A brilliant January meeting featured Rear Admiral Angus Essenhigh. His varied and interesting career includes two ice patrol seasons commanding HMS Protector in and around Antarctica, HMS Daring’s 9-month global circumnavigation, and 21 months in command of HMS Queen Elizabeth. He is currently National Hydrographer.
His talk entitled Nautical Charting: Past, Present and Future led us on a brisk review of the history of the Hydrographic Office from its establishment in 1795 under Alexander Dalrymple. Chart printing moved to Taunton in the 1930s, with the first digital charts produced in the 1990s. Today’s multi-layered interactive charts support previously unimagined features such as optimised loading, routing and pacing of merchant ship voyages, and autonomous ship operation. Angus’ father was a previous National Hydrographer, so he was able to illustrate the pace of change from family experience. The talk provoked a lively Q&A session and audience reactions after the meeting were universally positive.
John Tims volunteered on retiring from local government to help transcribe, record and index historical records held by Portsmouth City Council. Two packages of papers from that work inspired his talk on Sir William Sidney Smith and HMS Diamond. In 1795 – coincidentally the same year as the foundation of the Hydrographic Office – Sidney Smith was ordered to find out if the French fleet had, as reported, left Brest. Flying a tricolore as a ruse de guerre he entered the estuary and confirmed that it had. The next challenge was to get out, in the face of increasing enemy suspicion. This involved passing four anchored line-of-battle ships, any one of which could sink him with a single broadside. Seeing that the nearest was disabled he passed close to her stern and asked in fluent French if she needed any assistance. The answer was no, but the friendly exchange allayed concerns elsewhere and he made good his escape.
The following year his luck ran out in an attempted cutting-out expedition at le Havre. He and his crew were taken prisoner. The first-hand accounts of these escapades were riveting and held the room’s attention throughout.
See our Events page for details of forthcoming attractions.