The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

The accident occurred during practice at quarters in the Gulf of Ismid, on 2nd January, 1879, in the fore-turret. Captain Alfred John Chatfield had succeeded Captain Wilson in command. Two officers and nine men were killed, and thirty-five persons injured. The muzzle was blown off from about two feet in front of the trunnions. There was much discussion then and subsequently concerning the cause of the accident. The probability is that the bursting of the gun was due to its having been double-loaded, after a previous miss-fire, which, in the simultaneous discharge of the rest of the guns, had not been noticed. The committee which reported on the matter on 1st March, 1879, adopted this hypothesis, in preference to the theory that there had been a flaw in the material.

Captain Edward Seymour (afterwards Admiral of the Fleet the Right Hon. Sir E. H. Seymour), who was then in command of the troopship Orontes, in his book, My Naval Career and Travels, thus refers to the incident: —

"From Malta I brought home the main part of the ship's company of H.M.S. Thunderer, on board which ship the terrible explosion of the 38-ton muzzle-loading gun had lately occurred in her foremost turret. Both turret guns were being fired simultaneously, but evidently one did not go off. It may seem hard to believe such a thing could happen and not be noticed, but from my own experience I understand it. The men in the turret often stopped their ears, and perhaps shut their eyes, at the moment of firing, and then instantly worked the run-in levers, and did not notice how much the guns had recoiled. This no doubt occurred. Both guns were then at once reloaded, and the rammer's indicator, working by machinery, set fast and failed to show how far home the new charge had gone. This, too, may seem unlikely, but no doubt it happened; and the gun on being then fired burst, killing two officers and several men, and wrecking the turret. Experiments made with a similar gun double-loaded, burst it in exactly the same way."

I agree. I have frequently been in the turret during practice, and I have myself fired several rounds and I can testify that the concussion was so tremendous that it was impossible to hear whether one gun was fired or both guns were fired. Without insisting upon details, it was also the fact that the men in the turret could not tell by the position of the hydraulic rammer whether or not the gun had already been charged, as the rammer was three-jointed and telescopic: the indicator which was designed to show the position of the rammer was totally unreliable; while the actual loading of the gun was done upon the battery deck below the turret. Hence the loading crew must also have been unaware that there had been a misfire. The system in use in the Thunderer was experimental, and after the accident its defects were remedied. I then wrote to The Times explaining what the system had been and how it had been improved, in order both to remove any misapprehension there might have been with regard to the efficiency of the officers and men who perished in the disaster, and with regard to the future safety of guns' crews. I was reprimanded by the Admiralty for having published the letter while on full pay in the command of the Osborne; but the reprimand was (like the Bishop's apron) a mere form, for I also received a private letter of thanks.

After the bursting of the boiler, but before the gun accident, the Prince of Wales at my suggestion very kindly came on board, in order that the men's belief that the Thunderer was an unlucky ship should be removed. The Prince fired the fore turret guns at a target from the captain of the guns' firing position, and made a rattling good shot.

The Thunderer was employed in experimental work, such as measuring her turning-circle (the diameter of which is the smallest distance the ship can set between the point at which she begins to describe a semi-circle and the point at which she ends it), and noting her behaviour under various circumstances and stresses of weather. I gained much valuable experience in her, and I shall always remember Captain Wilson as one of those officers from whose skill and experience I learned the most.

While I was in the Thunderer (1876-7) I made one of the first working models of the telephone used in this country, and had the honour of presenting it to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales. The invention was first exhibited before the British Association by Mr. W. H. Preece on 23rd August, 1877; and it was shown to Queen Victoria at Osborne on 15th January, 1878. The Telephone Company was established during the same year.

The Thunderer was sent to blow up a vessel which had capsized and which was floating in the Channel, a danger to mariners. Explosives attached to her side tore pieces out of her, but the wreck continued to float. In these cases it is necessary to disintegrate the vessel, whether sunk or floating, into fragments. I suggested that the hull should be girdled with an iron hoop to which explosives were attached at intervals, and the device was successful. The explosion cut her into holes like the perforations of a sheet of postage stamps and she broke up.

The Thunderer was lying off Queenstown, and I was watching a cutter which was running out of the harbour. On the deck was a group of Irish farmers. The cutter suddenly gybed, the boom knocking down the farmers. Getting up, they instantly fell upon one another with sticks; and they were hard at it when over came the boom again, and again felled them all to the deck. It could be they had had a drop of liquor taken, which confused their intellects.

In the year 1878 I married Miss Jeromina Gardner, daughter of the late Richard Gardner, M.P. for Leicester, and of Lucy Countess Mandelsloh, whose father, Count Mandelsloh, was for some years Minister in London, representing Würtemberg.

Shortly afterwards I was appointed to command the royal yacht Osborne. The Osborne was used by the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII). In those days she was not kept in commission for more than a few months in each year.

Several cruises were made to Denmark, and there were many shooting expeditions. On one such occasion I was the only person present who was not either a king actual or a king prospective. There were the King of Denmark, the King of Norway and Sweden, and the King of Greece, the Prince of Wales, the Cesarewitch, the Crown Princes of Denmark, of Norway and Sweden, and of Greece. We shot foxes, hares, deer, and anything that came along; and I was laughed at when my instincts forbade me to shoot a fox.

Upon a return voyage, when all the Royal children were on board, a gale sprang up just off the Skaw. The starboard paddle-wheel was smashed upon some wreckage; and the next thing I saw was a small craft being driven on a lee shore. The Osborne dropped anchor, in order both that the paddle-wheel should be repaired and that the crew of the driving vessel might be assisted. The only way to rescue them was to veer a boat astern with a hawser. Just as the arrangement was ready, to my delight I perceived the crew – there were four – embarking in their own boats. They reached the shore in safety, but their ship was wrecked.

It was then the system in the royal yachts to retain the officers in her for long periods. One officer had been in the Osborne for fourteen years. I ventured to suggest to the Prince of Wales that under these conditions his acquaintance with the officers of the Fleet was necessarily limited, and that by means of restricting the time of service in the Osborne to two years, he might become acquainted with a succession of officers. With his habitual courtesy and address, the Prince adopted the suggestion.

Queen Victoria was, however, a little perturbed by the change. Her Majesty said to me that she hoped I should not endeavour to change the officers in the royal yacht.

"No, ma'am," I replied. "I have no such power. I only made a suggestion to the Prince."

"You may be right," said the Queen, "but I am an old woman now, and I like to see faces I know about me, and not have to begin again with new faces."

We had some excellent boat-racing in the Osborne. One famous race was rowed at Cowes between the officers of the royal yachts Victoria and Albert and Osborne, in six-oared galleys. Her Majesty Queen Victoria came down to the jetty to witness the contest. The stroke of the Victoria and Albert was my old comrade in the Marlborough and Bellerophon, Swinton Holland. I was stroke of the Osborne's crew. At first the Osborne drew ahead – rather, I think, to the Queen's dismay – but eventually the Victoria and Albert won the race, to the delight of Her Majesty.

Another great race was rowed between the Osborne six-oared galley and the Dockyard boat. It took place off Southsea, the whole of the foreshore being lined with people. The Osborne won. Her boat was manned by Irish bluejackets whom I had trained myself.

While I was commanding the Osborne one of the crew met with a singular accident. We were shooting the seine off Calshot, and, as it fouled, I sent a man down to clear it. When he came up, he said that he had been stabbed through the hand "by some beast." I examined the wound and found that his hand had been pierced right through, and I thought that he must have come upon a nail or a splinter in a piece of wreckage. But when we hauled up the seine, there was a huge sting-ray. I cut out the sting and gave it to the Princess. There is no doubt that the fish had transfixed the man's hand. The sailor is still alive, and is well known in Portsmouth for his political enthusiasms. It was in the same haul that we caught a red mullet weighing about six pounds, the biggest I have ever seen.

I ought here to record the very great interest taken by the Royal Family in all matters connected with the Navy. While I was in command of the Osborne, the Prince of Wales graciously consented to attend one of the gatherings of members of Parliament who came at my invitation to see something of the Navy. On this occasion they visited Portsmouth Dockyard, where they were shown everything of interest.

One of the experiments performed for the entertainment and the instruction of the party was firing at a floating cask with bombs thrown by hand, a method of warfare since discontinued owing to the danger it involves to the person bombarding. When the cask exploded, a stave flew between the Prince and the general commanding at Portsmouth, Sir Hastings Doyle. Had it struck either of them he must have been killed.

The general's brother, Percy Doyle, a dear old gentleman well known in society, had very bad sight. I once saw him trying to eat a red mullet done up in paper. After a good deal of harpooning, he got it out, but put the paper in his mouth. We always told him he had swallowed the births, deaths, and marriages column of The Times.

On Sunday the 24th of March, 1878 (the date of my engagement to Miss Gardner), the Eurydice, training frigate, capsized off the Isle of Wight in a sudden squall and sank. The total loss of life was about 300, only two being saved. She was on her way home from the West Indies. Coming under the Isle of Wight, she hauled her wind for Spithead, thus closing the land, so that it was impossible for the watch to see a squall coming up from windward. The captain, the Hon. Marcus A. S. Hare, was anxious to reach the harbour as soon as possible in order to give the men Sunday leisure. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when a sudden squall struck the ship, and she heeled over; the lee main-deck ports being open, according to custom, she took in a good deal of water, depressing her bows; so that instead of capsizing, she simply sailed straight to the bottom, her fore-foot being broken off with the force of the impact, and her topgallant masts remaining above the surface. There was no time to shorten sail. When she was raised it was found that only one rope, the mainroyal sheet, had carried away.

Rear-Admiral Foley, admiral-superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, kindly invited me to be his guest to take part in the salvage operations arranged for the raising of the Eurydice. That occasion was, I think, the first upon which the newly invented wire hawsers were actually tested in practical work. When they were introduced it was thought that they would not be flexible enough for their purpose. They were, however, used with great success in raising the Eurydice. The hawsers were passed under the hull of the sunken ship and secured to lighters moored on either side of her. As the tide went down, the hawsers were hove taut, and water was let into the lighters so that they should be brought as low in the water as possible. The water was then pumped out of the lighters, thus putting the utmost strain upon the hawsers. Then, as the rising of the tide exerted a powerful lift upon lighters and hawsers, the lighters were towed towards the shore, in order to drag the wreck upon the beach. As soon as she grounded, the hawsers were fleeted and the whole process gone through again until at low tide she was nearly high and dry.

My old ship, the Thunderer, which took a hawser to her after capstan to tow the Eurydice, had the solid iron spindle of the capstan pulled right out of her, as a long nail is bent and dragged out of a piece of timber. I well remember the intense excitement when the wreck first shifted from her bed. Eventually we hauled her up the beach. I was just then taking a bearing for Admiral Foley, and could not have given a better holloa if I had viewed a fox.

Before the water was pumped out of her, and as she lay on her side on the beach, I climbed in at a porthole, and sat there waiting till I could enter. As the water fell, I saw emerge the sentry's clock on the main-deck. The hands had stopped at 4.5. The bodies lay in heaps, tangled amid ropes; some had lost a head and some a limb. Black mud had filtered in everywhere, even (as Sir Edward Seymour remarks) into the closed drawers of the chests in the cabins.

When, as a cadet, I was learning to heave the lead from the chains of the Eurydice, which, as I have already related, was then moored off Haslar Creek in Portsmouth Harbour, I little thought I should one day help to raise her from the bottom of the sea.

Dr. Boyd Carpenter (late Bishop of Ripon), in his charming volume of recollections, Some Pages of my Life, narrates a remarkable story concerning the Eurydice, as it was told to him. Sir John MacNeill was the Bishop's cousin and, like other members of his family, had the gift of second sight.

"Sir John MacNeill," writes the Bishop, "was looking out of the window in Sir John Cowell's room at Windsor, when suddenly he exclaimed: 'Good Heavens! Why don't they close the portholes and reef the topsails!' Sir John Cowell looked up and asked him what he meant. He said, in reply, that he hardly knew; but that he had seen a ship coming up Channel in full sail, with open portholes, while a heavy squall was descending upon her. At the very time this conversation was taking place the fatal storm fell upon the Eurydice, and she foundered as she was coming in sight of home."

In 1880, while I was still in command of the Osborne, I lost my seat at Waterford. In the following year, desiring to hold another independent command before my promotion to captain, I applied to go to sea again, and was appointed to command H.M.S. Condor.

CHAPTER XVII

WITH THE PRINCE IN INDIA

In September, 1875, I was appointed A.D.C. to the Prince of Wales (our late King) to accompany his Royal Highness upon his visit to India. The complete list of the suite was as follows: The Duke of Sutherland, K.G.; Sir Bartle Frere; Lord Suffield, Head of the Prince's Household; Major-General Lord Alfred Paget, Clerk-Marshal to H.M. the Queen; Lord Aylesford; Major-General Probyn, V.C., Equerry to the Prince, in charge of the transport and sporting arrangements; Colonel Arthur Ellis, Grenadier Guards, Equerry to the Prince; Mr. Francis Knollys (afterwards Lord Knollys), the Prince's private secretary; Surgeon-General Fayrer, Physician to the Prince; Captain H. Carr Glyn, Royal Navy, A.D.C. to H.M. the Queen commanding H.M.S. Serapis; Colonel Owen Williams; Lieutenant Lord Charles Beresford, Royal Navy, A.D.C. to the Prince; Lord Carington, A.D.C. to the Prince; the Rev. Canon Duckworth, Chaplain; Lieutenant (afterwards Colonel) Augustus FitzGeorge, Rifle Brigade extra A.D.C. to the Prince; Commander Durrant, Royal Navy, commanding royal yacht Osborne; Dr. W. H. Russell, hon. private secretary to the Prince, chronicler of the voyage; Mr. Albert Grey (afterwards Lord Grey), private secretary to Sir Bartle Frere; Mr. Sydney Hall, artist.

The Indian officers, who joined the suite at Bombay, and whose energy and ability were beyond all praise, were Major-General Sam Browne, V.C., in charge of transport; Major Williams, in charge of horses and grooms; Major Bradford, head of the police and responsible for the safety of the person of the Prince; Major Sartorius, V.C., in charge of tents and servants; and Major Henderson, linguist.

The first announcement of the intention of the Prince to visit the Indian Empire was made by Lord Salisbury to the Council of India on 16th March, 1875. The matter was subsequently discussed at length both in Parliament and in the Press. The condition of affairs in India, where the mass of the ruling princes and chieftains had still to realise that the rule of the Honourable East India Company had given place to a greater governance, rendered the visit of the future Sovereign of paramount importance; and the Prince's sagacity was seldom more admirably exemplified than in his determination to visit India as the Heir-Apparent of the Crown. That the scheme was entirely and supremely successful in achieving the object for which it was designed, was due to the Prince's zeal, ability, tact and indomitable vigour. He gave his whole mind to the enterprise; thought of everything in advance; and set aside his personal comfort and convenience from first to last. Only one regret was present in the minds of all: the regret for the unavoidable absence of the Princess.

The whole history of the episode has been so excellently well told by the late Dr. William Howard Russell, the famous war correspondent, who was a member of the suite, in his The Prince of Wales's Tour (London, 1877; Sampson Low) that any detailed account of it on my part would be superfluous.

The Prince left England on 11th October, 1875, and embarked in H.M.S. Serapis at Brindisi on the 16th. In the Suez Canal we heard of the purchase of Suez Canal shares by the British Government. The Serapis arrived at Bombay on 8th November.

Thenceforward the Prince's tour was an unresting progress of Durbars, receptions, dinners, visits, processions, ceremonies, speeches, addresses, fireworks, entertainments, investitures, reviews, varied only by intervals of sport. From Bombay, the Prince went to Goa, and thence to Ceylon, visiting Colombo, Kandy, where he viewed the sacred tooth of Gotama Buddha, and Ruanwalla, where there was an elephant hunt. Then he went to Tuticorin, Madura, Trichinopoly, Madras, Calcutta, Bankipoor, Benares, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, Lahore, Cashmir, Umritsar, Agra, Gwalior, and Jeypoor. From Jeypoor he went into camp in the Terai and enjoyed excellent sport. Then, in Nepal, under the auspices of Sir Jung Bahadur, there was the great elephant hunt. From Nepal the Prince went to Allahabad, then to Bombay, whence he sailed on 11th March, 1876, having been in India seventeen weeks exactly. "The Prince," wrote Dr. Russell on that date, "has travelled nearly 7600 miles by land and 2300 by sea, knows more Chiefs than all the Viceroys and Governors together, and seen more of the country in the time than any other living man."

On the outward voyage his Royal Highness visited the King of Greece. When the King and Queen were leaving the Serapis after dining on board, we showed them compliment and honour by setting them alight. The blue lights burning at the main-yard being exactly above the boat in which their Majesties were going ashore, dropped flakes of fire upon them. The Prince also visited the Khedive. On the return voyage, the Prince met at Suez Lord Lytton, who was on his way to India to succeed Lord Northbrook as Viceroy; was again entertained by the Khedive; visited Malta; called at Gibraltar; and visited the King of Spain and the King of Portugal. The Serapis was accompanied by the royal yacht Osborne, Commander Durrant, and H.M.S. Raleigh, Captain Tryon. The Prince landed in England on 11th May, 1876.

It is worth noting that Lord Lytton went out in the Orontes, one of the Imperial Service troopships, as they were called. The troopship service was then at times conducted by the Royal Navy, a practice since discontinued. The Orontes was commanded by Captain E. H. Seymour (afterwards Admiral of the Fleet the Right Hon. Sir Edward Seymour, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., LL.D.) In his very interesting book, My Naval Career and Travels, Sir Edward Seymour writes: "At Suez, by arrangement, we met H.R.H. the Prince of Wales (our late King) on his way home in the Serapis. At Aden Lord Lytton landed in state, it being the first point reached of his new dominions." The point illustrates the working in detail of the great scheme of Imperial organisation which was conceived by the master-mind of Disraeli, and which he continued to carry into execution so long as he was in power.

Upon landing at Bombay, I rode up to Government House with my brother, Lord William, precisely as I had ridden up with another brother, Lord Marcus, exactly six years previously, on the same day of the year. Lord William was then extra A.D.C. to the Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, having been appointed to that post as a subaltern in the 9th Lancers. He was subsequently appointed A.D.C. to Lord Lytton, in which capacity he attended the Viceroy at the Durbar at which Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. He was afterwards military secretary to three successive viceroys, Lords Ripon, Dufferin and Lansdowne; altogether he served on the personal staff of five viceroys. From 1877 to 1879, while nominally in attendance upon the Viceroy, Lord William fought in the Jowaki expedition of 1877-78, the Afghan war, during which he was present at the capture of Ali Musjid, and the Zulu war of 1879. "In the latter," wrote a military correspondent of The Times (31st December, 1900), "he served as a staff officer during the reconnaissance across the White Umvolusi River and at the battle of Ulundi. It was in Zululand, in July, 1879, that Beresford won the V.C. for halting, when closely pursued by the enemy, to take a wounded non-commissioned officer on his horse. When the soldier at first declined to risk the officer's life by giving the latter's horse a double burden, Beresford is understood to have hotly declared that unless the man immediately got up on the saddle he would himself dismount and 'punch his head.'"

For his services in the Burmese expedition of 1886, he received a brevet-colonelcy; and in 1891 he was promoted full colonel; in 1894 he received the K.C.S.I.; and thereafter remained on the active list of the Army, but unemployed. Of his exploits on the turf it is not here the place to speak; but I may be pardoned if I have placed on record in this place some account of Lord William's Indian service which extended over nearly twenty years. Few men have earned so universal an affection as that which Lord William inspired, alike in European and native. His ability in matters of administration was remarkable, and he acquired an extraordinary influence over the natives of India. The correspondent of The Times, already quoted, observes that Lord William might have had a distinguished career in any profession; that he might have been a great soldier, a great diplomat, a great political officer, had not his passion for the turf diverted a part of his energies. It may be so; but perhaps one may be allowed to say that one liked him for what he was and not for what he might have been; and also that he did not do so badly. The warmest affection existed between my brother and myself; and his death, which occurred in 1900, was a great grief to me. But that was in the far future when I landed from the Serapis and we rode up to Government House together.