Wednesday 29 February 2012

Semaphore line


There was a desperate need for swift and reliable communications in France during the period of 1790–1795. It was the height of the French revolution, and France was surrounded by the enemy forces of Britain, the NetherlandsPrussiaAustria, and Spain. The cities of Marseillesand Lyon were in revolt, and the British Fleet held Toulon. In this situation the only advantage France held was the lack of cooperation between the allied forces due to their inadequate lines of communications.

A semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system of conveying information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, also known as blades or paddles. Information is encoded by the position of the mechanical elements; it is read when the shutter is in a fixed position. These systems were popular in the late 18th to early 19th century.[1][2][3]In modern usage, "semaphore line" and "optical telegraph" may refer to a relay system using flag semaphore, and "optical telegraph" may refer to a heliograph (optical telegraphy using mirror-directed sunlight reflections).

Semaphore lines were a precursor of the electrical telegraph. They were far faster than post riders for bringing a message over long distances, but far more expensive and less private than the electrical telegraph lines which would replace them. The distance that an optical telegraph can bridge is limited by geography and weather; thus, in practical use, most optical telegraphs used lines of relay stations to bridge longer distances.



Claude Chappe

Optical telegraphy dates from ancient times, in the form of hydraulic telegraphs, torches (as used by ancient Greeks) and smoke signals.

Modern design of semaphores was first foreseen by the English scientist Robert Hooke, who first gave a vivid and comprehensive outline of visual telegraphy to the Royal Society in a submission dated 1684 in which he outlined many practical details. The system (motivated by military concerns, following the recent Battle of Vienna in 1683) was never put into practice.[4][5]

The first achieved optical telegraph arrived only in 1792 from the French engineer Claude Chappe and his brothers, who succeeded in covering France with a network of 556 stations stretching a total distance of 4,800 kilometres. It was used for military and national communications until the 1850s.

Many national services adopted signaling systems different from the Chappe system. For example, Britain and Sweden adopted systems of shuttered panels (in contradiction to the Chappe brothers' contention that angled rods are more visible). In Spain, the engineer Agustín de Betancourt developed his own system which was adopted by that state. This system was considered by many experts in Europe better than Chappe's, even in France.
[edit]France

A Chappe semaphore tower nearSaverne, France


The Chappe brothers in the summer of 1790 set about devising a system of communication that would allow the central government to receive intelligence and to transmit orders in the shortest possible time. On March 2, 1791 at 11 A.M., Chappe and his brother sent the message “si vous réussissez, vous serez bientôt couverts de gloire” (If you succeed, you will soon bask in glory) between Brulon and Parce, a distance of ten miles (16 km). The first means used a combination of black and white panels, clocks, telescopes, and codebooks to send their message.

The Chappes carried out experiments during the next two years, and on two occasions their apparatus at Place de l'Étoile, Paris was destroyed by mobs who thought they were communicating with royalist forces. However in the summer of 1792 Claude was appointedIngénieur-Télégraphiste and charged with establishing a line of stations between Paris and Lille, a distance of 230 kilometres (about 143 miles). It was used to carry dispatches for the war between France and Austria. In 1794, it brought news of a French capture of Condé-sur-l'Escaut from the Austrians less than an hour after it occurred. The first symbol of a message to Lille would pass through 15 stations in only nine minutes. The speed of the line varied with the weather, but the line to Lille typically transferred 36 symbols, a complete message, in about 32 minutes.

Paris to Strasbourg with 50 stations was the next line and others followed soon after. By 1824, the Chappe brothers were promoting the semaphore lines for commercial use, especially to transmit the costs of commodities. Napoleon Bonaparte saw the military advantage in being able to transmit information between locations, and carried a portable semaphore with his headquarters. This allowed him to coordinate forces and logistics over longer distances than any other army of his time. However because stations had to be within sight of each other, and because the efficient operation of the network required well trained and disciplined operators, the costs of administration and wages were a continuous source of financial difficulties. Only when the system was funded by the proceeds of its own lottery did costs come under control.

In 1821 Norwich Duff, a young British Naval officer, visiting Clermont-en-Argonne, walked up to the telegraph station there and engaged the signalman in conversation. Here is his note of the man's information:


The pay is twenty five sous per day and he [the signalman] is obliged to be there from day light till dark, at present from half past three till half past eight; there are only two of them and for every minute a signal is left without being answered they pay five sous: this is a part of the branch which communicates with Strasburg and a message arrives there from Paris in six minutes it is here in four.
[edit]Description

The Chappe brothers determined by experiment that it was easier to see the angle of a rod than to see the presence or absence of a panel. Their semaphore was composed of black movable wooden arms, the position of which indicated alphabetic letters. With counterweights (named forks) on the arms, the Chappe system was controlled by only two handles and was mechanically simple and reasonably robust. Each of the two 2-metre-long arms showed seven positions, and the 4.6-metre-long cross bar connecting the two arms had four different angles, for a total of 196 symbols (7x7x4). Night operation with lamps on the arms was unsuccessful.

To speed up transmission and to provide some semblance of security a code book was developed for use with semaphore lines. The Chappes' corporation used a code that took 92 of the basic symbols two at a time to yield 8,464 coded words and phrases.

From 1803 on, the French also used the 3-arm Depillon semaphore at coastal locations to provide warning of British incursions.
Sweden
Replica of Swedish optical telegraph tower.

At the same time as Chappe, the Swedish inventor Abraham Niclas Edelcrantz experimented with the optical telegraph in Sweden. In 1794 he inaugurated his telegraph with a poem dedicated to the Swedish King on his birthday. The message went from the Palace inStockholm to the King at Drottningholm.

Edelcrantz eventually developed his own system which was quite different from its French counterpart and nearly twice as fast. The system was based on ten collapsible iron shutters. The various positions of the shutters formed combinations of numbers which were translated into letters, words or phrases via codebooks. The telegraph network consisted of telegraph stations positioned at about 10 kilometres from one another.

Soon telegraph circuits linking castles and fortresses in the neighbourhood of Stockholm were set up and the system was extended to Grisslehamn and Åland. Subsequently telegraph circuits were introduced between Gothenburg and Marstrand, at Helsingborg and between Karlskrona and its fortresses. Sweden was the second country in the world, after France, to introduce an optical telegraph network. The Swedish optical telegraph network was restricted to the archipelagoes of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Karlskrona. Like its French counterpart, it was mainly used for military purposes.
U.K.

Lord George Murray, stimulated by reports of the Chappe semaphore, proposed a system of visual telegraphy to the British Admiralty in 1795.[3] He employed rectangular framework towers with six large octagonal shutters on horizontal axes that flipped between horizontal and vertical positions to signal [6] . The Rev. Mr Gamble also proposed two distinct five element systems in 1795: one using five shutters, and one using five ten foot poles.[3] The British Admiralty accepted Murray's system in September 1795, and the first system was the 15 site chain from London to Deal.[7] Messages passed from London to Deal in about sixty seconds, and sixty-five sites were in use by 1808.[7] Each shutter was five feet high.[1] In 1816, Murray's shutter telegraphs were replaced by simpler semaphores invented by Sir Home Popham.[2] A Popham semaphore was a single fixed vertical 30 foot pole, with two movable 8 foot arms attached to the pole by horizontal pivots at their ends, one arm at the top of the pole, and the other arm at the middle of the pole.[1][2] The signals of the Popham semaphore were found to be much more visible than those of the Murray semaphore.[1] Popham's 2-arm semaphore was modeled after the 3-arm Depillon French semaphore.[1]

Chains of Murray's shutter telegraph stations were built along these routes:

Diagram of U.K. Murray six-shutter system, with shutter 6 in the horizontal position, and shutters 1-5 verticalLiverpool - Holyhead

Liverpool, Bidston, Hilbre Island, Voel Nant, Foryd, Llysfaen, Puffin Island, Point Lynas, Carreglwyd, Cefn Du, Holyhead [8]London - Deal and Sheerness

Admiralty (London), West Square Southwark, New Cross, Shooter's Hill, Swanscombe, Gad's Hill, Callum Hill, Beacon Hill (Faversham, branch point), Shottenden, Barham Downs, Betteshanger, Deal.

(branch) Beacon Hill (Faversham), Tonge, Barrow Hill, Sheerness.London - Great Yarmouth

St Albans High Street in 1807, showing the shutter telegraph on top of the city's Clock Tower.

Admiralty (London), Hampstead Heath (Telegraph Hill), Woodcock Hill, St Albans, Dunstable Downs, Lilley Hoo, Baldock, Royston, Gog Magog Hills, Newmarket (Side Hill), Icklingham,Barnham, East Harling, Carleton Rode, Wreningham, Norwich, Strumpshaw, Great Yarmouth.London - Portsmouth and Plymouth

Admiralty (London), Chelsea Royal Hospital, Putney Heath, Cabbage Hill, Netley Heath,Hascombe, Blackdown, Beacon Hill (branch point), Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth (Southsea Common).

(branch) Beacon Hill, Chalton, Wickham, Town Hill, Toot Hill, Bramshaw, Pistle Down,Chalbury, Blandford racecourse, Belchalwell, Nettlecombe Tout, High Stoy, Toller Down, Lamberts Castle, Dalwood Common, St Cyrus, Rockbeare, Gt Haldon, South Knighton, Marley, Lee, Saltram, Plymouth.

The shutter stations were temporary wooden huts, and at the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars they were no longer necessary. In 1816 they were replaced by a simpler semaphore system.[3] However the Admiralty decided to establish a permanent link to Portsmouth and built a chain of semaphore stations. These were operational from 1822 until 1847, when the railway and electric telegraph provided a better means of communication. The semaphore did not use the same locations as the shutter chain, but followed almost the same route with 15 stations -

Admiralty (London), Chelsea Royal Hospital, Putney Heath, Coombe Warren, Coopers Hill, Chatley Heath, Pewley Hill, Bannicle Hill,Haste Hill (Haslemere), Holder Hill, (Midhurst), Beacon Hill, Compton Down, Camp Down, Lumps Fort (Southsea) and Portsmouth Dockyard. The semaphore tower at Chatley Heath, which replaced the Netley Heath station of the shutter telegraph, has been restored by Surrey County Council and is open to the public.

A semaphore-based successor for the London to Plymouth shutter telegraph chain, branching much closer to London, at Chatley Heath in Surrey, was started but abandoned before completion.

Many of the prominences on which the towers were built are known as 'Telegraph Hill' to this day. As in France the network required lavish amounts of money and manpower to operate and could only be justified as a defence need.
[edit]Other countries

Optical telegraph of Claude Chappe on the Litermont near Nalbach, Germany.

Optical telegraph in the harbour ofBremerhaven, Germany.

Once it had proved its success, the optical telegraph was imitated in many other countries, especially after it was used by Napoleon to coordinate his empire and army. In most of these countries, the postal authorities operated the semaphore lines.

In Canada, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent established the first semaphore line in North America. In operation by 1800, it ran between the city of Halifax and the town of Annapolis inNova Scotia, and across the Bay of Fundy to Saint John and Fredericton in New Brunswick. In addition to providing information on approaching ships, the Duke used the system to relay military commands, especially as they related to troop discipline. The Duke had envisioned the line reaching as far as the British garrison at Quebec City. However, the many hills and coastal fog meant the towers needed to be placed relatively close together to ensure visibility. The required labour to build and continually man so many stations taxed the already stretched-thin British military and there is doubt the New Brunswick line was ever in operation. With the exception of the towers around Halifax harbour, the system was abandoned shortly after the Duke's departure in August 1800.[9][10]

In 1801, the Danish post office installed a semaphore line across the Great Belt strait,Storebæltstelegrafen, between islands Funen and Zealand with stations at Nyborg on Funen, on the small island Sprogø in the middle of the strait, and at Korsør on Zealand. It was in use until 1865.[11]

The Kingdom of Prussia began with a line 750 kilometres long between Berlin and Coblenz in 1833, and in Russia, Tsar Nicolas I inaugurated the line between Moscow and Warsaw(1200 km) in 1833; this needed 220 stations manned by 1320 operators.

In the United States the first optical telegraph was built by Jonathan Grout. It was a 104-kilometre line connecting Martha's Vineyard with Boston, and its purpose was to transmit news about shipping. One of the principal hills in San Francisco, California is also named "Telegraph Hill", after the semaphore telegraph which was established there in 1849 to signal the arrival of ships into San Francisco Bay.

The semaphores were successful enough that Samuel Morse failed to sell the electrical telegraph to the French government. However, France finally committed to replace semaphores with electric telegraphs in 1846. Note that electric telegraphs are both more private and almost completely unaffected by weather. Many contemporaries predicted the failure of electric telegraphs because "they are so easy to cut."[12] The last stationary semaphore link in regular service was in Sweden, connecting an island with a mainland telegraph line. It went out of service in 1880.

In Ireland, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817) proposed a telegraph there when a French invasion was anticipated in 1794, and again in 1796; however, the proposal was not implemented. Soon, the British forces fighting Napoleon in Portugal found that the Portuguese army had a very capable semaphore system giving the Duke of Wellington a decisive advantage in intelligence.
[edit]Semaphore in fiction
Pavane, an alternate history novel by Keith Roberts, features a society where long distance communication is by a network of semaphores operated by the powerful Guild of Signallers.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels describe a system of 8-shutter semaphore towers, known as Clacks.
In Chapter 60 ("The Telegraph") of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, the title character describes with fascination the semaphore line's moving arms. "I had often seen one placed at the end of a road on a hillock, and in the light of the sun its black arms, bending in every direction, always reminded me of the claws of an immense beetle..." He later bribes a semaphore operator to relay a false message in order to manipulate the French financial market.
In chapter 10 of C. S. Forester's Hornblower and the Hotspur, the destruction of a French semaphore tower and a shore battery is a key plot point. A similar event is also the focus of the seventh episode of the A&E Horatio Hornblower series,
In David Weber's Safehold series, a world-wide Semaphore system is used by the Church to help them maintain their dominion over the world.
In Alastair Reynolds' Terminal World, the distant-future terrain is criss-crossed with semaphore lines relaying information between the one remaining city, Spearpoint, outlying communities and the airborne community Swarm.
In the young adult fiction book Death Cloud by Andy Lane, Mycroft Holmes tells 14-year-old Sherlock Holmes about semaphore stations, commenting about his school beforehand, saying "All the Latin a boy can cram into his skull, but nothing of practical use."
[edit]See also
Aldis lamp
Flag semaphore
Heliograph
Railway signalling
Signal lamp
Telegraph Hill, for a list of telegraph hills
Semaphore Flag Signaling System
[edit]References

Crowley, David and Heyer, Paul (ed) (2003) 'Chapter 17: The optical telegraph' Communication in History: Technology, Culture and Society (Fourth Edition) Allyn and Bacon, Boston pp. 123–125

^ a b c d e f Chapter 2: Semaphore Signalling ISBN 9780863413278 Communications: an international history of the formative years R. W. Burns, 2004
^ a b c Telegraph Vol 10, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6th Edition, 1824 pp. 645-651
^ a b c d Telegraph, Volume 17 of The Edinburgh encyclopaedia, pp. 664-667, 1832 David Brewster, ed.
^ The Origin of the Railway Semaphore
^ History of the Telephone part2
^ Lieutenant Watson's Telegraph Mechanics' magazine, Volume 8 No. 222, Knight and Lacey, 1828, pages 294-299
^ a b F.B. Wrixon (2005), ISBN 9781579124854 Codes, Ciphers, Secrets and Cryptic Communication pp. 444-445 cover Murray's shutter telegraph in the U.K., with codes.
^ Faster Than The Wind, The Liverpool to Holyhead Telegraph, Frank Large, an avid publication ISBN 0952102099
^ Raddall, Thomas H. (1971), Warden of the North, Toronto, Canada: McClelland and Stewart Limited.
^ Rens, Jean-Guy (2001), The invisible empire: A history of the telecommunications industry in Canada, Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.
^ The Age of Invention 1849–1920, Post & Tele Museum Danmark, website visited on May 8, 2010.
^ Holzmann, Gerard. "Data Communications: The First 2500 Years". Retrieved 28 June 2011.
[edit]Further reading
The Old Telegraphs, Geoffrey Wilson, Phillimore & Co Ltd 1976 ISBN 0900592796
Faster Than The Wind, The Liverpool to Holyhead Telegraph, Frank Large, an avid publication ISBN 0952102099
The early history of data networks, Gerard Holzmann and Bjorn Pehrson, Wiley Publ., 2003, ISBN 0-8186-6782-6
Semaphore Signaling, Chapter 2 of: Communications: an international history of the formative years, R.W. Burns, Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2004 ISBN 9780863413278
[edit]External links
Chappe's semaphore (an illustrated history of optical telegraphy)
Webpage including a map of England's telegraph chains
Diagrams and maps of Murray's U.K. semaphore stations
Photo and diagrams of Popham's U.K. semaphore stations
Map of visual telegraph (semaphore) and electrical telegraph lines in Italy, 1860 (in Italian)

    Tuesday 28 February 2012

    the naval hospital



    The burial of Johannis Hollander leads to many more questions.
    Who  is this Johannis Vlieland .
    Why was he on the H.M.S. Pandora
    Why was he buried  the hospital burial grounds.

    The family tree detectives searched and found the following.

    The Royal Hospital, Great Yarmouth was built by Government at a cost of £120,000.
    Foundation stone laid by Admiral Rilly Douglas in 1809.
    The building was erected by Mr. Peto (father of Sir Samuel Morton Peto) from designs by H. Pakington, Esq., for a Naval Hospital. The rooms in front are 150 feet long, and the whole area within the Hospital is about fifteen acres, and the interior arrangements are admirable, to say nothing of the spacious court-yard to the north. Opened in 1811 and most striking, it was originally built for sailors wounded in the Napoleonic Wars. It then became a barracks, but was converted back to a hospital forty years later and was used to accommodate sailors who were mentally ill.

    Hence the navy slang to describe those sailors who are showing signs of mental wear and tear as "going to Yarmouth".

    The severely elegant Royal Naval Hospital at Great Yarmouth was built to house Napoleonic War casualties. Work began in the last decade of the eighteenth century and was completed in 1811, at the then astronomical cost of £120,000. The hospital was of the favoured Admiralty design of four ranges with ward blocks arranged in a quadrangle. At Yarmouth the design was on a monumental scale complete with Classical details. From 1818 to 1854 the site was used as a barracks, then converted back to a military hospital, later for civilian use. This came to an end in 1993 and the buildings have now been converted to residential apartments.

    The Naval Hospital Burials at Yarmouth
    by Richard Green, 2001

    This article is by way of explanation and to illuminate the many burials of service men which took place in Gt Yarmouth in the last decade of the 18th century. Many of the ships named below appear in the burial register.
    France and Holland, allied since 1795, were fighting the Napoleonic Wars with Britain and Russia.At the end of 1796, the French failed in an attempt to land at Bantry Bay, where they hoped to organise an uprising in Ireland to act as a second front and thus weaken their enemy England.This remained the strategy throughout 1797 based on the urging of the two Irishmen, Wolfe Tone and Napper Tandy. The French switched, however, to a plan under which the Dutch fleet would transport a joint Franco-Dutch army across the North Sea.The plan was for the Dutch to meet and defeat Admiral Duncan's under-strength British North Sea Fleet, then returning and transporting the army to Edinburgh, from where it would march overland to take Glasgow as a base for an invasion of Ireland, with Messrs Tone and Tandy fomenting a rebellion at the same time.The Dutch decided to go ahead with the first stage of the plan and the fleet was ordered to sea under Admiral de Winter, who had started life as a sailor, joined the French army and risen to General, and then transferred back to the Navy as Admiral - never having commanded a ship, even in peacetime.De Winter's fleet, when he put to sea on 8 October 1797, was puny compared to those engaged in most of the major battles: eleven third-rate ships (four of 74 guns, the rest of 64 or 68), five fourth-rates, four frigates and six sloops. The fourth-rates were obsolete, and the 64-gun ships virtually so.Opposing him, Duncan's British North Sea Fleet also had 16 ships of the line, also with nothing bigger than a third-rate.When the Dutch put to sea, the British fleet was in Yarmouth refitting. An inshore squadron under Captain Henry Trollope was however watching Texel the Dutch base, closely, and a lugger was sent to Yarmouth with the news, getting the message there on the morning of the 9th. Duncan put immediately to sea, met up with Trollope on the 11th, and found the Dutch fleet in line of battle heading north-east with the wind from the west.The Battle of Camperdown (11 October 1797)

    Admiral Duncan's ships were split into two roughly equal squadrons, Duncan's own, led by Venerable, to the north aimed at the Dutch forward vessels, and Onslow's, led by Monarch, to the south, aimed at the Dutch rear. Onslow's nine ships fairly quickly disposed of the five ships (three of them fourth-rates) cut off at the Dutch rear, but Duncan's seven had a much harder time to the north, where fighting was much more intense before de Winter finally surrendered, the Dutch frigates, contrary to custom, bravely joining in the action, in which two of them were taken.An account of the Monarch�s performance:Capt. Edward O`BRIAN, commanding in the action off Camperdown with the Dutch fleet on 11 October 1797. MONARCH led the larboard division which broke through the rear of the Dutch line between JUPITER and HAARLEM, firing broadsides into both. The British captured 7 ships of the line, two 50`s, and two frigates . MONARCH suffered severe damage to her hull but little to her masts and yards. She had 36 killed, including two midshipmen, J.P.TINDALL and Moyle FINLAY, and 100 wounded, including Lieut. James RETALICK. 1799 Capt. S. SUTTON, Sheerness.At the end of the day, eleven of the 26 Dutch ships returned to the Texel and four were destroyed, the rest remaining in British hands, though so badly damaged that they were unfit for further service.Camperdown effectively disposed of the Dutch. Duncan made even surer of that on 27th August 1799 by landing 7000 troops (only 20 men being lost through drowning) at the Helder, where the remaining ships surrendered without firing a shot, the Dutch crews mutinying and refusing to serve the guns. There was no longer any threat of the Dutch fleet aiding an invasion of Scotland or Ireland.But then a disastrous decision placed the Duke of York (the very same who marched his men up the hill and down again) in charge of the invasion of Holland, which had been intended to build on Admiral Duncan�s success. He was, bluntly, incompetent.80,000 soldiers took part in this campaign, involving an Anglo-Russian invading force and Dutch-French defenders,The French had forbidden the puppet Dutch ("Batavian") republic to trade with Britain, and the Dutch economy had suffered greatly. The British thought to exploit this situation to restore the pro-British William to the Dutch throne.The Ardent, from which came many burials in Yarmouth, was reported as follows:In August 1799 ARDENT was with the Anglo-Russian expedition to the Texel. Some 250 craft of all sizes transported 17,000 troops from Margate Roads and the Downs across the Channel on the 13th. Due to bad weather it was the 21st before they anchored off Kuikduin and the following day a summons was sent to Vice Admiral Storij, calling on him to surrender his fleet. When he declined, a landing was made near Den Helder on the 27th. under covering fire from the fleet. Den Helder was occupied the following day when the garrison evacuated the town.On the 30th GLATTON, ROMNEY, ISIS, VETERAN, ARDENT, BELLIQUEUX, MONMOUTH and OVERYSSEL, a Russian ship, and the frigates, anchored in line ahead in the Vlieter and Vice Ad. Storij was summoned again. This time he agreed to surrender his squadron of 12 modern warships. of these 11 were purchased for the Royal Navy.The Batavian general was taken by surprise and lost 1400 men and narrowly escaped with his life when his horse was shot from under him. The Batavian garrison of Den Helder spiked its guns and evacuated the town, which although well protected on the seaward side, had minimal defensive works on the landward side. The Batavian fleet, under vice-admiral Storij, which had been in the Texel, withdrew to a poorly defensible position in the Vlieter, a channel in the Zuider Zee, and surrendered without firing a shot.On 13 September the Russian troops arrived. Although the invading forces now stood at 35,000, the Russians were exhausted and underfed after the long sea journey.On 19 September they took the offensive, eventually reaching the town of Bergen in an exhausted state. After plundering the place, they were unable to resist a French counterattack and lost 1500 dead.Two weeks later the English attacked. . A service of thanksgiving by the Duke of York later that day was cancelled at the last moment when the Duke had to depart for Castricum where a battle was developing. That town passed from British-Russian to Batavian-French hands several times until the Duke of York finally fled, losing 2536 men and 11 guns; the Batavian-French losses stood at 1382.The battle of Castricum persuaded the Duke that his position was untenable. After a chaotic retreat, in which two field hospitals were "forgotten", he reached an agreement with the French commander, Brune. The British and Russians were allowed to withdraw, without paying reparations, and retaining captured bounty. However, an undertaking was given by the Duke to arrange for all French and Dutch prisoners of war to be repatriated. As thanks, Brune received a number of magnificent horses from the Duke. By 19 November all the British and Russian troops had been embarked and the whole unhappy episode was over.Throughout the period, injured men were shipped back to Great Yarmouth Naval Hospital, where many perished from gangrene and cross infection. Both British and Russian men were involved, and at times the hospital must have been overfull - no waiting list in those days.Those who died appeared in the burials register for St Nicholas, Gt Yarmouth.




    This exert is from "Ships of the Old Navy by Michael Phillips, and may be seen at http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/INTRO.HTM 

    The official opening of the Nelson monument was marked by “an elegant ball” for “three hundred and fifty persons of rank and respectability” (but, presumably, no common seamen!). From the start, the Monument attracted considerable attention. John Preston’s book A Picture of Yarmouth was published the same year and described the Monument as “an emulating object to British seamen, who are daily passing and re-passing the Roads within its view…. It is a structure which, for taste and execution, eclipses every other piece of modern architecture in the neighbourhood, is truly honourable to the native county of that great hero whose memory it is gratefully intended to perpetuate, and may with propriety be acknowledged at once the pride and justly-boasted ornament of Yarmouth.”

    When built, the Monument stood on open land mainly used by the military, with the army barracks and Royal Naval Hospital towards the town and a naval fort at the tip of the peninsula near the river mouth. However it was not long before the town of Yarmouth began Main entrance to former Royal Naval Hospital, built 1809

    Monday 27 February 2012

    Kapitein Jan Vlieland






    My mother has lent me my great Uncles Paul P. Steven’s inventories of all he owned pre 1943 for insurance purposes. He died about that time. Above is an Attachment saying who he believed Captain Vlieland in the portrait was. I thought it was nice to see it in writing rather than my memories of what my Gran told me. If it is correct then the picture is of Jan Hollander.

    It is painted on paper. One English dealer, ( an expert in water colours), thought from the type of paper it was on and pigment that was used, that it was painted in the late 18th or early 19th century. Defiantly no master. Probably an ammeter as not that well executed. It is square but mum had it mounted and framed 35 years ago. For many years it lay unframed in a cupboard. It is quite small, about post card size, perhaps 10 cm by 7 cm. Defiantly in the family in 1900 when the family lived in Bath. It was thought to be old then. Alice was very proud of it. It hung in her best room and was pointed out to all visitors. Another mystery which one day we might have the answer to but unlikely! The fact he is reading a book tells use he was literate, which was not that common in Britain in the poorer classes around 1800, so he must have had some degree of education and be of the merchant classes, not just a basic seaman 
    So we asked the Netherlands Institute for Art history if they could tell if it was Dutch and what time it was painted and if they notices anything else about scarf , clothes , chair or book .
    They told us 
    It is hard to tell anything about this aquarel based on a photo.
    It is hard to tell if it is a portrait ,it could be part of a bigger painting.
    The costume does not look Dutch and not 19 century.but more a fantasycostume referring to older paintings


    So 

    Sunday 26 February 2012

    King Edwards´s school Norwich


    This time it is M.J.N Vlieland 






    He was professor at the King Edwards´s school Norwich a school that still excists.
    It has beautifull stained glass windows in the chapel.

    A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.

    The original purpose of mediaeval grammar schools was the teaching of Latin. Over time the curriculum was broadened, first to includeAncient Greek, and later English and other European languages, natural sciences, mathematics, history, geography, and other subjects. In the late Victorian era grammar schools were reorganised to provide secondary education throughout England and Wales; Scotland had developed a different system. Grammar schools of these types were also established in British territories overseas, where they have evolved in different ways.

    Friday 24 February 2012

    adresses

    Some adresses of Jerome Nicholas Vlieland in Yarmouth.


    The Dukes Head


     Chapel street.


    Bethelstreet


    Broadstreet 


    Pottergate street


    Kingstreet


    upper kingstreet 



    Redwell street 

    Thursday 23 February 2012

    The name is John

    Who is who and what do we know.

    Jan Hollander born abt 1720  father of Jan Hollander .
    Jan Janszoon Hollander born abt 1756 Amsterdam married to Catherina Frits en is father of Jerome Nicholas.
    Joannes Hollander 30-05-1786  son of Jan and Catherina and brother of Jerome Nicholas.
    Jan Hollander 27-01-1789 son of Jan and Catherina and brother of  Jerome Nicholas .
    Jan Vlieland said Hollander.We have no data on him only the books and newspapers.
    Johannis Hollander died 1810 on board H.M.S.Pandora buried Yarmouth.
    John Vlieland marriage 13 may 1824 to Mary Grimmer died 28 Feb 1842 at the age of 45 son of Yarhan Vlieland tried to marry Eleonor Hill.
    John Nicolls Vlieland born 18 Jan 1826 drowns in 1840 son of John Vlieland and Mary Grimmer 
    John Vlieland marriage  Eleanor Hill 22 Dec. 1833 is married to Mary Grimmer 
    John Vlieland marriage Francis Waters Oct 1838
    and we have
    John Vlieland who lived with his sisters in 1841, Chapel Square, Yarmouth at this time aged 45 born in foreign parts.

    So we have a lot of them and you wonder who is who .

    Regarding the events in time ,they have to be different persons .

    We know some of them are christened Hollander and changed their name to Vlieland , some of them are named Vlieland said to be Hollander .
    Joannes or Johannes is the official name and Jan the common one.
    But now we have to tie and untie them .

    Tuesday 21 February 2012

    Johannis Hollander

    We just found the death of Johannis Hollander.Or Jan Hollander.
    Often the name Johannis was the official name and Jan the proper one for daily use.
    The age is not stated in this certificate so it could be Joannes Hollander or Jan Jansen Hollander .
    Not in Holland as suspected but on board of H.M.S Pandora and buried in Yarmouth.

    H.M.S.Pandora


    Here are the originals



    The story in the family as told by Herbert B.Vlieland .

    Our family was originally Dutch,but the last war between Holland and French,
    in a naval battle,my great grandfather,an admiral had his ship sunk under him and was shot swimming to another ship.
    His son was captain and taken prisoner".
    So far his story.

    appointments


    Kwartierstaat Katarina Fris


    Posted by Picasa

    Monday 20 February 2012

    Church of Saint Alfege, Greenwich

    Saint Alfege, Greenwich were Jerome Vlieland and Frances Samworth were married .


    from Wikipedia

    Sunday 19 February 2012

    H.A.Willey






    Henry A. and Emilie L.Willey
    In 1901 census they lived at 3 Pennsylvania Park, Exeter.
     Father Henry A 1864 civil engineer,
    mother Emilie L 1863,
    children: Lilian M 1890, Dorothy K 1891, Arthur V 1898 ; Thornton 1900.
    Also at the house were a domestic nurse, a housemaid,  a cook
    In the census it says that Emilie L is born 1863,
    Marriage Jun 1888 BARTLETT Emilie Louise x  WILLEY Henry Alfred Totnes  5b 379
  • Name: Emilie Louisa BARTLETT
  • Surname: Bartlett
  • Given Name: Emilie Louisa
  • Sex: F
  • Birth: 1863 in Totnes, Devon
  • Residence: 1881 Portland House, Totnes, Devon
  • Occupation: 1881 Draper's assistant
  • daughter of Frederick Bartlett and Eliza Blackler.

  • The Willey family were involved with the Vlieland family .Charles Vlieland was a friend of the Willey family.
    H.A. Willey was also Mayor of Exeter .So they attended the same party´s and openings.
    Clifford Peel was the godson  and page at the wedding of  their daughter.
    Their son A.H.Willey  died  very young. and had Vlieland for a second name .


    Henry was a Civil Engineer. There were two daughters Lilian and Dorothy and two sons Arthur and Thornton. The fact that there was a resident nurse at the house suggests that Arthur was possibly an invalid hence his early death.

    About Henry Alfred Willey we can read a lot more in Exeter Memories.
    H A Willey did not join the family firm immediately, but as a young man, attended Science and Art classes at the Exeter Museum, winning the Queen's prize for electricity and awards for chemistry, sound, light and heat. He then spent two years in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Italy, Switzerland and France, advancing his commercial and technical knowledge. When he returned to England, he joined his father at Willey and Co.

    When his father died in 1894, Henry Alfred took control and instigated a move of the foundry from their cramped, Shilhay premises, to Water Lane, Haven Banks. Within a short time, the young Henry Alfred Willey also expanded the meter manufacturing into new premises at James Street, off South Street.

    Willey acquired the rights to Stephen Simpson's patented automatic meter, the first to employ coin-in the-slot payment, and business flourished. Soon the James Street premises became too small, requiring it move down to the Basin factory.

    Henry Alfred Willey was a keen early motorist. In 1902, he purchased a car in Paris, drove it to the French coast and then after the crossing to Southampton, drove down to Exeter, no mean feat for the time. He is also credited with gaining permission to build the first private garage in Exeter from the Street Committee. Also in 1902, Henry Alfred Willey had talks with the Coventry Motor Company, with the aim of starting a motor manufacturing works in the city. It was planned that the company would produce 300 cars per year at a cost of £500 each - the projected set up cost of £47,500 to £65,000 proved to be too expensive and the project never happened. At his death at an early age of 41 in 1904, the family fortune had grown to £92,000.

    Memories of Willeys
    "I worked for two years as a Patternmaker's apprentice from '66 to '68. It was a busy "shop", the pattern shop. I worked alongside Mick Came, Steve Lendon and Tony West whose dad worked in the office. My dad, Donald Dare was the Foundry chargehand, spending all his working life in the trade and being elected several times as Labour councillor for Whipton Ward. Both my uncles, Charlie and Harry Cropp worked in the foundry, pouring metal and fettling, or grinding off imperfections after casting. A Mr. Charlesworth, I think, used to brick up the insides of the furnaces, I think there were two for cast iron at the time. There were a lot of blokes of all descriptions there during the 60's, and we had a marvellous canteen up a dodgy wooden stair just around the corner of the patternshop run by a bloke with an enormous hooter called Ernie, - him, not the hooter.

    Also, the most wonderful sports club just down water lane, made up of a couple of Nissen huts glued together. You could go there for a pint and a game of snooker. Willey's really did look after their employees, and you don't get this type of employment nowadays, where no-one's job is for life now.

    I used to have pictures of my dad sitting inside giant screws they used to cast for ships during the War."

    Contributed by Chris Dare

    It was in 1991 that the factory building in Water Lane, the place of work for so many Exonians, was demolished to allow the area to be developed. Apart from Willeys Avenue, and the Willey's Athletics and Sports Club in Water Lane, the one other reminder of the firm in St Thomas is the the Willey's family grave containing the remains of Henry Alfred Willey, which can be found in St Thomas Churchyard, and the grave of Henry Frederick Willey and his wife, Sarah Anne, in St David's Churchyard..





    His wife 

  • Name: Emilie Louisa BARTLETT
  • Surname: Bartlett
  • Given Name: Emilie Louisa
  • Sex: F
  • Birth: 1863 in Totnes, Devon
  • Residence: 1881 Portland House, Totnes, Devon
  • Occupation: 1881 Draper's assistant
  • Saturday 18 February 2012

    missing


    The ship named Wilhelmina, that brought them ashore,. tried to return to sea ,but through the storms was driven back on the Meuse and without being stopped or searched they reached Dordrecht.Two passengers who refused to be brought ashore in a small boat by heavy wind went to a hotel in Dordrecht.
    The crewmembers were Captain Jan Vlieland ,said Hollander of Rotterdam.,Johan Letzer or Litser of Zeeland and a Greek Constantino Variotto.
    With the helpof the landlord and of a tobacconist de Vos van Rijswijk. Hollander succeeded to sell his ship for 200 guilders to the van Helmont brothers .
    He had allready  bought himself a new ship,which he bought under the name of Captain Wullaart with the help of a customs facteur  Daniel de Bloot he obtained  a permit to sail from Zierikzee to Amsterdam.
    Hollander a conscript  was in 1811 while under  supervision of the `high police` escaped to England.
    the ship was in Dordrecht near tavern `the gold lion `



     During the night of 29 on 30 of November Pieter Messu ,Jan Baptista van der Voodt and Jan Vlieland said Hollander ,succeeded to escape from the ´madhouse´.
    They warmed the iron hinges of their beds in a peat fire and burned through a brett in their prison.
    After enlarging the hole , the went to the attick and lowered themselves,with blankets knotted together to a small alley . next to the madhouse on the highstreet.
    Marivault was furious about the escape.
    All his efforts to arrest these people were in vain.
    He took measures to capture those three men again.
    In the Rotterdam  newspaper   of 21/12/1813
    we find  the following.


    On the 25 November 1813 is missing a person dressed in a brown woolen vest, a long white linen shirt with 24 smooth silver buttons,silver watch, silver chain.Anyone who can point him out or return him to the madhouse in the highstreet  will be paid a huge reward .


    According to John Down ,who moved from Rotterdam to Amsterdam ,where he became professor of languages after the French time,
    Moore and May had the seal of Papenburg copied in Den Briel to obtain the necessary official papers .
    At the end of June Moore and May borrowed a boat from Captain Vlieland, they shipped 20 passengers to Den Briel with it .
    The shipping compamy did so well , that they bought a ship of their own and started a line on England.

    The clippings  are from the Rotterdam yearbook .And the Rotterdam newspaper .
    More about this trip or a similar one we can read in passage to Holland .

    The outfit of a gentleman in 1813 looked like this.Ablack woollen vest .A white linen shirt .
    This painting is` the fortuneteller .`