Some new documents have come to light from the National Archive

Part 12 London – Nevill’s Court Home of Horatio’s Father, Nathan James

In the 1881 census Nathan James, by this time nearly 80 years old, is listed as living as a lodger at no.9 Neville Court with the Hebditch family. He is stated as a solicitors managing clerk, so was probably still working.

Here's a piece i found about where he was living

A stone’s throw from the east end of the Record Office is one of the most curious unnoticed corners of old London. Go up Fetter Lane, which is the next turning to Chancery Lane out of Fleet Street, and at No. 34, close to the Moravian Chapel, you will see a narrow passage called Nevill’s Court. This passage leads you straight into one of the oldest bits of London still existing, for here in the very heart of newspaper land are little ancient seventeenth-century houses with cottage gardens. They give one the same feeling of unexpectedness as those other queer little wooden houses with their high gables that you may see in Collingwood Street, just on the other side of Blackfriars Bridge (I think it is the third turning to the right). They stand beside the church, just as they stood nearly three hundred years ago, when the Thames washed right up to their doorsteps.

Nevill’s Court’s, Fetter Lane, March 1910, demolished 1911, photographed by Walter L Spiers

14 & 15 Nevill’s Court, Fetter Lane, demolished 1911

At No. 6 Nevill’s Court, secluded in its walled garden, is a big seventeenth-century house, which must once have been inhabited by citizens of wealth and position. It is extraordinary that Time and the Vandal have left it still intact. I think the reason must be that they have never been able to find it, like those other old houses in Wardrobe Court near St. Paul’s, whose whereabouts certainly ought to be set as a problem in a London taxi-driver’s examination.

But before seeking the house, there is something to notice in Nevill’s Court. The main entrance to the Moravian Chapel is in Fetter Lane, at No. 33. I once went to the service there at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon under the influence of the story of the messenger sent while Bradbury was preaching, to announce Queen Anne’s death and the safety of the Protestant succession. I hoped to find something to remind me of the chapel’s great age: it is the oldest place of Protestant worship in London, going back to Queen Mary’s day, when persecuted Protestants are supposed to have met in the sawpit of the carpenter’s yard on this site.

Down the long, narrow passage, I found a bare, uncompromising chapel, with a high, wooden pulpit, that I looked at with more respect than its ugliness warranted, remembering that Baxter had preached here in 1672, and that John Wesley and Whitefield had addressed crowded congregations during the year Wesley spent with the Moravians between the time that he left the Church of England and the founding of the Methodist persuasion in 1740. The boundary line between St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, and St. Dunstan’s in the West is just in front of the pulpit, so the preacher and his congregation are in different parishes.

The chapel has been used by the Moravian sect since 1738, and as their lease does not expire for about another 250 years, it is not likely to change ownership, in spite of the dwindling congregation. (Fetter lane chapel was destroyed by German bombing in 1941)

It has been so many times restored and rebuilt that one gets a much better idea of the antiquity of the building from the back entrance in Nevill’s Court, for this is the only part that could possibly have existed before the Great Fire.

Part 11 His Ships

Part 11 His Ships

Horace served on many ships during his 20 years of service. Here is a list of all of the ships I have identified with pictures where possible. Several of the ships changed their names, which can cause confusion.

HMS Edgar (1858), a screw-propelled 91-gun second-rate launched in 1858, on loan to the Customs Service as a hulk in 1870, and sold 1904.

31 May 1859 - 22 May1861 Commanded by Captain James Edward Katon, flagship of Rear-Admiral John Elphinstone Erskine, second in command, Channel squadron
22 May 1861 - 10 July 1862 Commanded (until paying off at Portsmouth) by Captain George Pechell Mends, flagship of Rear-Admiral John Elphinstone Erskine, second in command, Channel squadron then (December 1861) second in command, North America and West Indies
11 July 1862

ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT LOG OF THE H.M.S. EDGAR

ATKINS William Edward,H.M.S. 'Edgar' passing the old three-decker 'Duke

HMS Cumberland (1862-3) was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 21 October 1842 at Chatham Dockyard. She carried a crew of 620 men. In March 1854 she sailed to the Baltic Sea as war with Russia was imminent (the Crimean War). Cumberland was involved in the attack on Bomarsund, Finland in August of that year. She was converted to serve as a training ship in 1870. Cumberland was destroyed by fire in 1889.

HMS Conqueror was a 120-gun Caledonia-class first rate launched in 1833 as HMS Waterloo. She was cut down to two decks and rearmed to 89 guns and converted to steam propulsion in 1859.  Following the loss of the modern 101-gun steam 2-decker Conqueror in 1861, Waterloo was renamed Conqueror in 1862.  In 1864 she served on the China station under the command of Captain William Luard, (including the bombardment of Simonosaki) and was paid off in 1866. In 1877 she was renamed Warspite and served as a training ship at Greenhithe/Wollwoch for the Marine Society. She was destroyed by fire in 1918, with 250 boys embarked at the time. Three teenage boys later claimed to have started the fire deliberately. They were charged for the alleged act and ordered to three years' detention at a reformatory.

.

HMS Waterloo 1833

HMS Warspite in Greenwich 1877

Admiral Sir William Garnham Luard KCB (7 April 1820 - 19 May 1910) was a leading British naval figure during the latter half of the 19th century.
He was awarded the Burmese War Medal for dispersing the pirates of Chin-a-poo and received the Medal of the Legion of Honour, 4th Class, from Emperor Napoleon III. He was named Rear Admiral in 1875, Vice-Admiral in 1879 and Admiral in 1885.
Luard was advanced to KCB by Queen Victoria in 1897, during her diamond jubilee year.
Luard married Charlotte Du Cane (an anglicization of the original French surname 'Du Quesne') in 1858. She was from another (see Jean Du Quesne, the elder and descendants), with landed estates at Braxted Park and Coggeshall. Admiral and Lady Luard had 11 children.
A staunch Liberal and supporter of Prime Minister William Gladstone, Luard retired to his estate in Essex where he served as a Justice of the Peace and as an active member of the court of Quarter Sessions. He died in 1910 as a result of injuries sustained in a carriage accident.[4]

HMS Formidable was an 84-gun second rate of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 May 1825 at Chatham Dockyard. In 1869 Formidable became a training ship, at the National Nautical School in Portishead, and she was sold out of the navy in 1906.

HMS Formidable

HMS Laperis? Could be HMS Pelorus?

HMS Seraphis

Troopship, just for the lift home.

HMS Hector

The first ship of her class of iron, steam propelled battleships. Launched in 1862. In 1874 the Hector was part of the Southern reserve Fleet, based in Southampton Water and used as a coastguard depot. It was captained by JHI Alexander.  In July 1874 it went into Portsmouth Dock for repair and refitting.

HMS Hector

HMS Duke of Wellington

HMS Duke of Wellington was a 131-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1852, she was symptomatic of an era of rapid technological change in the navy, being powered both by sail and steam. An early steam-powered ship, she was still fitted with towering masts and trim square-set yards, and was the flagship of Sir Charles Napier.

The Wellington was a training ship and the flagship of the Port Admiral at Portsmouth from 1869 to 1891 (with Nelson’s Victory becoming her tender), firing salutes to passing dignitaries, such as Queen Victoria on her way to Osborne House. The Captain at this time was Captain George Hancock.

The ship also supplied berthing to the Portsmouth Dockyard reserve which is likely where Horace was serving.

The Megaera Court-Martial was held on the Duke of Wellington on 30th November 1871.

HMS Duke of Wellington firing a gun salute in Portsmouth Harbour during her time as flagship there.

A group shot of the time on HMS Duke of Wellington. Is one of them Horace?

HMS Vigilant

was a wood paddle dispatch boat, built in 1871, and sold in 1886 to serve as a dispatch boat in Hong Kong.

Tu 3 October 1876 We 23rd May 1877

12 August 1876 Her Majesty's ship Topaze left Wosung this morning for the North with stores for the Detached Squadron, under the command of Rear-Admiral Lambert, consisting of Her Majesty's ship Narcissus (flag), Newcastle, and Immortalité, at this date about 140 miles from Chefoo, where they proceeded from Nagasaki on the 2d August. The unsettled state of affairs in China has prolonged the stay of the Detached Squadron, and it is not expected they will move south before the end of September or beginning of October. The Audacious, flagship of Vice-Admiral Ryder, Commander-in-Chief of the China Station, it at Chefoo. The despatch boat Vigilant, with Sir Thomas Wade, the British Minister at Pekin, and Vice-AdmiralRyder, left here on the 8th for Chefoo, where it is expected there will be an interview with Li Hung Ching, Commander-in-Chief of the Pechili Provinces. The Thistle is at Ohefoo, and the Mosquito has left here for Chefoo to act as despatch vessel between the Commander-in-Chief and the Detached Squadron. The Charybdis is senior officer's ship here. on the 7th of April, 1876. The squadron remained in Chinese waters during the negotiations between the two Governments, and visited Shanghai, Amoy, Japan, Chefoo, and Talien. When at Chefoo Admiral Lambert hoisted his flag on board the Immortalité, and proceeded to the Taku Forts, at the mouth, of the Peiho River. Here the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Ryder, and Staff, accompanied by Sir Thomas Wade and Admiral Lambert and Staff, proceeded up the river in the Vigilant and Mosquito to Tientsin, and thence to Pekin. Several officers of the Immortalité also visited Pekin and the great wall of China. Affairs having by this time been satisfactorily settled by diplomatic means, the squadron returned to Hongkong in November, 1876, and, having refitted, proceeded home, via the Mauritius, Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, Ascension, and St. Vincent, arriving at Plymouth on the 11th inst. http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=87 From The Times

HMS Charybdis

21-gun Royal Navy Pearl-class corvette launched on 1 July 1859 at Chatham Dockyard.She served on the East Indies Station and the China Station between 1860 and 1861. She sailed to Vancouver in early 1862 joining the Pacific Station. She served at the Pacific Station until 1867, when she was assigned to the Australia Station arriving in March 1867] She left the Australia Station on November 1868 and returned to the Pacific Station in early 1869.

As part of the Royal Navy's 1869 Flying Squadron, she visited a number of ports in South America, Australia and Japan before returning to Vancouver. In 1870 she sailed to Plymouth for refit. In 1873 she was assigned to the China Station and conducted anti-piracy patrols in the Straits of Malacca. During the Southern Malayan state disputes in 1874, she in conjunction with HMS Hart kept the peace.

In October 1880, she was lent to the Canadian government as a training ship, until returned by Canada in 1882. She was sold at Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1884 for breaking up.

HMS Charybdis

HMS Victor Emmanuel

A screw-propelled 91-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, originally launched as HMS Repulse, but renamed shortly after being launched.

Victor Emmanuel was an Agamemnon-class ship of the line, a class originally designed as 80-gun sailing two-deckers. They were re-ordered as screw ships in 1849, and Victor Emmanuelwas duly reclassified as a 91-gun ship on 26 March 1852.  She was built and launched on 27 February 1855 under the name HMS Repulse, but was renamed Victor Emmanuel on 7 December 1855, in honour of Victor Emmanuel after he visited the ship. She cost a total of £158,086, with £87,597 spent on her hull, and a further £35,588 spent on her machinery.

She served in the English Channel, the Mediterranean, and off the African coast during theAnglo-Ashanti wars. She was assigned to Hong Kong to replace HMS Princess Charlotte and used as a hospital and receiving ship there from 1873. She was sold in 1899.

HMS Tamar

A Royal Navy troopship built by the Samuda Brothers at Cubitt Town, London, and launched in Britain in 1863. She served as a supply ship from 1897 to 1941, and gave her name to the shore station HMS Tamar in Hong Kong (1897 to 1997)

HMS Tamar

The 1863 incarnation of HMS Tamar was the fourth to bear that name, which is derived from the River Tamar, in Cornwall, and the ship's crest is based on its coat of arms. Built in Cubitt Town in East London, she was launched in June 1863, and began her maiden voyage on 12 January 1864 as a troopship to the Cape and China.Tamar was dual-powered with masts and a steam engine, giving a speed of 12 knots. She originally had two funnels, but she was re-equipped with a more advanced boiler and reduced to one funnel.

In 1874, she formed part of the Naval Brigade that helped to defeat the Ashanti in West Africa, during the Ashanti War. Tamar took part in the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882.

In 1879, The British Medical Journal reported a group of sailors aboard the Tamar were poisoned by a bad pigeon pie which spawned an Admiralty investigation.

HMS Tamar (white vessel) anchored off the Naval Dockyard Hong Kong(1905)

The Anchor of HMS Tamar, now placed in Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence

In 1897 Tamar was hulked as a base ship and relieved HMS Victor Emmanuel as the Hong Kong receiving ship. She was used as a base ship until replaced by the shore station, which was named HMS Tamar, after the ship.

The Tamar had been towed out to a buoy on 8 December during the Battle of Hong Kong during World War II. Amidst a curfew of darkness and bombardment by the Japanese forces, the orders came at 2100 hours on 11 December to scuttle her. She was scuttled at the buoy on 12 December 1941 once it was clear that the advance could not be arrested, to avoid being used by the invading Japanese Imperial forces. As the ship's superstructure became airlocked, the ship refused to sink for some time, until the Royal Artillery was called in to administer the coup de grâce.[1]

A mast from this ship is now erected outside Murray House in Stanley, Hong Kong