Vanessa Collingridge and the team answer listener鈥檚 historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all 鈥榤ake鈥 history.
Programme 7
11听November 2008
Vanessa Collingridge and the team explore themes from Britain鈥檚 past thanks to queries raised by listener鈥檚 own historical research.
The Sinking of HMS Royal George
A listener asks why the story of a Naval accident in 1782 which resulted in maybe over one thousand people drowning, isn鈥檛 well known.
Making History consulted maritime historian Hannah Cunliffe. She told us that HMS Royal George was the Ark Royal of her day. Built a couple of decades before HMS Victory she was a huge ship for the mid eighteenth century 鈥 the biggest the Royal Navy had ever built. Started in 1746 she weighed 3745 tons was 200ft long, 50ft wide and had used up 3,840 trees. She cost 拢339,065 and had 100 guns on 3 gun decks.
She was built because of Britain鈥檚 ongoing struggle with France and saw almost constant service. Staring with the Seven Years鈥 War, Quiberon Bay in 1759 and the French-Spanish Armada twenty years later.
In August 1782 she came back to Spithead to stock up on supplies. All set for service in the Mediterranean, the majority of crew members weren鈥檛 allowed shore leave for fear that many would go AWOL. So wives and children were invited aboard along with workmen from the Royal Dockyard in Portsmouth who carried out essential maintenance.听
One of the repair jobs the workmen had to do was on a 鈥榗istern pipe鈥 which allowed the crew to get water to wash the decks. To do this plumbers needed to bore a hole in the side of the ship. The carpenter requested that the ship be heeled (leant slightly to one side) and the orders were given for guns on the larboard side to be pushed one way and the guns on the starboard side another鈥 This wasn鈥檛 enough though. So more guns were shifted until the vessel was leaning far enough over for the repairs to be carried out. However, it seems that from early on all was not well. Twice the carpenter ran up to the main deck to warn that the ship seemed to be going over鈥 Eventually and tragically she did. We do not know the true number of people who perished. But it is thought that only one of sixty children on board survived鈥
Useful links
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Much Wenlock 鈥 Home of the Modern Olympics
Emma-Kate Lanyon is Curator of Archaeology and Social History at Shropshire County Council and she contacted the programme for help in finding descendents of athletes who performed at the Much Wenlock or Shropshire games in the nineteenth century. Incredibly, it is these games that provided the inspiration for Baron Coubertin to revive the Olympic Games at Athens in 1896.
The Much Wenlock games were the brainchild of local doctor William Penny Brookes. Born in 1809 and trained at Guy鈥檚 and St Thomas鈥檚 in London and also studied in Padua and Paris. Returning to Much Wenlock in about 1841 he set up the Agricultural Reading Society (he was a botanist too), and then in 1850 the Wenlock Olympian Class. The original objective was 鈥渢o promote the moral, physical and intellectual improvement of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Wenlock, and especially of the working classes, by the encouragement of out-door recreation and by the award of prizes annually at public meetings for skill in athletic exercises, and proficiency in intellectual and industrial attainments鈥.
The first games were a mixture of athletics, country sports and quoits, football and cricket鈥 There was a wheelbarrow race to please the crowds and a women鈥檚 race for a bag of tea. In 1860n the Shropshire Olympian Games were held in Shrewsbury. From then on games were hosted in a different town within the county bi-annually.
In 1865 Brookes was one of three people who were the principal movers in establishing the National Olympian Association. Their first event at Crystal Palace in 1866 attracted 10,000 spectators 鈥 the hurdles won by an 18 year old W G Grace. The National Olympian games were to be held in different cities around the country. Meanwhile the Wenlock Games went from strength to strength with the Pentathlon introduced in 1868.
In 1889 Baron Coubertin organiser of the International Congress on Physical Education was in England and Brookes invited him to the following year鈥檚 games. It was there that Brookes shared with Coubertin his dream to stage an Olympic revival in Athens. Sadly he died only a few months before the games but Coubertin was quick to acknowledge his influence:
"Wherever is Much Wenlock? I can imagine your embarrassment at the coupling of a barbarous name with the memories of antiquity. Much Wenlock is a small town in Shropshire, a country on the borders of Wales and if the Olympic Games ... still survive today, it is due ... to Dr W. P. Brookes. It is he who inaugurated them 40 years ago, and it is still he, now 82 years old but still alert and vigorous, who continues to organise and inspire them.鈥
Coubertin, 鈥淭he Wenlock Olympian Games: a page in the history of athletics" La Revue Athletique (1890).
Are you a descendent of someone who competed in the Much Wenlock Games? If so then please contact Emma-Kate Lanyon.
Making History listener Dick Robinson contacted Making History in search of the missing pages to his great Aunt鈥檚 First World War diaries.
These tell a story that鈥檚 rarely heard, the experiences of a nurse working close to the Western Front. Incredibly, Edith served in France from 1914 鈥 1919. Dick is still searching for these missing pages and for further information and much more information about Edith and her diaries he has set up a website for her.
If you do have any information that could help Dick find the missing pages Making History would like to hear from you too.
Vanessa has presented听science and current affairs programmes for 大象传媒, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for 大象传媒 Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.听
Contact Making History
Send your comments and questions for future programmes to:
Making History
大象传媒 Radio 4
PO Box 3096 Brighton
BN1 1PL
Vanessa has presented听science and current affairs programmes for 大象传媒, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for 大象传媒 Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.听