A few days ago, I was rummaging through a box of wills when
I noticed something odd. Amongst the wills of those who died in 1703, and
unusually high proportion had died aboard a ship. Closer inspection revealed
that each of the thirteen Yorkshire men who died in December 1703 had died
on one of five ships. Immediately my curiosity was piqued. I knew that in 1703
England had been embroiled in the War of Spanish Succession. Perhaps there been
a disastrous naval battle? However, the answer turned out to be far more
prosaic; not a naval battle, but bad weather.
On the afternoon of November 26th 1703[1],
Daniel Defoe noticed that the mercury in his barometer had dropped unnaturally
low; so low that he assumed that his children had been playing with the instrument
and had damaged it. That night southern and central England was hit by an
extra-tropical cyclone, unprecedented both in its ferocity and duration. Diarist
John Evelyn wrote that the storm was “not to be paralleled with anything
happening in our age or in any history.” In London, the damage was extensive.
Lightning started fires in both Greenwich and Whitehall, while the wind was so
strong that nearly 2000 chimneys were blown down and the lead roofing was blown
off Westminster Abbey. Some, fearing that the roofs would collapse above their
heads, tried to take shelter outside, only to find that roof tiles were
whirling through the air. Those living near St. James’s Park also noticed that
fish from the park’s lake had also been swept up by the wind and sent flying.
So many roofs were damaged that there were genuinely not enough tiles in
England to replace those that had been lost or broken. The damage was not
restricted to London. According to Defoe, windmills across the country span so fast that the
friction generated caused them to spontaneously combust. The winds in Kent were so
fierce that they lifted a cow into a tree. There was also severe and prolonged
flooding, especially around Bristol. The River Severn rose a full eight feet
and spread mile from its bank, destroying farms and killing livestock on the
way.
As is to be expected under such conditions, the seas became
incredibly rough. Eddystone Lighthouse in Plymouth was completely destroyed and
swept away. A boat in Kent was picked up by the wind and waves and washed 800
feet inland, while a ship on the Helford River in Cornwall was torn from its
moorings and eventually washed up eight hours later in the Isle of Wight. Meanwhile,
the HMS Association was blown all the
way from Harwich in Suffolk to Gothenburg in Sweden. For the Royal Navy, the
storm could not have come at a worse moment. They had been planning an assault
on Cadiz, but strong winds in the days leading up to the storm had prevented
ships from crossing the Channel. Instead, they were gathered, along with a
collection of mercantile ships, at the mouth of the River Thames. Almost none
of the ships sheltering here survived intact. Many were wrecked upon Goodwin
Sands. As Goodwin Sands is largely uncovered at low tides, many sailors were
able to climb onto the sands to await rescue. However, the ferocity of the
storm meant that few rescue boats ever arrived. It’s estimated that nearly 1500
sailors were killed on Goodwin Sands alone, including the entire crews of both
the HMS Northumberland and the HMS Restoration. In the Great Storm of 1703,
the navy lost 13 ships and approximately one-fifth of their men.
This explains why so many of the testators in December 1703
had died aboard ship; they were all naval men who died upon Goodwin Sands. Looking
at these wills more closely it becomes apparent that all thirteen were proved
at the same time. Each bond is written in the same hand, with Lovell Lazenby acting as a witness to the majority of them, and each of the inventories of the
deceased men’s goods has been written up by the same person. None of the men
left very much. Edward Postgate and Christopher Abbott both left nothing more
than one month’s back pay[2].
Both Christopher Abbott and Edward Moore’s inventories note that they did have
more in “purse and apparail,” but that this too had been lost in the ship
wreck. A few of the men were slightly better off. Both William Easingwold and
Joseph Hunt were recorded as having owned “books and instruments,” while Robert
Coats owned a chest and towels. Only three wives (Mary Thorpe, Isabell Wolfe
and Ann Abbott) were named as executrixes. Both Edward Postgate and Henry Lund
named their sisters as their executrixes. Six of the men left their goods in
the care of their parents, while Samuel Bramman chose his “Loveing Friend Grace
Baker, Widdow…or her son Lawrence if she be Dead.” As such, it seems safe to
deduce that many men who joined the navy were fairly poor, unmarried, and young.
They also seem to have been aware of the dangers they were facing. Samuel
Bramman wrote that he made his will “considering the Dangers of the Seas and
the Frailty and Uncertainty of this Transitory Life.”
Perhaps the most interesting of all of these wills is that
of Lancelot Thorpe. His will, clearly written by a professional scribe, leaves
just over £12 worth of goods to his wife. Yet, on the back of his will are two
notes written in his own hand. The first epistle is to his wife, Mary. He
starts by explaining that he “did aske <th>e ofesers [officer’s] advice”
when writing his will, to make sure that everything would be made as easy as
possible for Mary. He had noticed that a “great maney of our men dieth be for
thay ken get thar willes wret,” and wanted to ensure that he was not in the
same position. He wishes her “all <th>e Joy (and) Comefor that I have”
and requests that she “doe not falle to write.” He then writes a longer note to
his daughter. I’ve not been able to find her birth record, but as Mary and Lancelot
had married in 1696, it’s unlikely that she was any older than six. He writes
that he is “Rejoyesed boath in hart (and) seowle [soul] to heaeyer that you are
seoe tendr and Dutifull to your der mother.” He reminds her of the love both he
and Mary have for her, before entreating her to remain dutiful to her parents,
keep good company and to look after the good of her soul. He writes: “if it
plese god that you leive to be a mother of Cheildren you may find some of my
words treu.” Personal messages are rare within probate files, so this
hand-written note is a fortunate and very sweet survival.
The Great Storm of 1703 had a monumental impact upon the
public consciousness. As with many great disasters of the day, it was believed
the storm was a divine punishment, sent from God to punish England for their
poor performance in the War of Spanish Succession against the Catholic
Bourbons. January 19th 1704 was declared to be a national day of
fasting to ask for forgiveness and mercy, and the Great Storm continued to be a
common topic of sermons and homilies well into the nineteenth century. The physical
effects of the storm were also felt for years after the event. The flooding
round Bristol caused the land to become saturated with salt water. As a result,
for years afterward the grass grown in this area had a salty taste to it, which
in turn caused the animals that grazed upon it to be in poor health. One man in
Somerset wrote to a local newspaper that the worst impact of the storm had been
the loss of the local orchards. Thanks to their disappearance, there would be
no cider the following year – a true tragedy! However, the reason this storm
remained within public consciousness can also be partly put down to the fact
that it coincided with the advent of English journalism. As such it was the
first weather story to be reported as national news (a tradition we have
continued ever since). Special broadsheet were produced and circulated across
the country given details of the storm and the damage it had caused. Similarly, in the days following the storm,
Defoe put an advert out in many pamphlets and broadsheets requesting that
people write to him with their own impressions and tales of the storm. These
were put together into a book simply titled The
Storm first published in July 1704. Surviving copies of this book is where
the vast majority of current knowledge about the storm has stemmed from, and it remains a fascinating read.
As an interesting side note, the damage sustained by the
navy during the Great Storm of 1703
meant that they never did attack Cadiz.
Instead they changed the focus of their attack to the much smaller and less well-defended
Gibraltar. The attack was successful, and Gibraltar was ceded to the British.
So if you’ve ever wondered why Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, it
turns out the weather is to blame.
