HMS Primrose (1807)
HMS Primrose (1807) was a Royal Navy Cruizer class brig-sloop built by Thomas Nickells at Fowey and launched in 1807.[1] She was commissioned in November 1807 under Cmdr. James Mein, who sailed her to the coast of Spain.[1]
On 14 May 1808 Primrose was in the Tagus with the 14-gun brig Rapid. During an attempt to cut out two merchant ships fire from shore batteries sank Rapid. However, Primrose launched her boats and was able to save Rapid's entire crew.[2]
In January 1809 she sailed for Spain with a convoy. During a snowstorm she ran aground at 5am on 22 January on Mistrel Rock, The Manacles, a mile offshore, and was wrecked.[3][1] (The Manacles are a set of treacherous rocks off The Lizard, close to the shipping lane into Falmouth, Cornwall.) The sole survivor was a drummer boy.[4] Lieut. J. Withers of the Manacles Signal Post prevailed on six local men to try and rescue survivors. For their efforts, albeit unsuccessful, the Admiralty directed that the volunteers each receive an award of 10 guineas from the Naval authorities at Falmouth.[3]
On the same night another vessel also wrecked on the Manacles. She was the transport Dispatch, homeward-bound from Corunna, with a detachment of the 7th Hussars, who had been fighting out there with Sir John Moore.[4] The Hussars lost 104 men in the wrecking. Only seven men from Dispatch were saved.[3]
Postscript
Inland a few miles from the coast is St Keverne, where a 32-pounder carronade that divers recovered in 1978 from the wreck of Primose stands by the lych-gate to the churchyard.
The Padstow Shipwreck Museum, Cornwall, has a small (90mm bore and 125kg weight overall) brass boat gun from Primrose. The curators have determined that it was cast in a Danish foundry.[5]
References
- Gossett, William Patrick (1986) The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. (London:Mansell). ISBN 0-7201-1816-6
- Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Chatham. ISBN 1-86176-030-2.
- McGuane, James P. (2002) Heart of oak: a sailor's life in Nelson's navy. (New York: Norton). ISBN 978-0393047493
- Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas (e-release 4 January 2008) The Roll-Call of The Reef. (Dodo Press). ISBN 978-1406568349
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
