by Guy Warner
Neville would have been present at an end of term ceremony in 1897 or 1898 when the famous admiral, who was giving away the prizes, made the usual stirring speech about the glorious history of the Royal Navy and the many victories won against the old enemy. As he came to a climax he beseeched the cadets never to forget St Vincent and Trafalgar in particular, thumping his fist into his other palm for emphasis, at which the French were firmly put in their place. The rousing speech did not go down too well with the four French officers, attending as guests of the captain, nor with the cadets who sat in embarrassed silence; it was, ‘a melancholy frost.’17 He may also have received some most irregular, but doubtless very enlightening, extra-curricular education, as more than one cadet noted that the daughter of the canteen manager was prepared to raise her skirts for interested onlookers for the sum of one penny.18 Perhaps Britannia did not provide a fully-rounded education, but she certainly had her unique selling points.
Cadets receiving their pocket money.
Sea Training
From September 1898 to March 1902, Neville Usborne served as cadet midshipman (from 15 August 1898), progressing from ‘wart’ to ‘snottie’ and sub-lieutenant (promoted 15 March 1902). His first ship was the Majestic Class battleship of 14,900 tons, launched in 1895, HMS Prince George. (This was the last RN battleship class to have twin side-by-side funnels, the first to have design uniformity, and the first with fully enclosed 12-inch gun turrets protecting the gun breeches and shell handling machinery.) Then came the Canopus Class battleship, HMS Canopus, of 12,950 tons, launched in 1897 (which set the pattern for pre-Dreadnought battleships), with detached duties in Torpedo Boat No 96, of 130 tons, launched in 1893; the sail training ship HMS Cruiser of 1130 tons (built as a wooden screw sloop in 1852 and converted to sail in 1872 to give young officers and seamen experience handling a square rigged ship – the last squadron of naval ships to put to sea under canvas was in 1899) and the store ship HMS Tyne of 3650 tons, launched in 1878. Most of his service during these years was in the Mediterranean and around the British Isles. He kept two meticulously written and beautifully illustrated logbooks – so his handwriting must have improved under naval tutelage. Technical drawing was not neglected; the pen, ink and watercolour illustrations were both decorative and analytical in nature. Completing the log was a compulsory part of a midshipman’s training; it was inspected regularly by a supervising officer and by the captain.
The late Victorian Royal Navy; a Lieutenant with Midshipmen and a Cadet.
HMS Prince George.
HMS Cruiser.
Top and above: Three pages from Midshipman Neville Usborne’s Logbook, showing the great care he took with his handwriting and sketching. (via Sue Kilbracken)
The log records a visit to Lough Swilly and then to Belfast Lough in July 1899, as part of the Channel Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Harry Rawson. HMS Prince George was one of twenty-seven warships taking part in naval manoeuvres. There was considerable interest in the local newspapers, The Northern Whig and the Belfast Evening Telegraph:
‘Never before was there such a formidable fleet of war vessels in Belfast Lough as that which now lies off Bangor.’19
Vice Admiral Sir H.H. Rawson.
The object of the manoeuvres, according to the Admiralty, was:
‘To obtain information as to the most advantageous method of employing a considerable body of cruisers in conjunction with a fleet.’20
A secondary objective was:
‘To throw some light on the relative advantages and disadvantages of speed and fighting strength, and the working of destroyers and torpedo boats.’21
Thousands of spectators descended on the seaside resort of Bangor to view the warships from the shore and also to take passage on pleasure boats offering trips around the fleet. A two-hour cruise from Donegall Quay, Belfast, on the Barrow Steam Navigation Company’s ‘Fine Paddle Steamer’, Manx Queen, was advertised at 1/6 (seven and a half pence). The warships were described in detail in the newspapers, it was revealed that HMS Prince George, completed in 1896 at a cost of £885,037, displaced 14,900 tons, carried four twelve-inch and twelve six-inch guns, engines which could develop 12,000 horse power, had a complement of 757 and was commanded by Captain Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, RN, Bart. Young Neville Usborne noted in his log that visitors came aboard after Divine Service on Sunday, 23 July. The following day was much less enjoyable no doubt, as it was spent in coaling ship, a backbreaking and messy business shifting an average of seventy-three tons per hour, three of which Neville spent in the hold at the sharp end of the toil. After several days of further drills and evolutions, the fleet weighed anchor on 29 July and proceeded to sea to, ‘clear for action and commence hostilities against B Fleet.’22 The fleet must have made a magnificent spectacle painted in the old colours: red boot-topping, black sides, white upper works, and yellow masts and funnels. It would be another four years before the general order was given to paint all ships grey to reduce their visibility (apart from destroyers, which were to be black in home waters and white in the Mediterranean).
HMS Canopus.
In late 1899 he was posted from the Prince George to join Canopus, which was commissioning for the first time, and was allowed to proceed by packet ship in order to have time for home leave. In Usborne’s case the packet ship was the Orient Line’s SS Oroya of 6057 tons, on its regular passage from Australia to England, in which he embarked at Gibraltar on 20 November. During his time serving on Canopus he received two cash prizes of £10 and £3, awarded to junior officers afloat for proficiency in French and German.
Greenwich and Excellent
He left the ship for the RN College, Greenwich, in March 1902, with a highly satisfactory report from Captain H.S.F. Niblett, being graded very good in respect of General Conduct, Ability and Professional Knowledge, noted as having temperate habits, winning praise for a good colloquial knowledge of French, German and Italian, and being described as physically strong, zealous, very able and promising. At Greenwich, he took his oral seamanship examination. This took the form of a gruelling grilling, which could last for several hours, from a board composed of two captains and a commander. He passed with 912 marks out of a possible 1000 and was awarded a first-class certificate, which meant promotion to acting sub-lieutenant. Life at Greenwich in those days was described as follows:
‘The sudden transition to the college at Greenwich (from service at sea), in close proximity to London, with considerable freedom and increased pay, proved too much for the majority, who laid themselves out to have a good time. Of course there were some level-headed ones who worked hard, and others, more gifted than their companions, who absorbed the necessary knowledge and yet managed to find time to enjoy themselves, but these were a minority. The college never got the return it should have had for all the trouble taken over sub-lieutenants’ education.’23
It would appear that Usborne was either clever or studious (or both), as, over the next fifteen months, there was further study and examination in navigation (parts I and II)24 and pilotage, proficiency in which was examined at the Hydrographic Department in the Admiralty building in Whitehall. The course then migrated to the Royal Naval College, just inside the dockyard gates at Portsmouth, for the gunnery course at Whale Island and the torpedo course at Devonport. The experience was described by one of Usborne’s contemporaries, who had entered Dartmouth in 1897, just a term before him, but who was a member of the same course, as follows:
‘We lived here, went down each morning to the Excellent steps, and were ferried across the harbour to Whale Island – otherwise HMS Excellent, the Alma Mater of naval gunnery – for the day’s work. Here everything possible was done to make miserable the lives of the sub-lieutenants. We were chivvied and bullied. Maybe we deserved it; but I cannot believe it was necessary, or that it did us any good. Being shouted at on parade, or for some minor fault, merely made me feel mutinous. I was glad to get away from the detestable place on 13 March 1903, with a second-class
in gunnery, and a certificate awarded at the end of our courses stating that I had conducted myself with sobriety, but that my general conduct was not satisfactory. This smudge on my character was quite unjustly bestowed, but fully in keeping with the general atmosphere that then prevailed at Whale Island, which was harsh and inhuman. I believe my bad certificate was due to the following incident. At the end of the examination we had to return all the leather equipment and gaiters with which we had been issued to a hut on the parade ground. After a good lunch about six of us set out to do this. We found the hut locked and nobody inside, as there should have been. Not wishing to be delayed and to miss the boat to the mainland, we threw the gear in through the open window. One of the party, making insufficient allowance for a good lunch, broke a window, while an inkpot was upset and the hut generally in a mess when the storekeeper returned. So all of us were served out with these unfavourable certificates. I afterwards heard that, with the exception of myself, they all complained and managed to get them altered. I never heard of this, so my certificate as originally written is one of my proudest possessions. We next went to the Vernon for a six weeks’ course in torpedo. Here conditions were far more human. The instruction was good; we learnt a lot.’25
Usborne gained first-class passes apart from Part I navigation, in which he scored a second-class pass. He was awarded the Ryder Prize of £10 for this achievement.26
Developments in Military Ballooning in the 1890s and early 1900s
While Neville was learning his trade, a permanent Balloon Section and Depot RE had been formed in May 1890, with appropriate provision being made in the Army Estimates, moving from St Mary’s Barracks, Chatham, to the south camp in the Royal Engineer Lines at Aldershot in 1891. It now numbered three officers, three sergeants, and twenty-eight rank and file, with Templer having been promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed Officer-in-Charge of Ballooning. It was about this time that an early army aeronaut was reproved for being without helmet, sword, sabretache or spurs whilst on duty, none of which would have been either necessary or sensible by way of flying kit.27 In the words of a former officer-in-charge of the Balloon Establishment:
‘This may be regarded as the termination of the experimental stage and the recognition of balloons as a necessary adjunct of the army.’28
Military balloons were now classified into five types according to their capacity: A class: 13,000 cubic feet (368 cubic metres), V class: 11,500 cubic feet (325 cubic metres), T class: 10,000 cubic feet (283 cubic metres), S class: 7000 cubic feet (198 cubic metres) and F class: 4500–5000 cubic feet (127–142 cubic metres). Steady improvements had also been made to the rigging, nets, valves and other accessories. A new pattern of gas cylinder had been introduced, of greater capacity and efficiency.29
Balloon transport in 1890, showing a balloon wagon, two of the three tube wagons and an equipment wagon. Major C.M. Watson, RE, is in command.
Another aspect of early army aviation was the man-lifting kite. Major B.F.S. Baden-Powell, Scots Guards, the brother of the founder of the Boy Scouts, developed a kite for reconnaissance and persuaded a sapper to be taken aloft by this means on 27 June 1894. His kites were used during the Boer War for observation and photography. Later, the Texan, Samuel Franklin Cody, was employed by the War Office to experiment with observation kites on Woolwich Common and as a kite instructor in the Balloon Section of the Royal Engineers at Farnborough. If being in the wicker basket of a balloon felt vulnerable, then the prospect of dangling from a kite a few hundred feet in the air above a battlefield must have been a proposition for only the very brave or the most foolhardy.
The Royal Engineers in 1893. Lieutenant H.B. Jones is in the basket. (Museum of Army Flying)
A balloon and kite winch with a kite.
[Author’s note: Major B.F.S. Baden-Powell (1860–1937) made his first balloon ascent in 1881. In 1894 he was attached to the Balloon Section at Aldershot, and made numerous ascents over the next decade and more. He joined the Aeronautical Society in 1880, becoming Honorary Secretary in 1896, founding the Aeronautical Journal in 1897 and being appointed President in 1902. On 27 June 1894, he was the first to be taken aloft by a man-lifting kite. These were later used during the Boer War for reconnaissance and photography. In 1908 he was the second Englishman to fly with Wilbur Wright.]
An article appeared in the Strand Magazine in 1895, which gave a very detailed and interesting description of the work of the Balloon Section:
‘The next European war will be a strange and fearful thing; everyone seems pretty sure about that. Writers of fiction with strong imaginations and a smattering of military science are constantly producing forecasts of this fascinating subject. We learn that Mr Maxim’s guns will be very much to the fore; probably also, Mr Maxim’s embryonic flying machines. Then we hear of messenger dogs, swarms of poisonous flies, and, above all, – in a dual sense – war balloons, whose mission will be to drop charges of dynamite and things of that kind upon all and sundry whom it is advisable to destroy.
‘All this leads up to the fact that we have a full-blown School of Ballooning at Aldershot, under the direction of Colonel Templer, whose name for many years has been associated with advanced military science, especially as regards the war balloon. The school at Aldershot is at present established in the Stanhope Lines, where large buildings have been erected on what was, a few years ago, nothing but a dangerous swamp. Colonel Templer is assisted in his very interesting work by Sergeant-Major Greener; and the accompanying group shows the entire staff of the first division of the Balloon Section when in the field, i.e. these men work the balloon.
‘Without exception, these men are enthusiasts in their work, and, although they are associated with what may be described as the most interesting and novel branch of the service, they themselves are by no means inflated. At any rate, there is very little doubt that the British taxpayer got his quid pro quo – and perhaps a little more – in return for last year’s ballooning grant, which was rather less than £3,000.
‘Colonel Templer generates his own gas from diluted sulphuric acid and granulated zinc. The lifting power of the hydrogen generated this way is much greater than that of ordinary coal-gas, but then its cost is much more. When manufactured, the hydrogen is compressed at ‘100 atmospheres’ pressure and stowed away, so to speak, into huge Siemens steel cylinders, each averaging about 90lbs in weight. Ten of these elongated tubes are placed, for conveyance to the field of battle, upon admirably contrived wagons, usually drawn by horses; of course, under certain conditions, the gallant Colonel could utilize the baggage train, of which he is so great an advocate.
A group photo proudly displaying a sign reading Balloon Section. (The Strand Magazine – Charles Knight)
Inflating a war balloon. (The Strand Magazine – Charles Knight)
‘It takes, as a very simple calculation will immediately show, two wagon loads of gas to inflate a balloon of 10,000 cubic feet capacity, such as shown in the accompanying illustration.
‘Here we have the working staff, with two lieutenants in command of the section, the wagon and its team, and lastly, the inevitable crowd of curious onlookers, with the still more inevitable sprinkling of the small boy genus, without which no operation of the kind would be complete.
‘The man standing upon the car affixes one end of a screw nozzle to the mouth of a gas cylinder, while another of the engineers places the connecting tube to the nozzle of the balloon. The man on the car then gently turns on a very nicely constructed valve, which permits the compressed gas to leave the cylinder only at a very moderate rate. The balloon inflated, we will suppose that Lieutenant Hume and a brother officer are told of the duty of reconnoitring the enemy’s position. The two officers take with them a map of the surrounding country, on the scale of two inches to the square mile. Of course, they are provided with field glasses, and the moment they discern the enemy and are able to gauge his strength, they make certain notes upon the map, using for this purpose pencils of various colours; one
colour denotes cavalry, another infantry, and so on.
‘In the next picture we see that everything is ready; the crew are on board, and the men who are holding the giant captive are awaiting the order to “Let go”. The moment this order is given the immense aerostat shoots straight up like a rocket, but pressure is gradually brought to bear on the connecting rope, and, when at an altitude of several hundred feet, the upward course of the huge machine is checked, and it sways gently to and fro, while the skilful officers in the car anxiously scan the magnificent prospect of country far below them. The moment any definite information is obtained as to the enemy’s movements, the map spoken of above is marked according to such information and then placed in a canvas bag to which a ring is attached in such a way that it glides swiftly down the rope to the ground, where a mounted orderly is in waiting. The orderly immediately gallops off with the very latest intelligence to the general in command.
‘The British war balloon has long since ceased to be manufactured from silk – though this material is even now generally used by professional parachutists and aeronauts for their “envelopes”. After many experiments, however, a perfectly impermeable material has been manufactured from ox-gut by a series of secret processes.
Awaiting the order to ‘Let Go’. (The Strand Magazine – Charles Knight)
‘It is an interesting fact that in the manufacturing shed at Aldershot, women are employed in the making of the balloons, which are for the most part of a capacity equal to 10,000 cubic feet, and have, when fully inflated, a lifting power of something like 700lb.
‘There are at present in the storeroom at Aldershot, thirty-two fully equipped balloons, ready at an hour’s notice to go on active service; and what is more, if, in actual warfare, they are found as useful as they have been in manoeuvres, their actual value will not have been at all overestimated.
