th rate, NMM SLR 0381, midships falls and main chains. Photo by the author.
124. 1693 4th rate, NMM SLR 0381, stern quarter galleries. Photo by the author.
125. 1693 4th rate, NMM SLR 0381, stern. Photo by the author.
126. 1693 4th rate, USNA Museum showing rebuilt quarter galleries cf. Figure 112. Photo by the author.
127. 1705 4th rate, USNA Museum, Rogers collection, Model number 12, starboard bow. Photo by the museum.
128. 1705 4th rate, USNA Museum, Rogers collection, Model number 12, midships starboard. Photo by the museum.
129. 1705 4th rate, USNA Museum, Rogers collection. Model number 12, aft starboard including rebuilt galleries. Photo by the museum.
130. 1693 4th rate, USNA Museum, Sergison collection, model number 9, stern and starboard side from aft, a waterline view. She is a very good bet for Winchester’s appearance in service, though slightly shorter. Photo by the author.
Warships for the King
Figure 1. An English Fleet in the Downs, Peter Monamy, Private collection, Longdon. This painting by Peter Monamy depicts several ships of Ann Wyatt’s era. From left to right there are a small yacht or dispatch vessel; a 1st rate surrounded by small craft, including flag officers’ barges; a 4th rate firing cannon, another 4th rate, possibly a 60 gun ship like Winchester, seen starboard-side to. The 1st rate can be recognized by her three full decks and her double- decked stern galleries with Wilhelminian era scrollwork. There are bow and stern views of two other ships of the line, probably 3rd rates like the Cumberland, the Devonshire, and the Lancaster. In all, the ships built by or associated with Ann and William Wyatt included three 3rd rates (80 guns), a 4th rate, (60 guns), a 5th (48-50 guns); a smaller 5th, of 32 guns, and a 6th rate, probably 24 guns. Unfortunately, there are no contemporary ships’ portraits of any of Ann and William Wyatt’s ships, other than representations in fleet actions, making them very difficult to identify from contemporary art. The fleet actions painted included those by Ludolph Bakhuizen, who left us Vigo Bay, 1702, listed as National Maritime Museum (NMM) BHC 2217; Isaac Sailmaker who has left us Malaga, 1704, listed as NMM BHC 0348. There is Peter Monamy’s Relief of Barcelona, 1706, in a Private collection; Samuel Scott, who painted Cartaghena, 1708, is listed as NMM BHC 0348. Lastly there is Richard Paton, who gave us Cape Passaro, which was Cumberland’s final battle, as a purchased Spanish ship, Principe de Asturias, listed as NMM BHC 0351. The closest approximation to a contemporary portrait of one of Ann and William Wyatt’s ships is Peter Monamy, The Albemarle, 80 Guns, Flagship of Sir John Leake in 1708 off Barcelona. This work is in a private collection, and can be seen in F.B. Crockett, Peter Monamy and His Circle 1681-1749, (Suffolk: Antique Collectors Club, 2000), p. 30. Albemarle was a rebuilt 80, and her appearance was close to Chichester, 80, as seen below.
Preface
The Lady and her ShipS
Ann Wyatt of Bursledon Hampshire was a woman entrepreneur. She was a wife and widow twice, who did things of interest, merit, and impact over a very long and productive life. Ann Wyatt made a difference in her nation’s efforts and in her nation’s future through what she and her husband built: ships of war. These ships were part of the King William III’s “TwentySeven Ship Programme,” which arose from an existential threat to William’s rule of England. It was framed by William’s fight for dynastic and religious survival against Louis XIV of France. Ann’s efforts and those of the other English commercial shipbuilders allowed expansion of the battle fleet by almost a third. No matter its technical drawbacks, or operational failures, this effort met the King’s ends.
Charles Sergison, the Clerk of the Acts of the Board of Admiralty, reminded King William, “We have not only maintained the Navy at sea for nine years together, but we have added to it three hundred sail, great and small, two hundred of which were built off the stocks, and the other
1 Commander R.D. Merriman, The Sergison Papers (London: Navy Records Society, 1950), p. 6.
2 Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983), p. 66.
3 UK National Archives, [hereinafter NA], PRO/Admiralty 20/57. This is a bound volume of accounting in copperplate script, which itself merits publication. Ann and William Wyatt figure prominently in the returns to the King of overpayments and of the monies paid for the works done by all the shipyards, private and public, in England, but also in penalties and interest paid for late payments by the King.
hundred bought, according to the account formerly presented to your Majesty and that the Docks and buildings of your Yards have been more than doubled in the same time.”1
This new fleet and infrastructure became the post-Stuart element of what the historian Paul Kennedy has called “the really great changes in the Royal Navy from being an assembly of vessels provided for by the monarchy became a national force, paid for by regular votes of parliament it became a standing and homogeneous fleet directly responsible to the government as an instrument of national policy.”2 The archival evidence dealing with the 27 Ship Programme is extensive. The Programme, which spanned the years 1690-1697, was well organized, financed and supported. The previous Thirty Ship program took place over a lengthier period from 16771688, and was the object of technical challenges, organizational problems and subsequent politically charged investigations. The Twenty Seven Ship Programme benefitted from the learning curve of the earlier program and there was fiscal oversight which would make current treasuries jealous—it was literally down to the last farthing (one 4th of a Penny)!3 The role of the Wyatts and particularly of Ann is clear
2. HMS Sussex, 80 Guns 3rd rate, Charles Sergison collection, U.S. Naval Academy Museum, Photo by the author. As contrasted with contemporary art, there are some very accurate models of the 80 gun ships in the Twenty Seven Ship Programme which allows unprecedented appreciation of Ann Wyatt’s ships and their appearance. This is a starboard bow view of the Sussex from the collection of Charles Sergison, now housed in the United States Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland. The model represents the ship as built and is consistent with contracts for Wyatt’s’ three 80s, less the full 3rd deck added to suit Ann Wyatt’s demands for safety, quality and consistency in the Cumberland There are two other models of 80s in the National Maritime Museum in England, the Boyne and the Chichester, seen and discussed below. Sussex as built represents as close as we will get to the original appearance of the Wyatt 80s.
and extensive, also accounted down to the last farthing.
Ann Wyatt lived for almost a century. Her life from 1658 to 1756 spanned as many as five generations. She was a partner, a wife twice, a widow twice, a mother once, grandmother and great grandmother. She was a contemporary and very probably an acquaintance of Daniel Defoe and his son Benjamin. She also may have known the diarist Celia Fiennes.4 Ann Wyatt may have been related by marriage to the latter and known the former through their business dealings. Wyatt, through her marriage with William Wyatt had become an experienced timber merchant and shipbuilding executive. This included managing shipyards with her husband shipwright before his death and then as the equivalent of CEO in her own right after it.
In order to qualify to build Royal ships of the line, Ann and William Wyatt had to have run a successful shipbuilding enterprise. Ann had to have been an active partner, because when William died, she had two big ships on the stocks: the Winchelsey, 32, at Redbridge,
and the 80 gun Lancaster at Bursledon, and she stepped immediately into his shoes. Although she did have the help of her foremen, Richard Herring and John Button, she always maintained the role of owner and principal partner. With Button she subsequently contracted and built the 80 gun ship of war, HMS Cumberland. Prior to that William and Ann had produced the Devonshire, 80, and the Winchester, 60. Ann and Herring had finished and launched the 80 gun Lancaster. Neither Herring nor Button is mentioned in William’s contracts, or in subsequent correspondence with the Admiralty. A close examination of those letters with the Admiralty shows she had the lead role in all issues surrounding Cumberland. Her legacy of stubbornness probably contributed to the remedying of a bad design in this ship and her ideas may have been adopted class-wide as the ships came in for great repairs.
Ann Wyatt lived in an age of great unrest, through two revolutions, plague, and pestilence. War was a constant and peace was regarded as merely a breathing space. She lived in Hampshire, England, at the end of the 17th and
4 Ann lived from 1658 to 1756. Defoe was born in 1660 and died in 1731. Celia Fiennes was born in 1662 and died in 1741. Ann’s second husband, Michael Brixey, a London merchant who she married in the early 1700s and who predeceased her in 1729. He is buried at All Saints, Hawstead Suffolk. See Hawstead All Saints Church Records in Bury St. Edmunds Library, p. 77.
Figure
The Lady and Her Ships
Figure 3. Portrait of a Young Woman, associated with Sir Godfrey Kneller or a follower, early 18th century. This painting is believed to be associated with Ann Wyatt. It might be Ann as a young or even middle-aged, if idealized, woman. Kneller was an eminent portraitist to Kings James II and William III of England. His services and those of his studio were available to such a family as that of Sir Jasper Cullum, and the surmise is that Ann senior was painted as well as her daughter, Lady Anne, who married Sir Jasper Cullum in 1697. This is believed to have been done by Kneller or a follower. The original dress is red, and the portrait’s background is a green according to experts at Courtauld’s. The authoritative work Kneller, his Life and His Art, by J.D.Stewart, does not contain any record of either the Cullum patronage or a painting done by Kneller of either Ann Wyatt or Anne Cullum, but the paintings came from the Cullum family homes at Hawstead and the photo is courtesy of Courtauld Institute of Art London.
beginning of the 18th century. It was a place and time when and where shipbuilders and servants of the Parliament and King in London rubbed shoulders with smugglers allied with big moneyed interests and sometimes supporters of the exiled Catholic King, James II. These all included a mix of nativists and landed gentry whose views of national authority were more medieval than modern. The landowners owned the forests not held by the King, and so timber merchants had to deal with them as well as the Royal forests which had been depleted by a century of heavy shipbuilding.
Until now Ann Wyatt has been a footnote in naval history, despite her accomplishments. Regarding her life as a shipbuilder, there are rich primary sources including scores of Admiralty Progress Reports on Wyatt ships. There is Admiralty correspondence with both Wyatts and there are internal Admiralty naval minutes over a number of years from the journals of the Admiralty Board Clerk of the Acts, Charles Sergison. There are also Admiralty papers from Edmund Dummer, a Hampshire native, entrepreneur, engineering genius and Surveyor of the Navy, who was a principal interlocutor with the Wyatts. These are preserved in an extensive collection in the National Maritime
Museum (NMM) at Greenwich as well as in the British Library (BL/Additional Manuscripts) in London. On Ann’s personal life there are ecclesiastical and legal documents as well as some estate records. There are some surprising documents, including a capital court case in which she was a witness. The house she shared with William Wyatt in Bursledon survives as do some local records. Her later years are illuminated by the surviving contents of the library at Hawstead Place. There is also other primary and secondary material about her first husband, William, and some about her second husband, Michael Brixey, and a great deal about the family of Sir Jasper Cullum, of whom she became an in-law.
The Royal Navy of Ann’s era was not a King’s toy nor was it run by part-time amateurs. Ann and William’s shipbuilding competence and technical acumen were therefore absolute prerequisites to them getting Admiralty contracts to build large warships. Together they had already turned an inheritance of £100 into a legacy of over £5000 when she and her daughter inherited. Beyond this, because Ann Wyatt had become a shipbuilder in her own right, she has call on the heritage of Richard Herring’s attempt to build Salisbury, 50, at
Figure 4. Lady Anne Wyatt Cullum, daughter of Ann and William Wyatt by Sir Godfrey Kneller or follower. (Photo by the author. Painting courtesy of Moyses Hall, Bury St. Edmunds). Ann Wyatt Cullum was the mother of Sir Jasper’s only son and heir Sir John Cullum of whom Ann Wyatt was grandmother. The painting is held by Moyses Hall in Bury St Edmunds. It is ornately framed and of a beautiful woman in Kneller’s style. Her name and date of her death are on the painting. We also have the documents left by Sir Thomas Cullum, and ancestor of Sir Jasper who bought Hawstead House who made his fortune as a draper. Thomas ordained portraits were to be done of everybody in the family.
Beaulieu Hard, and in the Bursledon built Seaford, 24, though these ships were speculative ventures on the part of her foremen. The Salisbury connection to Ann herself is tenuous, but the ship’s connection to Wyatt’s senior foreman is undoubted, so she is included here. This book is about Ann Wyatt and her ships, but to some reasonable extent it must also be about her husband William Wyatt. The foundation of a shipwright’s and merchant’s reputation with the Admiralty must go to William Wyatt who secured the contracts for the Devonshire, Winchester, Winchelsea, and Lancaster. Then there were the times: Ann and William were part of an early modern naval arms race and its attendant action drama and paperwork.
Constructing a ship of the line designed to carry scores of heavy cannon and fight its opposite number at sea was the most complex and difficult effort outside of capital buildings on land that human beings could endeavor until the Industrial Revolution. Constructing several ships of war required a combination of management, leadership (both human and technical) equal to any challenge in the modern era. 8 Ann Wyatt was not a merely a shipwright’s widow, but also a shipbuilder—someone responsible for more than one yard, hundreds of
employees and several ships. The shipwrights worked for her or her foremen. This was usual for any shipbuilder of the time who was not a shipwright himself. Ann Wyatt was both technically and strategically involved in the entire business process. She had at least 120 people working for her when building Lancaster, 80, and Winchelsey, 32, in 1694. This labor force comprised men of significant experience, knowledge and craft. A good contemporary book on shipbuilding distills the experience, to include art, craft higher mathematics, geometry, physics, statics, mechanics, economy and aesthetics, and it shows them all woven together in a surprisingly modern scientific manner.
In Ann Wyatt’s time, ships were recognized as complex machines of great beauty and power; the men who built them had to possess significant intellectual competence. Finding, fashioning, and ferreting timbers on average a foot across and weighing hundreds of pounds, fashioned by hand and safely fixing them into a complex machine weighing hundreds of tons required considerable management leadership and organizational skills.
Ann and William Wyatt had to find and keep hundreds of skilled and unskilled labor in a time of war. In addition, there was the
continual challenge of finding and keeping the supply of timber. Fortunately, we can ride with Ann through the forests of Hampshire to Portsmouth and back, albeit through Daniel Defoe’s eyes. We can look over her shoulder as she wrote some letters to the Admiralty in her own hand—simple and to the point, although at times wheedling. She sometimes played the poor widow’s role if she thought it would help. Normally she would keep it in the background. She did her own correspondence. Ann had a good hand for the day, as did her husband. Reading the script itself always proves a challenge for 21st- century historians—there is little punctuation, major words are capitalized, there are frequent abbreviations, and sentences are not by any means complete. The 17th century differs from our time in that they thought to cover subjects as quickly as possible, often without transitions. Spelling is phonetic. Comparing Ann’s prose to her husband’s, one finds her approach less direct but equally effective; comparing either to the diary of the Admiralty Clerk of the Acts Charles Sergison, one finds precisely the same level of literacy, and significantly greater readability in Ann’s script. Ann had no formal education that we know of and was self-taught as the daughter of a husbandman. We know little of her parents;
The Lady and Her Ships
Figure 5. William Wyatt letter to the Admiralty, 12 June 169, courtesy of the UK National Archives, PRO/ Admiralty 106.
Photo by the author.
As mentioned above, in documenting the construction and lives of the Wyatt’s ships and their relationship with the Admiralty, the author has been very fortunate to have had a large collection of original Admiralty documents available. These included ship’s contracts, building (progress) reports, ship-repair records, the official diaries of Charles Sergison, ship’s logs and journals, Admiralty records of actions, and other individual items. These are recorded in as much detail as possible in the bibliography to allow other scholars to follow as many trails as possible.
Jeremy Mitchell, curator of ships plans and photographs; Mike Bevan, of the Manuscripts Division. Thanks are due for assistance from the London Science Museum, especially Daniel Albert, Curator of Transport. Thanks are also due to Matthew Percival at the Courtauld Institute in London.
other than they were established Church of England members, and her grandfather may have been a pewterer in London, but there is no record at all concerning her mother. The salient fact is that Ann and her parent’s survived civil war and plague and smallpox, although her father died when she was thirteen.
But in addition to the documents and contemporary sources, there has been critical help from several institutions and persons. To begin with, Professor Luckett and Ms. Aude Fitzsimmons of the Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, were most helpful for Dummer materials. The staff of the National Maritime Museum needs to be thanked, particularly curator of ship models, Simon Stephens. Simon’s role in this work and in the advancement of British maritime history in general has been pivotal. In addition, thanks are due the following: Ms. Kate Jarvis and the staff of the Caird Library for the Sergison Papers;
In addition I need to acknowledge Grant Walker, the curator of the Sergison and Rogers Collections of Admiralty ship models at the United States Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis, without whom this work would not have been possible. His tireless efforts on behalf of naval historical scholarship, as well as those of his museum merit special thanks. There is also Dr. Keith Cunliffe at Moyses Hall, Bury St. Edmunds, for the latter half of Ann Wyatt’s life, as well as Sara Steggles, Sheila Reed, Liz Wigmore KatieVaughn, all staff at Suffolk County Library and Archive in Bury St. Edmunds. I am also grateful to Simon Miller, Warden of All Saints Church in Hawstead, Suffolk, who so kindly helped search the churchyard for Ann Wyatt’s grave and spent an unscheduled evening carefully walking a colonial through his lovely church. Thanks are also due to the Warden and Rector of St. Leonard’s Church in Bursledon; to the staff of
Figure 6. Ann Wyatt to the Admiralty, 25 June 1695, courtesy of the UK National Archives Admiralty 106/464. Photo by the author.
the Hampshire Country Library in Lymington. Particularly helpful with Ann Wyatt Brixey’s later life was the staff of Walthamstow Archives and Library.
I would like to specially acknowledge the assistance of John and Judith Madin who so generously searched local archives and provided maps and photo graphs of Bursledon to find Ann Wyatt’s yards, as well as their additional efforts to locate Ann Wyatt’s house and historical records.
In addition special thanks go to Martin and Judy Hughes, current owners of Ann and William Wyatt’s house in Bursledon; to Jeffrey Martin, a local scholar, who helped locate a detailed history of the Wyatt’s at Bursledon.
For the French, Spanish, and Austrian connections needed to track HMS Cumberland as she served in four navies I am indebted to Michael Wenzel of Vienna, Austria, who also shared unstintingly his original research on Ann Wyatt. For their assistance on Cumberland’s short Spanish service to the independent scholar John D. Hebron, and Professor Francisco FernandezGonzalez, of the University of Madrid; and of 17th century maritime Spain the historian Professor Carla Rahn Phillips of the University of Minnesota.
Additional assistance has come from Henry and Arnold Kriegstein, curators of the largest collection of 17th century Admiralty ship models in private hands.
There is of course Richard Endsor, independent scholar and the ship’s carpenter of the Royal Catherine, 90 guns, for his hospitality,
editing of an early and difficult version of this manuscript, as well as deep and wise knowledge of the British archives and technical expertise and his superb renderings of Cumberland, as well as the provision of a fully vetted version of her contract which appears as Appendix in this work. His efforts and counsel have enabled the reconstruction of a 1300 ton 3rd rate, at least on paper.
Thanks are due to Frank Fox, independent scholar and author of the pioneering work on the battle fleet of Charles II, as well as an encyclopedic study of the 100 gun line of battleship (forthcoming) for his technical assistance and expertise.
In the entirely new area (for the author) of women’s studies, I owe much to the assistance of Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford; for background on Ann’s contemporary Daniel Defoe, Professor Paula Backscheider of Auburn University was a great help. For additional
Figure 7. Sergison Diary, sample page Charles Sergison Admiralty Minute, NMM. Photo by the author.
assistance on another of Ann’s acquaintances, Celia Fiennes, I thank Lady Seye and Sele, Celia’s descendent. For consultation of the idea of this book, I thank Professor Andrew Lambert of King’s College London and Professor Kenneth J. Hagan of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey. To my new colleagues at the University of Maryland, University College, for their encouragement in getting this effort finished, never mind they made me a professor in the school of management, not history!
There are also the efforts of Kathryn Casey; research associate, whose classical training and stalwart assistance has assisted the work greatly. In addition, there are Drs. David Wilson and Georgina Allen, as well as Rachael Morgan of
Oxford, who braved the wilds of archives and found the logs of Ann’s ships that had avoided my previous efforts. The final manuscript has benefitted greatly from the unstinting efforts of Cathy Dupont of Seawatch Books; and most especially from the patience and meticulous attention to detail in re-editing text and photography of Janet Reel of Lexington, Virginia.
Professor Margaret Hunt of Amherst College kindly read the manuscript and helped steer me though some new waters: both in the 17th century context, and women’s studies. Her detailed and painstaking editing has made this a much more accurate, and hopefully useful artifact of 17th century (she unambiguously
prefers seventeenth, written out!) history. She believes secondary sources should be seen and not heard, whereas the author is kinder and is willing to risk opprobrium for their shameless exploitation.
Lastly, there is the late Roger Lyman Baker; late trustee of Mount Holyoke College, to whom this work is dedicated. I never met a man whose company I enjoyed more. His vision and generosity has enabled progress across a spectrum of academic activity which has yet to be measured.
Whatever faults or errors there are in this work are entirely those of the author.
Tobias R. Philbin Lexington, Virginia 2011.