(HMS Harrier)
(a) HMS Crocodile
Samuel entered Royal Navy service (Certificate of Service No. 34218) in August 1857 just before his 16th birthday as a Boy - 2nd class on the naval receiving ship HMS Crocodile. See Appendix 2 for his Certificate of Service. He served in Crocodile from 19 August 1857 to 31 December 1857 (c. 4 months).
Crocodile had been a ship of the line and was built at the Chatham Dockyard near London in October 1825. She was 114 feet (34.7m) long by 32 feet (9.75m) wide and had been armed with 20 32-pdr. carronades, 6 18-pdr. cannon and 2 6-pdr. cannon. In 1850 she was put into harbour service serving as a floating defence for London. At the time Samuel enlisted in the Navy in 1857 she was used as a receiving ship for new sailors and was moored near the Tower of London until she was sold in 1861.
(b) HMS Vigilant
Samuel was transferred to HMS Vigilant in January 1858 and became Boy 1st class while on that ship. Vigilant had been built by Mare at Blackwall on the River Thames and was launched 20 March 1856. She was a wooden screw (i.e.propeller driven) gun vessel 181 feet (55m) long by 28 1/2 feet (8.6m) wide. She was armed with one 110-pdr. cannon, 1 68-pdr. and 2 20-pdrs. and had a 200hp engine.
Samuel commenced service in the ship on 1 January 1858 and by September of that year she was in the Mediterranean Sea. Samuel was on the ship almost 2 years until 22 December 1859. It seems she had an uneventful time while stationed in the Mediterranean. After Samuel left her Vigilant was based in Bombay on anti-slavery patrols in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf until she was sold in February 1869.
(c) HMS Excellent
In December 1859 Samuel was sent to the naval gunnery training school based on HMS Excellent in Portsmouth, England where he spent a year from 22 December 1859 to 14 December 1860 and became an Ordinary Seaman.
Excellent was originally built as the Queen Charlotte at Deptford Dockyard in May 1810 and was a 1st rate ship of the line 190 feet (57.9m) long by 53 1/2 feet (16.3m) wide. In December 1859 the Queen Charlotte was renamed Excellent when she took over the function from the original Excellent of being the Royal Navy's gunnery training ship permanently moored in Portsmouth.
Until the establishment of Excellent the Royal Navy did not have any formal system of teaching gunners on its ships the science of gunnery and much was left to individual captains to train their own gun crews.The men who came to Excellent were to be taught:
"....the names of the different parts of a gun and carriage, the dispart in terms of lineal magnitude and in degrees how taken, what constitutes point blank and what line of metal range, windage - the errors and the loss of force attending it, the importance of preserving shot from rust, the theory of the most material effects of different charges of powder applied to practice with a single shot, also with a plurality of balls, showing how these affect accuracy, penetration and splinters, to judge the condition of gunpowder by inspection, to ascertain its quality by the ordinary tests and trials, as well as by actual proof."
The men practised as teams, firing guns and loading shot on a range laid out from Excellent. Firing of the guns took place over mudflats uncovered at low tide and a local family would collect the shot from the mudflats to sell it back to the Navy. Within the Navy training at Excellent was popular and Excellent was also used as a boys' training ship and a mizzen mast was kept rigged for sail training. Excellent held approximately 600 men under training together with some 200 Royal Artillery instructors. The trainees lived on the lower deck messing between the 32 pdr. cannon just as in a sea going ship and those who qualified as seamen gunners were paid an additional 3 pence a day.
(d) HMS Harrier
In December 1860 Samuel was appointed to HMS Harrier where he was to spend the next 4 years of his life and which was to take him to New Zealand for the first time. While on Harrier he was promoted to Able Bodied Seaman (January 1861), Leading Seaman (October 1861), 2nd Captain of the Foretop (February 1864)(and in which position he was to win the Victoria Cross), and Bosun's Mate (September 1864). He also served as Captain's Coxswain while serving on the ship.
(HMS Harrier)
Harrier was built at Pembroke Dock, South Wales, and commissioned into the Royal Navy in August 1854. She was a wooden screw sloop 160 feet (48.7m) long by 32 feet (9.75m) wide and had a draught of 11 feet (3.35m) and carried 17 32-pdr cannon. Samuel served in the ship from 14 December 1860 to March 1865 (c. 4 years 3 months) while Harrier was serving on the Australian Station (see below).
Sloops were the lightest class of purpose built warship (after frigates and ships of the line). They were flush decked ships with a single line of guns for a broadside. They could be armed with between 8 and 24 guns, and weigh anything between 100 and 500 tons.
Harrier was one of a class of 6 wooden screw sloops, the others being Alert, Cruiser, Falcon, Hornet and Fawn. Alert and Falcon also served on the Australia Station at various times. At this time the phrase "screw sloop" was used to distinguish this type of ship from a "sail sloop." Harrier was one of those ships in the transitional age when the Royal Navy was changing from sail to steam power. She had both a steam engine (hence the single screw or propeller) and sails. At this time steam engines were not completely reliable and when the engine broke down the sails could be used and the sails would also be used on long sea voyages.
Harrier's steam engine produced 360 horse power to give her a speed of 9 knots. She carried a crew of approximately 160 and had a coal capacity of 100 tons. Typically a sloop would displace 940 - 1570 tons. Because of the cost of coal the Admiralty was parsomonius about the use of the steam engine. Generally the engine would only be used in entering and leaving port and in the doldrums. Admiralty regulations required that every time the log entry "Steaming" was made it had to be underlined. Log books on completion were returned to the Admiralty for scrutiny for evidence of extravagance. Harrier's bulwarks (the wall that ran around the deck) would have been the Royal Navy standard height of 6-7 feet so there was little to be seen from the decks of the ship.
The single funnel could be lowered to deck level so that the ship had the appearance of a sailing vessel. This assisted when the ship was sailing and also had the advantage that a quarry didn't know she was independent of the wind. In the suppression of the slave trade this was a very useful device.
In his book "The Orpheus Disaster" author Thayer Fairburn describes life on board a Royal Navy ship in the 1860's this way:
"To a ship's company of one hundred years ago, in the days before canteens, bathrooms, electric light, bakeries and other alleviations of seafaring life, life was utterly comfortless. The bare bleakness of the mess deck with its long range of plank tables and stools, had as little suggestion of physical comfort as a prison cell. It was damp and chilly in a cold climate, and damp and hot in the tropics. It was swept by searching draughts if the ports were open, and nearly pitch dark if they were closed, glass scuttles not having been invented. It was dimly lit at night by tallow candles inside lamps at long intervals. As there were no drying rooms it reeked of wet serge and flannel in wet weather. In short, the living quarters of the mid-Victorian blue-jacket, stoker or marine were as widely disassociated from any ideal of a home in the usual sense as could be well imagined.Moreover, such a man was always in a crowd by day and night. His work and his leisure, his eating, drinking, washing and sleeping, were all in crowded surroundings. He swallowed his bully beef and hard tack, his pea soup, "copper rattle", and rum at a mess table so congested that he had absolutely no elbow room and scarce space to sit. He washed himself twice a week on deck at the same time as he washed his clothes in the two tubfuls of cold water which formed the allowance for the whole twenty-five men in his mess, in the middle of a splashing mob at other tubs all around; and he slung his hammock at night among hundreds of others so tightly packed that they had no swinging room however much the ship rolled. Even in the head (latrines) he had no individual privacy."
Royal Marines would sail with Royal Navy ships. They were intended to act as infantry during shore operations, but also functioned as the officers' main defence against mutiny. During sea combats they joined boarding parties, were stationed around the deck as snipers or guards for the captain, and those from the Royal Marine Artillery manned the guns alongside the regular seamen.
During the period when Samuel was in the Royal Navy, naval ordnance was classified by the weight of projectile fired. Thus a 32-pounder cannon (as carried by Harrier) fired a cast-iron ball that weighed about 32 lbs. The types of cannons used ranged from diminutive 3-pounders to massive 42-pounders, with the latter weighing some 3 tons as compared to the former's 500 lbs.
The 32- pdr. cannon she carried was the standard Royal Navy cannon of this time and the cannon could fire solid shot (a cannon ball), hollow shells filled with gunpowder or shrapnel or case shot (a cylindrical canister filled with small pellets) or grape shot ( 2 small cannon balls linked by a chain).
(32 pndr. cannon as used on HMS Harrier)
A large cannon such as the 32-pounder usually had a gun crew of fifteen men, including powder monkeys who brought the ammunition up from the magazines and shot-lockers. Loading the gun required first that the burning embers of the last shot be sponged out. Then a cartridge bag of gunpowder was placed in the muzzle, followed by the type of shot to be fired. A rammer was used to drive them, along with a wad to keep them both in place, down into the breech end of the gun. The gunner cleaned out the touch hole with a vent bit, pierced the cartridge bag with a priming iron through the vent hole, then inserted a goose-quill tube filled with fine gunpowder. Next the gun was rolled forward into firing position and elevated so its shot would travel the desired distance. The gunner had to wait until the ship's helm brought his gun onto the target, and then wait for the ship to roll so the gun was aiming at the target. He then fired the cannon by igniting the quill, using either a flintlock device or a smoldering slow match held in a linstock.
Before coming to the Australia Station, and before Samuel joined the ship, Harrier, under the command of Commander Henry Story, served in the Gulf of Bothnia (between present day Finland, Germany and Russia) in Captain Frederick Warden's division of small ships during the Crimean War assisting in the blockade of Russian ports in the Baltic Sea. On 23rd and 24th June 1855 Capt. Warden's division destroyed 47 vessels, about 20,000 tons, of enemy shipping off the town of Nystad with his boats being continually employed for about 22 hours.
On 2 July Harrier and HMS Driver offered to spare the town of Raumo if all the vessels there were handed over, and this was agreed with the Burgomaster. But when the British boats went in to take possession of the enemy vessels they were fired on and 2 men killed. Harrier and Driver responded by firing shot, shell and rockets into the town for an hour and a half. On 24 July Harrier and HMS Cuckoo destroyed part of Raumo and a quantity of shipping and on 17 August Harrier, Tartar, Cuckoo and the French boat d'Assas sent their boats up towards Biorneborg and burned 17 vessels and took the surrender of a small steamer in spite of the presence of 2,000 troops.
Commander Francis William Sullivan was the ship's captain when Samuel joined the ship in December 1860 and on 9 November 1863 Commander Edward Hay was appointed captain of the Harrier. It was this Commander Hay who led the Naval Brigade in the assault on Gate Pa and who was carried out of the pa by Samuel.
While on the Australia Station Harrier visited New Zealand waters in 1861 and in 1862 was sent to Fiji to "chastise the natives". However for most of 1862 she was placed at the disposal of Governor Sir George Grey to transport him around the New Zealand coast. Attached as Appendix 3 is a copy of a print held by the Alexander Turnbull library in Wellington showing Harrier caught in a squall off the East Cape of New Zealand on 3 July 1862 while Sir George Grey was on board.
On 7 February 1863 Harrier was involved in the rescue of survivors from HMS Orpheus which had gone aground on a sand spit at the entrance to Manukau Harbour, New Zealand. Harrier was based in the port of Onehunga (which at that time was Auckland's naval port) 30 kilometers from the Manukau Heads where the accident occurred. Orpheus was the flagship of the Australia Station and her captain, William Burnett, was Commander-in-Chief of the Australasian Naval Station with the rank of Commodore. In going to her rescue Harrier herself was grounded and had to be refloated.
Of a crew of 256 on Orpheus only 69 survived. The men of Harrier assisted in searching the coastline near the scene of the sinking and burying bodies they found in the sandhills. They also formed part of the cortege for the funeral on 24 February 1863 of Commodore Burnett. The sinking of the Orpheus is still the greatest maritime disaster in New Zealand's history. One of the Orpheus survivors, Lieutenant C. Hill, was killed at Gate Pa.
During the New Zealand Wars Harrier took part in the Waikato campaign by providing men to man the flotilla of vessels on the Waikato River, including:
On 9 November 1863 Commander Edward Hay took command of the Harrier when Commander Francis William Sullivan was promoted to captain and transferred to another ship. On 20 November 1863 4 plated gunboats together with troops and a Naval Brigade made up of seamen from Curacoa, Miranda, Harrier and Eclipse attacked the pa at Rangiriri in the Waikato in what was to be a major engagement in the New Zealand Wars. The Maori repulsed 4 attempts to carry the Pa. 2 of those attempts were by 90 men of the Naval Brigade and which probably included Samuel. Naval Brigade casualties were 5 killed.
Samuel joined Harrier as an Ordinary Seaman, and was then promoted to Able Bodied Seaman, Leading Seaman and then 2nd Captain of the Foretop. It was while in this last position that he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
As an Ordinary Seaman he would be familiar with every operational detail of the sails and rigging, as well as every knot, rope trick and aspect of basic ship's maintenance. On or below deck he would be able to perform and understand all of the tasks for routine sailing, storm, calm or combat.
As an Able Seaman he was reckoned capable of taking the helm under full sail if necessary, he was expected to understand fully the workings of the cannon, function as a sailmaker when necessary and perform the vital task of testing the water's depth with the 'lead line'. "Heaving the lead" was the standard method of determining immediate depth. A weighted line was thrown from one or both sides of the bow, and hauled in at regular intervals, when the depth registered was announced in fathoms. Any mistake would be fatal, and the task was only given to trusted able seamen.
The "tops" were the platforms placed over the head of the lower section of a mast to spread the the rigging of the upper masts (topmasts) so giving greater support.. The tops were 60 feet above the sea and were named according to the mast - foretop on the foremast (or first from the bow of the ship), maintop on the mainmast (usually the middle mast) and mizentop on the mizzen mast (the third mast from the bow).
In close actions the tops were used as "fighting tops" from which marine marksmen would fire down on enemy decks and at the men in the enemy tops. In ordinary times they were where seamen were stationed to supervise the men taking in and setting the sails.As a 2nd Captain of the Foretop Samuel would have earned 93 pounds, 9 shillings and 2 pence per year as the the junior of the 2 men in charge of the Foretop men.
During the time that he was 2nd Captain of the Foretop and at the battle of Gate Pa, Samuel was also Commander Hay's coxswain. A coxswain was the senior rating in charge of the ship's boat and a captain's coxswain was the senior member of the captain's domestic staff making sure everything ran smoothly. He acted as valet to make sure the captain was always in the correct uniform with the right decorations and would command the captain's gig (a small rowboat). He would also be at the captain's shoulder as they crossed onto an enemy ship at the head of a boarding party.
0n 21 September 1864 (3 days before he was awarded the Cross in Sydney) Samuel was promoted from 2nd Captain of the Foretop to Bosun's Mate. The boatswain or bosun was responsible to the First Lieutenant for the ship's sails, rigging, anchors, cables and cordage and they summoned the watch or the crew by piping on the bosun's call throughout the ship. They supervised the ship's company on work concerned with seamanship and on a sailing ship (as Harrier would be on a long voyage) they were an important instrument of discipline and they used their rope 'starters' (knotted rope-ends) or rattan canes to make sure there were no slackers among the crew when it came to changing sail. They would also carry out the floggings using the cat o' nine tails which was not abolished until 1879. As a Captain of the Foretop and a Bosun's Mate Samuel would have been a Petty Officer, being those men between seamen and the commissioned officers.
Samuel was with the Harrier when it left Sydney on 20 October 1864 to return to Portsmouth, England, via Auckland, New Zealand and Cape Horn, as his naval Certificate of Service lists him as being transferred to the Duke of Wellington after the Harrier. Harrier was paid off and broken up at Portsmouth in December 1866.
In Portsmouth, England, Samuel's Harrier is commemorated by a memorial in St. Mary's Church, Portsmouth, on the corner of Fratton Street and St. Mary's Road. The memorial states (the underlining is mine):
"To the memory of the following officers and men of HMS Harrier:Edward Hay Esq. Commander who died April 30th. 1864 from wounds received in action at Te Papa, New Zealand
William Arthur Turner assistant Surgeon Died at Wellington, New Zealand May 7th 1862
Fitzhugh D'Este Jerningham Acting Sub Lieutenant. Lost at Falkland Islands Jany. 19th 1865
Richard Hart AB Died at sea October 3rd 1861
Ambrose Gear RMLI Died at Auckland September 1861
Samuel Hooper AB Died at Sydney May 4th 1863
Fredk. Osborne 2 Capt's Foretop David Downer RMLI Killed in Action at Rangiriri Nov. 20th 1863
James McTear Stoker Died Feb 22nd 1864 on board HMS Curacoa
James Bew Leading Seaman Died at Sydney New South Wales Sept. 25th 1864
Henry Clarke O.S. George Young A.B. Andrew Greenham Stoker Killed in action at Te Papa April 29th 1864
John Dark Gunner RMA Drowned at sea Jany. 11th 1865
John Sheehan A.B. also drowned at sea Feby. 14th 1865
William Jarvis Boy 1st class died July 23rd 1864
Thomas Walden Boy 1st class died at sea Feby. 8th 1865This tablet is erected as a mark of respect and regard by the Captains, officers and men of the ship during the commission 1860-1865."
During World War 2 Harrier was a Halcyon class minesweeper in the Royal Navy which was built in 1934 and broken up in 1950. In that role she also served in anti submarine warfare duties.
(HMS Harrier c. 1938)
The last HMS Harrier in the Royal Navy was an aircraft direction school at Kete in Pembrokeshire, Wales and the functions and relics of that Harrier were assumed by HMS Dryad at Southwick near Portsmouth, England.
(e) Duke of Wellington
Samuel left Harrier on 31 March 1865 and was transferred to HMS Duke of Wellington .
The Duke of Wellington was a 1st rate ship of the line that had been built in Pembroke Dock in 1852. She was 240 feet (73m) long and 73 feet (22.25m) wide. In May 1865 (when Samuel stayed on her) she was used only for harbour duties in Portsmouth and in that role she served as a ship where men went when they were being paid off from the Royal Navy. She had a normal compliment of 1,000 men but with drafts of men passing through on occasions she had 4,000 men on board. The ship was sold in 1904 to be broken up.
Samuel was given a free discharge from the Royal Navy on 1 May 1865.
In the first half of the 19th century Australia and New Zealand had been part of the Royal Navy's East Indies station based in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). From the 1820's the Commander-in-Chief of the Station was ordered to send a ship annually to New South Wales, Australia, with occasional cruises to New Zealand. In 1848 there was established the Australian Division of the East Indies Station.
In the early 1850's there were worsening relations between Russia and England and an increased Russian naval presence in the Pacific. As a consequence, and as a result of settler representations, it was decided to establish Australia as a separate naval command based in Sydney and on 25 March 1859 Captain William Loring was authorised to:
"....hoist a (commodore's) Blue Pennant and to assume command as Senior Officer of Her Majesty's Ships on the Australian Station independently of the Commander in Chief in India."
So the Australia Station of the Royal Navy began. This station was to provide Australia and New Zealand's sea defence for the next 50 years until they could provide navies of their own. The Station encompassed Australia, New Zealand and the Fiji Islands until Australia and New Zealand were excluded from the station in 1911. Harrier was stationed on the Australia Station between December 1860 and 1864.
During the period of the New Zealand Wars (1860 - 1864) most of the Royal Navy ships in the Australia Squadron were stationed in the waters of the North Island of New Zealand. These ships were Curacoa (the Australia station flagship after the sinking of the Orpheus in 1863), carrying Commodore Wiseman (Station Commodore April 1863 - May 1866), Eclipse, Esk, Falcon, Harrier and Miranda.