1845 Admiralty survey of Deben from HMS Blazer

The 1845 Admiralty survey of the Deben was exhibited as a display panel in the Woodbridge Tides of Change Exhibition Longshed in late 2019. It was obtained for the exhibition by Dr Helene Burningham of University College London in support of that project. The focus of the writer was initially to make some notes on the stretch of the Deben adjacent to Waldringfield but after noticing the name of the Captain, as will be seen, this turned to an indulgence of other interests such as 18/19C Royal Navy, Navigation, Exploration, the East Coast, ships, charts and tides. The men involved were from the group of mariners, including, of course, James Cook, who measured and mapped the World and measured the Solar System, what an honour that they did us as well. Landlubbers read on since, if you skip the bits with numbers, you should find something of interest.

The photograph, taken at the time gives the general appearance. It is a long landscape format chart with the River Deben arranged across its horizontal axis. Much can be learned from it. The detail panel states:

River Deben
Surveyed in H.M.S.Blazer
Captain Owen Stanley
In December 1845
by
Mr E.K. Calver
Master and Assistant Surveyor

HMSV Blazer, Woodbridge, England January 1846 Owen Stanley – Out of Copyright from the National Library of Australia

H.M.S. Blazer, third of the name, was built at Chatham in 1834/5 as one of the two Tartarus first-class steam gun vessels, armed with three guns. ¹⁾HMS Blazer : Figureheads. She spent time in the Mediterranean and was then commissioned for Survey Work under Captain John Washington in 1843. She was wooden, 145ft long, 28ft 6in wide, of 527 tons burthen and driven by side paddle wheels powered by two 120 h.p. steam engines. ²⁾120 h.p. steam engines by Miller and Ravenhill She was used as a survey ship, along with other duties, from 1843 before being broken up at Portsmouth in 1853. ³⁾ H.M.S. Blazer details. Captain Stanley made several illustrations of her and the Ship’s Logbook for December 1845  is available which may yield further information of interest.

H.M.S. Blazer by Owen Stanley – Out of Copyright from the National Library of Australia

There are claims that the garment of the same name originated when a young Queen Victoria visited the ship causing the Captain to invent a smart jacket for his crew to impress her. This, however, is most probably wishful thinking as the vessel was unlikely to justify a Royal visit. ⁴⁾ True Blue: A History of the Navy Blazer. The original H.M.S. Blazer was named after the First Sea Lord’s dog and the figurehead was, appropriately, a Golden Blazing Sun. ⁵⁾ HMS Blazer Royal Navy History

A thorough North Sea survey, amongst others, had been commissioned by Admiral Beaufort in the 1830s. This was led by Captain William Hewett who was lost with all hands in H.M.S. Fairy sunk in the Great Gale of November 1840. The loss of H.M.S. Fairy was a tragic tale. All were lost including Captain Hewett’s son and brother in law: his widow, therefore also lost her son and brother. More details here. He was replaced by Captain Washington with H.M.S.  Shearwater and H.M.S. Blazer who was joined by Calver and later Stanley. ⁶⁾Washington – Dawson, L.S. Memoirs of hydrography Volume Two p.136

Rear Admiral ⁷⁾Rear Admiral John Washington Date of Appointment 29 January 1843 John Washington was the previous Captain of H.M.S. Blazer. Based in Harwich he was highly influential in the development of the port and in charge of the East Coast Survey work. He later replaced Admiral Beaufort as Hydrographer of the Admiralty: in this post he aided Lady Franklin in organising the many search and rescue voyages for her husband who was famously lost seeking the North West Passage. ⁸⁾John Washington (Royal Navy officer). Wikipedia. Local sailors may be familiar with Washington’s buoy, an inadequate memorial.

Captain Owen Stanley, a nephew of Lord Stanley of Alderley, ⁹⁾Stanley, Owen (1811–1850).

Captain Owen Stanley RN in 1837

In: Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. )) was in command of H.M.S. Blazer for the survey. He had previously sailed in the Arctic on H.M.S. Terror and done survey work there. He achieved Post Rank in 1844 after returning from the East Indies and took command of Blazer from Captain Washington.  He had some leisure time as he made a sketch and watercolour of H.M.S. Blazer as well as the Seckford Alms Houses in January 1846. The Woodbridge artist and surveyor Isaac Johnson died in the previous year so they would not have met, which is a great shame given their common interests. If only he’d sketched at Waldringfield while he and his crew enjoyed a pint or two in the Bush Inn where they must have spent some time given the time of year.

Seckfored Alms Houses by Owen Stanley H.M.S.Blazer by Owen Stanley – Out of Copyright from the National Library of Australia

Before coming to the Deben he had steamed from the Orkneys where , in June 1845, H.M.S. Rattler (right) and H.M.S. Blazer (left) towed ships of Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated fleet out of the Flow. Captain Stanley made sketches of the operation and this was, of course, the last time he saw his friend and mentor. He had served with Sir John as well as others who were later to perish on that North-West Passage expedition. The East Coast Survey work was surely one the easiest parts of his career since in 1846 – 1849 he was given an expedition to Australia commanding H.M.S Rattlesnake.¹⁰⁾ Macgillivray, F.R.G.S., J. Narrative Of  The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake Vol ume 1   Volume 2 This ended in his death, aged 39 years, by illness in Sydney in 1850 and is how how his sketchbook was preserved in Australia. The Owen Stanley Mountain Range in New Guinea is named for him. Port Stanley in the Falklands was named for Stanley’s uncle. ¹¹⁾ Stanley, Falkland Islands. Wikipedia. ¹²⁾ Dawson, L.S. Memoirs of hydrography Volume Two p.26.  It seemed possible that there was a family connection with Commander Edward Stanley who previously lived in the writer’s house as both came from families with a strong Ecclesiastical and Naval tradition but this proved not to be the case.

Departure of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror for the North Pole, 1845 by Owen Stanley – Out of Copyright from the National Library of Australia

Mr Edward Killwick Calver ¹³⁾Edward Killwick Calver I.C.E. Virtual Library perhaps had a humbler birth but had served on the East Coast survey with Washington, see below, and in due course progressed to become Captain and continue surveying in H.M.S. Porcupine. ¹⁴⁾H.M.S. Porcupine was used in an 1869 survey which disproved the “azoic” theory by finding abundant life below six hundred fathoms. The scientist C.W. Thomson was to go on the Challenger mission in 1876. She was scrapped in 1883 : Linklater, Eric. The Voyage of the Challenger. Cardinal, 1974.—. The Voyage of the Challenger. Cardinal, 1974. Also see 1844 HMS Porcupine He would certainly have done a lot of the work on the Deben survey. He later took responsibility for the East Coast Survey, wrote a book on River management and was well regarded by the Hydrographer, Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort.

We are fortunate in that, not only was Captain Stanley an artist but that the sketchbook that bridged the period between here and his final voyage to the Southern Hemisphere was preserved by the National Library of Australia. ¹⁵⁾ Stanley’s Sketchbook – Departure of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror for the North Pole, 1845

!845 Cover Stanley sketchbook NLA Public Domain

This was probably the first detailed survey to be made of the Deben and may well have remained the only one for decades. It was issued in 1846 as Number L5429 Price 5 shillings. The survey is highly detailed and requires a magnifying glass even with a size of 1000mm by 700mm, the original is even larger. Given its size, it would only have been usable on a large chart table and ships big enough to have this are unlikely to have visited the river so there were probably few copies sold. As it lacks some of the features of a nautical chart it may be that it was not the intended final product although it does seem to have been offered for sale. The survey would, however, form the basis for larger-scale charts. Imray, for example, published a small scale Thames Estuary Chart in 1852 almost certainly based on this set of surveys. ¹⁶⁾1852 A new chart of the River Thames. With its entrances.

Unlike a normal Nautical Chart or Harbour Survey, there are no Latitude or Longitude markings nor does it run North-South. There are un-numbered True Compass lines on Kirton and Bawdsey Churches but no indication of Magnetic Declination. The True Meridian (True North) is shown in Martlesham. A triangulation diagram centred on Waldringfield shows angles and distance in feet to other Churches. Distances for Ramsholt and Martlesham were found to be within 0.2% of modern measurements. There are horizontal distance scales of one statute mile and thirty thousand feet. Why Nautical Miles were not used is unknown. There are no land heights given but there are, of course, spot soundings in feet which differ from modern practice with a datum of Low Water Ordinary Spring Tides. (subtract 0.4m to reduce to Chart Datum) For the drying areas, the figure given is the depth below High Water Springs (deduct from 4.0m to reduce to drying height above Chart Datum). There are no contour lines.

The tidal information panel shows the Rise & Fall at key points, which is superior to modern charts. The largest range occurs at Kingston Quay with barely half of this at Wilford Bridge which explains some of the dinghy sailing issues on that stretch. Tide times are given as the hour of “High Water Full & Change”. This enables the navigator to calculate tidal heights from the state of the Moon which would be published or could be derived from the date or date of Easter. The availability of Tide Tables was some time away.

Another panel provides the names of the navigational points, marks and reaches from the Haven to Wilford Bridge, some of these differ from modern usage and are, of course, more poetic. We seem to make little use of names on the river today and the buoys on the Waldringfield section have dull names like “No.2” – time for rebranding?

The chart has very good detail on the land around and is superior to the 1805 Ordnance Survey. The most probable source found for the terrain detail is the 1837 Thomas Colby Ordnance Survey which was available as a one-inch series by 1841. The next Ordnance Survey was not before 1861. ¹⁷⁾Survey and revision dates for county series mapping – England and Wales 1842-1952 The largest scale local maps of the time known to us are the 1839 Tithe maps but, at least for Waldringfield, it does not appear that these were used. The source of information for the land shown is uncertain although it repeats an error made on the much smaller scale 1783 Hodskinson’s map of Suffolk, as does the Ordnance Survey. Unless Owen Calver also surveyed the land, which is improbable, the 1837 Thomas Colby Ordnance Survey appears to be the most likely basis.

Points to note in the Waldringfield area are:-

• • The Cement Works and Quay area is a saltmarsh.
  • The Bush Inn. The lower sill of the front window was taken as a datum for the Low Water Zero at the hard.
  • Muddick Beacon and Half Moon reach are good names, see The Waldringfield Fairway chapter for more.
  • Cross Farm is marked as Rivers Hall. As Manor House is marked with ‘On the site of Rivers Hall ‘on the 1881  O.S. map there is disagreement here. Could it be that the later O.S. is wrong and Cross Farm was Rivers Hall? ¹⁸⁾We think not as we have a reference to John Crosse of Cross Farm in the 1674 Hearth Tax Return.
  • Manor House has buildings nearby at the wheelwrights.
  • The Parsonage on or near the site of 20C Rivers Hall.
  • No Coprolite pits or fishpond although the sandpit in School Road is there.
  • Far fewer buildings. ²⁾
  • Church Farm Cottages are shown as Chilton Farm continuing the probably misreading of Hilton. ¹⁹⁾The 1805 O.S. is comparatively crude and ambiguous regarding Rivers Hall and Manor House
  • Selection of buildings east of White Hall at old barn site.
  • The channels in the saltmarsh on the west side of Rocks Reach are well defined and when compared with a modern chart seem to show the mud digging for the cement works that occurred in the following years.
  • This and Colby’s 1837 map have contour shading for terrain rather than contour lines. This practice continued until Ordnance Survey maps of the later nineteenth century. Depths are shown as spot readings rather than shading. The use of the contour lines to which we are accustomed today was pioneered by Charles Hutton, a British mathematician whose ambitious 1774 survey set out to measure the mass of a mountain. It took nearly a century to adopt this excellent innovation. Hutton may have adopted the idea from that great sailor Sir Edmund Halley, who used a similar technique in the late seventeenth century. ²⁰⁾Sir Edmund Halley mapped magnetic declination and made the fisrt known use of isogonic lines

Points to note generally:-

• • ‘The Beacons…are of a very inferior description.’
  • The Sledway mark is on Bawdsey Church which differs to Cowper’s description in 1892.
  • Burrel’s Point and Burrell’s Long Wall.
  • The entrance at Bawdsey Haven looks very difficult.
  • Bawdsey Ear.
  • Felixstowe Ledge is on the shore and buoys maintained by the Lord of the Manor.
  • There are many opportunities for local history research.

By coincidence our current Chairman, Gareth Thomas has a boat called Blazer although was never too keen on her name. That has changed now he knows the connection.

Blazer GT

This is a fascinating document and a valuable local history source although just an everyday piece of work for the men who made it. Who said the Deben wasn’t a deep river? The enquiry into it has raised far more questions than it has resolved but has to stop here for the moment.

Copyright to resolve

http://www.ukho.gov.uk/copyright/OnLineApplication.aspx – free licence

Sketches see Trove site for Out of Copyright