Everyone brought up in Britain knows this painting. It’s probably JMW Turner’s most popular painting (it won a national poll in 2005), and one of his own personal favourites (he called it ‘my darling’ supposedly). Even the symbolism; the old juxtaposed with the new, the sun going down on Albion’s great sailing heritage, is altogether quite obvious. But the Temeraire is much more famous as a painted ship than a real one. How many of us know the battle she took part in (Trafalgar, most would hazard a guess at, correctly it turns out) or her illustrious role in it. And why has one of the Royal Navy’s most famous ships got a French name?
The painting’s full title reveals the nature of the Temeraire’s assisted journey – ‘The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up’[1] – but it does not reveal the location. The water’s millpond placidity might suggest a semi-enclosed waterway such as a river. This is also correct; she was broken up at Rotherhithe on the Thames, but the setting sun indicates the vessels are travelling in a broadly north-easterly direction. How can this be? Another apparent anomaly in the painting is in the ship itself. Why would a condemned sailing ship still be sporting masts and sails? This is even more incongruous when one learns of the Temeraire’s late career as a prison hulk. In fact, these are just two examples of the artistic licence that was taken by Turner in his depiction of this event. Two tugs were reportedly used to tow the ship, and the artist redesigned the one tug he did represent so that the funnel smoke did not obscure her ethereal burden. The 55-mile journey from Sheerness to Rotherhithe stretched over two days but steaming was confined to the morning and early afternoon, owing to the tides.
Temeraire was one of three units of the Neptune Class constructed during the French Revolutionary War. These 98-gun ships were known as ‘second rates’ because they carried fewer guns of a smaller calibre than first-rates such as HMS Victory. Nevertheless, second rates were usually superior in other areas such as speed and manoeuvrability. In fact, 74-gun ships of the line came to be regarded by the French as the optimum design, which when adopted by the British became known as ‘third rates’. The term’s derogatory connotations are thus a more recent phenomenon. Temeraire was a big second-rate, having only 6 fewer guns than Victory and being roughly equal in size. She’d been ordered at the end of 1790 but such was the productivity of a pre-industrial shipyard; her construction required the felling of an estimated 5,000 trees; that her launch at Chatham did not occur until the autumn of 1798. Like all contemporary ‘wooden walls’, she stayed afloat much longer than she stayed seaworthy, and only 15 of her 40 years of service were spent at sea.
Before covering herself in glory at Trafalgar, the Temeraire had been a ship of mutiny. This had occurred in December 1801, as the British government was locked in tense peace negotiations with Napoleon Bonaparte (a brief interlude which allowed a young Turner to sketch old masters at the Louvre). While stationed at Bantry Bay in southwest Ireland; site of a failed local rebellion and French invasion attempt in 1798, Temeraire’s crew got wind of a plan to despatch the ship to the Caribbean, where renewed tension was brewing. This was never a popular posting for sailors as it involved a long stretch at sea in a distant region prone to disease. The mutiny soon petered out and the ringleaders were rounded up. Two men received 200 lashes each, arguably a worse punishment than the yard-arm hanging inflicted on the other ten!
At Trafalgar, Temeraire was positioned second in line behind the Victory as Nelson’s windward column advanced languorously towards the French fleet. By this time, the Admiralty had long since discarded the gentlemanly practice of fighting parallel to an enemy line-of-battle, and Nelson and his second-in-command, Admiral Collingwood, to leeward were steering their columns directly into the French line in a fighting tactic known as the ‘melee’ or ‘pell-mell’. This tactic was not without its risks, as ships approaching at 90 degrees to a battle-line would be the first exposed to mass ‘raking fire; that is, fire that would potentially pass through the entire length of the ship. However, this threat was mitigated once the range fell below 1,000 yards. Moreover, raking fire was far more devastating at close range, and especially when directed at an enemy’s more vulnerable stern. Temeraire was a much younger ship than the Victory, and at some point in the tortuous 5-hour approach, either by accident or design, she started to overhaul the flagship. Piqued at this temerity, Nelson hailed a reprimand at the Temeraire’s commander, Captain Eliab Harvey, ‘thanking’ him to keep his ‘proper station’.
Having survived the initial cannonade from the French line, Victory virtually destroyed the fighting capacity of the French flagship Bucentaure with her first broadside, as she passed directly astern, killing scores of her crewmen. However, this left the British flagship exposed to the gunnery of next in line, Redoutable, including the musket fire that would mortally wound Nelson. Locked together, with crew of the French 74 preparing to board, it looked as if the Victory herself might be seized. However, before this could happen, the Temeraire came round the Redoutable’s starboard side and, in the words of the French captain, ‘almost at pistol range’, discharged a ‘murderous broadside’ into her, killing and wounding hundreds of men and swiftly reducing her to ‘a heap of debris’. Hopelessly entangled by fallen rigging with the two more powerful British vessels, the French captain was eventually forced to strike the ship’s colours.
It was at this point that another French 74, the Fougueux, became fouled with the Temeraire. Having been heavily damaged by an earlier engagement, she proved powerless to resist a boarding party led by Temeraire’s first mate, Thomas Fortescue Kennedy. Thus, Temeraire was credited not just with saving Nelson’s flagship from a humiliating capitulation but also with forcing the surrender of two of the enemy. Both prizes later foundered in a subsequent storm, taking with them a contingent of Temeraire‘s crew who had been placed aboard. With all her masts shattered and no functioning rudder, it’s no wonder Temeraire herself took eleven days to reach port at Gibraltar. Later repairs at Portsmouth took 16 months. There, the ship and her battle-scarred companions attracted large numbers of curiosity seekers, including, allegedly, a young JMW Turner.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 