The warship which changed British history – Kent Online

This will not sit comfortably with many. But there is a powerful argument to say Admiral Nelson's victory at Trafalgar was due, at least in part, by French design.

Because more than half of the fleet of warships he led to attack the Spanish and French in his remarkable victory of 1805, were modelled on a vessel created by our Continental near neighbours.

L'Invincible was a new breed of French warship - designed and crafted to not only out-gun its rivals but out manoeuvre them both in terms of speed and agility on the high seas too.

And her remarkable story - and premature, chaotic demise - will be told at a special exhibition opening at Chatham Historic Dockyard this month which provides a fascinating insight into one of the most historically significant vessels in the Royal Navy's long history.

She has, for more than 260 years, lay on the floor of the Channel - after being accidentally rediscovered by a fisherman near Portsmouth in 1979.

Yet her story is remarkable and one which genuinely altered the course of history.

First launched by the French in 1744, three years later L'Invincible took part in the First Battle of Cape Finisterre during the War of the Austrian Succession.

But as she escorted a convoy of merchant ships, the British fleet gave chase. After attempting to hold off the attacking forces she was forced to surrender and captured by the British.

And the Navy's top brass were in for a surprise.

Because after 50 years of naval supremacy, the British had become somewhat complacent. Its fleet had developed little over the decades. The French, on the other hand, with a need to combat the British might, had gone back to the drawing board.

Using the latest scientific principles to their designs, they embarked on building the next generation of warships where speed and fighting ability were key.

L'Invincible was wider at the front and narrower in the stern, allowing her to cut through the water quicker, her rudder was designed to allow her to turn without slowing and more accurately.

She was more heavily armed too - boasting 74 guns; more than any British vessel. Its main gun deck was six foot above the waterline - allowing it to defeat bigger ships where lower gun ports could be submerged in rough seas. In short, it was revolutionary. And the British knew it.

Explains Nick Ball, collections, galleries and interpretation manager at the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust: "Originally, a nippy French warship, when LInvincible was captured by the Royal Navy every inch of her hull and form were studied and then replicated to form a new fleet that would go on to defeat the French.

"She was a game-changer who even influenced the subsequent design of the worlds most famous warship - Admiral Nelson's HMS Victory, built here at Chatham.

When Nelson defeated the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar, nearly two-thirds of his ships had been based on the design of the vessel seized 58 years earlier.

After her capture, the Navy took L'Invincible, sailed her into Portsmouth, and improved upon her. They enhanced her guns - swapping out the 18-pound guns for 24-pounders capable of firing larger, slower shot which, rather than just passing through its target would crash into it, sending lethal wooden splinters flying inside.

The British also tried out 'gunlocks' on her - effectively a trigger to fire the guns which was both quicker and more accurate - while gun ports were enlarged to provide a wider range of sight.

But for all its advances - and the inspiration for those which came after her - its pioneering presence within the Navy's ranks would be shortlived.

On February 19, 1758, a decade after its capture, it was to be one of the key vessels sailing to North America to help repel, ironically, the French, from the early settler colonies. It would fail to even leave British waters.

The captain on that fateful morning was Deal-born John Bentley. He had spent his life climbing up the rigging of the Navy's pyramid of power.

Having joined the Navy as a 14-year-old, he had moved up through the ranks eventually laying claim to the rank of captain. February 19 was not a day that would he would look back on with any affection.

At around 2.30am, as the crew of 700 readied the vessel for its long journey - its hold packed with ammunition, army supplies, food and spirits - the signal was given to raise anchor from Portsmouth and head across the Atlantic.

However, the crew struggled to lift the anchor and it took 90 minutes to finally free it - only for it then to get caught up under the ship. As efforts were made to raise it out of the water, the boat started to drift dangerous towards the shallow waters of the Solent.

The rudder becomes jammed and despite frantic attempts to save them from humiliation the boat found itself grounded on a sandbank.

Water started flooding into the vessel prompting desperate efforts to unload her in order for her to be refloated. All, however, was in vain, and as she toppled on to her side, the Invincible's life on the ocean came to a rather ignominious end.

She still sits on the sandbank today on which she became stranded all those years ago.

How the HMS Invincible sank in 1758

Captain Bentley was court marshalled by a fuming Royal Navy who had been left red-faced after news of the ship's calamity had been widely reported on.

He would be acquitted - much to the frustration of the Admiralty. It didn't damage his career too much, however, as he would go on to become Vice Admiral Sir John Bentley before his death in 1772. He is buried in St Andrew's Church near Dover. His epitaph reads "esteemed and favoured by his King, beloved and honoured by his country".

It would not be until 1979 that the Invincible would be headline news again.

On May 5, Arthur Mack, from Portsmouth, and his friend were out fishing in the Solent when their net snagged on something below the surface. Hauling up the nets, they found large pieces of timber with wooden pegs.

Returning with a couple of friends who were divers, they realised they had stumbled upon something - although, at first, they thought it the remains of an old pier. Alerting the authorities, archaeologists took over and, eventually, discovered that the remains were those of the Invincible - untouched since 1758. Obscured by the sands in which it had floundered all those years before.

In 1980, a team of experienced marine archaeological volunteers set about excavating the underwater site with a second taking place between 2017-2019, led by Dr Daniel Pascoe and Professor Dave Parham at Bournemouth University.

Explains Dr Pascoe: "Shipwrecks provide a brilliant opportunity to travel back in time - they enable us to learn about the people, and when you find objects in their original context, we can learn something of their lives and how they operated. We can form a connection with the people who were on board those ships. We try to understand the naval culture; the details on the objects tell us about the people who made them - and thats whats interesting.

Ive worked on shipwrecks from the Mary Rose period upwards and I can see how the culture of the navy has changed. The Invincible was a lot more organised than the century before.

"The gun equipment on the Invincible are standard, and unlike the modified equipment of the century before, means that everything was made for purpose. Everything is labelled, the gun carriage axels have the calibre of the gun and whether theyre front or rear axel and the inside of the ship is clad with reverse clinker pine cladding - on purpose - so that any moisture thats leaking in, goes behind the cladding and keeps the inside of the ship dry.

"Its clear the Invincible was part of a new navy - a more reliable and invincible organisation. "The Invincible provides the physical evidence of this progression and change in history. "Historical documents describe these artefacts but the physical objects and their position on board ship is the evidence of the challenges the people had to overcome - these things were so normal to the shipmen and they wouldnt have been written down, so the archaeology forms this connection with the individuals.

"By understanding the problems they overcome, you being to think about the broader culture of the navy and how they overcame obstacles and challenges.

"With Invincible, its so big and so much of it had survived. When we opened it up we could swim along the deck and some areas of the ship were completely untouched so we saw the artefacts in the original places when she went down. Youre able to interpret what youre seeing and that provides an insight into exactly what it was like at the time when the ship was wrecked.

"The master gunner had a store - this was emptied in the 1980s - but we learned that there was a hatchway in the very bow of the ship and this led to the overflow of the gunners store where he kept bulkier items like junk rope and gun wads made from junk, used in the loading process of the guns to keep a seal around the charge and stop the round shot rolling out of the barrel of the gun.

"It hadnt moved. It was untouched and unexcavated and showed something of the gunners life and his equipment.

"The rope was in great condition and when we brought it to the surface we could smell the tar. When we took away the junk rope we could see the white lime wash on the beams - paint doesnt normally survive."

The exhibition at Chatham - Diving Deep: HMS Invincible 1744 - is on loan to the Historic Dockyard from the National Museum of the Royal Navy and runs until November. It provides a fascinating insight - not only allowing visitors to see items recovered from the wreck, but also extensive video footage filmed by divers exploring the remains of the vessel

Jane Maddocks was a volunteer diver and marine archaeologist who dived on both the 20th and 21st century excavations.

She explained: "It was the early '80s and we used a motorised fishing vessel with dredges and lifts, and we went down and drew the items we found.

"The very first time I dived I found trays of grenades packed 12 to a tray and underneath the tray were little flints so you could strike the fuse and it was all there. I think that was the thing that excited me the most at the time. The downside was that it was gun powder and very smelly after so much time underwater. On the last day of the dive I tried to get a taxi home and I had to put my jacket in the boot because the smell of rotten eggs was too much.

"The big difference between the 1980s and now, is the variety of techniques available to the professional team from the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust."

Key to that is using what is known as photogrammetry which allows 3D images to be built up by taking a number of images of the wreck.

Adds Jane: "It allows so much of the detail to be recorded very quickly and with the utmost accuracy. It can take an age to draw accurately to scale underwater, but photogrammetry delivers excellent results over a large area."

Nick Ball at the dockyard adds: The maritime archaeology project to excavate the famous ship was probably one of the most important of its kind since the raising of the Mary Rose. The story of the excavation itself is extraordinary as it was a race against time and tides.

And the dockyard has been involved since the wreck was first discovered.

Explains Bournemouth University's Dr Pascoe: Chatham has been involved with Invincible since the 1980s since the first excavation where they took artefacts and held part of the collection. To have them involved in the second dive added extra strength to the project.

For me, it was always a dream to share it wider. When I first took over the licence for the wreck (it is a protected site), my aim was to investigate the wreck, excavate it and display it for everyone to see. I was determined that we would do something and continue John Bingemans work (Bingeman had held the original licence in the 1980s). We managed to do it in good time from 2010, raising the funding, and achieving what we set out to do.

"The exhibition is an opportunity to share what we were seeing on the seabed with the wider world and it makes me feel proud for everyone who has been involved - they can see that all their efforts have contributed to this incredible exhibition.

"The project has been a huge effort from everyone involved from the person who drove the boat, divers, the people who filmed it, the volunteers who researched the stories behind the artefacts, the curators.

The exhibition has travelled from Portsmouth to Chatham and the project was made possible by a collaboration with the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST), Bournemouth University, the National Museum of the Royal Navy and Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

After a year at its initial site in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the immersive experience goes live to the public in Chatham on Saturday, February 12, and runs until November.

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The warship which changed British history - Kent Online