by Roy Adkins
Apart from marking the site as a hazard to shipping, little more was done until 1834, when Charles Deane with his brother John started to salvage items from the wreck, including brass and iron cannons, using a new diving helmet. Similar in form to later helmets of diving suits, this one operated as a form of diving bell, because it was fixed to a jacket that was open, like a bell, at the bottom. It was the pressure of air pumped into the helmet that prevented water getting in, so long as the diver remained upright. The helmet was made to a design of Charles Deane’s by Augustus Siebe, a German engineer, who went on to found a business making diving equipment, while the Deane brothers made a career of diving for salvage.5
Newspapers had for some years been carrying stories about those believed to be the last survivors from the Royal George. The only woman definitely known to have survived, Betty Horn, was awarded £50 by William IV in 1836, when she was eighty-six years old and living in Wivenhoe in Essex.6 Doubtless the king remembered that, as a midshipman in the Prince George, he had twice sailed alongside the Royal George in convoys to Gibraltar. The wreck still posed a hazard to shipping in the busy naval anchorage at Spithead, but in 1839 Colonel Charles William Pasley of the Royal Engineers employed a team using diving suits developed by Siebe. He placed a series of explosives on the wreck to blow it apart, and occasionally large pieces of the ship floated to the surface that could be salvaged, while other items were lifted off the seabed. It took Pasley until November 1843 to finish clearing the site, and after he had finished, the wreck was obliterated and the site forgotten.
Bringing a semblance of normality back to Gibraltar took less time than clearing the wreck of the Royal George. The town of Gibraltar was reduced to ruins and would take years to clear and rebuild, but already by September 1783 Eliott was able to issue a proclamation that ‘the butchers are at liberty to erect stalls for selling their meat in the new market place’.7 George Cockburn served as an ensign and an aide-de-camp to Eliott, and on returning to Gibraltar in 1810 he recalled its appearance in the last year of the siege:
a dismantled town, a large garrison, and scarcely any other inhabitants, no shops. Shot and shells flying about, and lying in all directions, traverses of barrels, and many of the works, in particular the old Mole, almost in ruins from fire, no merchant vessels in the bay – no appearance of trade. The isthmus between Gibraltar and St Roque covered with works, camps, and all the implements of war. Fort Barbara on the Mediterranean, and St. Philip on the west, with their flags proudly flying: no living creature between the advanced posts of the two armies.8
At the time of his visit, the Peninsular War was raging in Spain, but in spite of the fighting against the French Napoleonic forces in the north, southern Spain was friendly to Britain. Although improvements were visible at Gibraltar, with some rebuilding, Cockburn was not entirely complimentary:
the town of Gibraltar is very poor and miserable in appearance: I never saw worse shops, and yet there is a great trade here. The Moles and Bay are now full of ships, and the view, taking in the Spanish mountains, Apes-hill, and Ceuta in Africa, is as beautiful as can be conceived ... The inns are the worst, and the innkeepers the most imposing in the world. Such imposition is very intolerable, for the necessaries of life are at present cheap. This place was always remarkable for drunkenness, and from what I see, it keeps up its character.9
The defences and other official buildings formed the most impressive part of the garrison, which were renovated before anything else:
They have all been repaired since the famous siege, and are in the most complete order. The convent where the governor lives, is also in good order, and well calculated to resist the heat, which this day is very great. The gardens have been much improved. A large handsome building [Garrison Library] has been erected by subscription in the town. The lower room contains a library, and the upper is used for the garrison assemblies, though I should think dancing in such a climate, anything but pleasure.10
To Cockburn, Gibraltar gave the impression of being on a peacetime footing, with a small garrison and little sign of the Spanish siegeworks that had once threatened the Rock. The only evidence that all the major European powers were fighting a world war was on the isthmus: ‘The neutral space about the Devil’s Tower is at present covered with miserable men, women, and children, who are half naked, and half starved, but who are encamped like gipsies all round the tower, and under the rock. On enquiry, I found these people had come from St. Roque and the neighbouring towns and valleys for fear of the French.’11 Some of those people fleeing the French also took refuge around the east side of Gibraltar, in the area known now as Catalan Bay, which they could reach without having to try to gain access to the fortress, something that was likely to be refused.
One innovation had been the establishment in May 1801 of the Gibraltar Chronicle newspaper. The year after Cockburn’s visit, in 1811, it translated and published an intercepted letter from an anonymous French officer to a friend in France, demonstrating why Spanish refugees had fled to Gibraltar:
We have been pursuing an Enemy who kept constantly flying before us. And yet, upon reaching St. Roch, two short leagues from Gibraltar, he offered some resistance, but seeing himself on the point of being overpowered, he retired under the walls of Gibraltar, protected by the land and sea batteries. As to us, we took up a position before St. Roch, in the presence of the English and Spanish troops, expecting every moment to be attacked, but although we remained full six days there, there was only trifling skirmishing.12
The officer went on to explain that, as they made their way south towards the Spanish coast, the French troops found the villages deserted, but were fired on in the mountain passes. They stopped for a few days at San Roque, the Spanish headquarters during the siege, and left it in a ruinous state: ‘We at length reached St. Roch, after driving the Enemy from it, but we did not find a soul in the houses, all of them having been abandoned. It is a pretty well-built town, of a regular size, but at present a heap of ruins because, the Division having encamped before it, the houses have been stripped and considerably damaged to furnish the camp.’ Unable to find anyone to fight, the French troops ran short of provisions and were forced to retreat. The officer complained that he had lost his baggage and was ‘without clothes and penniless’, though he was pleased to have had an opportunity to see Gibraltar from San Roque and considered it a very difficult fortress to attack – ‘all batteries over batteries’.13
Although the war continued outside, behind its defences Gibraltar was slowly returning to a peacetime existence. The signing of the peace in 1783 had brought an end to the devastation of the buildings and defences, and it also brought great changes to lives that had been shaped by conflict. In the years following the siege, soldiers had left to be replaced by others, and gradually the inhabitants returned from the various places where they had taken refuge. At first, Eliott remained as governor, very much in charge of everything, dealing with both military and civilian issues on a daily basis. In the months before Vernon’s arrival in 1785, Eliott had permitted various people to settle in the town itself, such as ‘Andreas Fluter, late of the Gibraltar Hanoverian Brigade’, who had come to Gibraltar in 1775 with his regiment. In the 1791 census, he is listed as Andrew Flewter, working as a shoemaker, and living with his wife from Ireland and their two young daughters. Eliott also allowed John Martin Baker, a forty-seven-year-old Protestant originally from London, to ‘establish himself as inhabitant and merchant taylor in this garrison’, but some were refused, like ‘Antonio Bayon, Spanish Deserter,’ who wanted to set up a school.14
Many soldiers disappeared back into civilian life once their regiments were disbanded, but others re-enlisted. Samuel Ancell was one of those who left the army, opening a military commission agency in Dublin, where he died in 1802. William Green returned to England and continued his army career, becoming chief military engineer of Great Britain. Despite the failure of his floating batteries, the French e
ngineer Michaud d’Arçon also found employment for many years on other sieges. The conquest of Minorca and his involvement in the siege of Gibraltar made the Duc de Crillon famous, and he was given the title of Duc de Mahon. He continued in the Spanish army until his death at Madrid in 1796 at the age of seventy-nine. Ten years later, the Spanish Admiral Don Juan Langara also died at Madrid, but had not accumulated wealth for a lavish funeral, as the Annual Register reported:
In consequence of his disregard of his private interest, he died poor, and his widow was in the greatest embarrassment how to provide a funeral adequate to his rank. The prince of peace [Manuel Godoy], being informed of this, wrote a letter to Madame De L. in which he expressed his regret at the decease of such a meritorious officer, and at the same time informed her that he would defray the expences of the funeral, which was performed with the utmost magnificence and splendour.15
The following year, in 1807, Houdan-Deslandes died suddenly at the age of fifty-three. By the time of the French Revolution, he was a captain, but because he did not support the principles of the revolution, he managed to leave the army and lived quietly with his family at Chinon, devoting himself to literature.16
At Gibraltar, Corporal Thomas Cranfield remained with his regiment, the 39th, for a few months after the siege, and at the King’s Chapel in October 1783 ‘he was married to a most amiable young woman, who had only just entered upon her sixteenth year. So great was the estimation in which the parties were held, that Lieutenant-General Boyd was present at the marriage, and gave away the bride.’17 She had been raised on Gibraltar, but they now left for England, and Cranfield wrote to his parents on reaching Southampton:
We had a long and tedious voyage. You must know, that since my last [letter] I have entered into a new state of life; that is marriage ... My wife’s name is Sarah Connolley, the daughter of a corporal in the [same] regiment, and bears an excellent character. Her father and mother have been very good to me; and before I left Gibraltar, gave me a house in the town, which at one time was worth fifty pounds; but when I came away, I could obtain no more than six guineas and a half for it. My wife is not yet arrived in England; for all the women are on board a transport ... My father and mother-in-law desire to be remembered to you both, and would be glad to carry on a correspondence with you. They hope that their daughter will be a credit to your family.18
Cranfield was reunited with his parents in London, where he discovered that his father had become fervently religious. He was persuaded to follow the same path and devoted the rest of his life to charitable works and establishing schools and Sunday schools for the poor. He died at the age of eighty in 1838 and was buried in the chapel graveyard at Collier’s Rents in Southwark. Having touched so many lives, his funeral procession was attended by hundreds of mourners, mainly teachers, former pupils and neighbours.
John Macdonald decided not return to Scotland at the end of the siege, but as his regiment, the 73rd Highlanders, was being disbanded, he joined the 25th. With the reduction of troops stationed on Gibraltar, he was subsequently discharged, but before sailing home his good friend George Mackay, who was Eliott’s steward, told him there was a vacancy for a butler. On Mackay’s recommendation, Eliott gave him the job, but because he had been injured Macdonald needed to return to England first of all to arrange his pension (as an out-pensioner) with the Chelsea Hospital Board. In March 1786 he was back in Gibraltar and then, the following year, sailed for England again with Eliott.
In London, Macdonald’s role was to prepare Eliott’s house in Charles Street, near Berkeley Square, the same house that another renowned general – Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson – would own some eighty years later.19 The reason for Eliott’s homecoming was to receive his peerage in July as Lord Heathfield, Baron Gibraltar, named after the village of Heathfield in Sussex, where almost two decades earlier he had purchased the Bailey (or Bayley) Park estate using his Havana prize-money. A year later, in July 1788 and now living in Great Marlborough Street, the once fit and resilient governor of Gibraltar suffered a stroke, as Macdonald described: ‘His lordship ... was suddenly seized with a paralytic stroke which almost immediately deprived him of the use of his left side, from the top of his head to the sole of his foot.’20
Two months later, Eliott drew up his will, no doubt fearing that he was beyond recovery. It took several months before he showed signs of improvement, and in March 1789, perhaps wanting to escape from the city, he ‘bought a large house with a garden and about twelve acres of pleasure grounds at Turnham Green, five miles from Hyde Park Corner’. Turnham Green was then a small rural village west of London, on the main coaching route. Unfortunately, Eliott suffered another stroke and was advised to go to the healing spa at Bath to take the waters. Macdonald and another servant stayed with him there until he was well enough to return to Turnham Green, though still affected down his left side, quite lame and relying on an invalid chair.21
A mile-and-a-half away, at Kew Palace, George III had also been very ill, and so in April his recovery was marked with huge celebrations across the country, particularly in the form of illuminations. At Turnham Green, Eliott put on a magnificent display and joined the procession from Kew Palace to St Paul’s Cathedral for a service of rejoicing. George Thomas Landmann, one of the guests, described the intricate fireworks and other incendiary devices that Eliott’s military colleagues prepared:
a party of the Royal Artillery, selected as the best firework makers, were employed in arranging the rockets and disposing of a collection of wheels, maroons, &c., but more particularly in manufacturing a large fire-ball to be erected on a strong iron pole, and placed on the top of the house. This fire-ball was in every respect similar to those used at Gibraltar during the last siege ... These men were also occupied in making various experiments for lighting all the lamps for some large and well-executed transparent paintings ... cotton-wicks dipped in spirits of turpentine leading from lamp to lamp, were cleverly arranged; ultimately communicating with the grand fire-ball which was three to four foot in diameter. Much care was required amongst so much fire to guard against the danger of destroying the premises; in consequence of which two fire-engines were procured, and kept in constant readiness to act in case of need.22
The celebrations lasted all day, a huge ox filled with potatoes was roasted on the green in front of the house, and Eliott also supplied casks of beer for the local people. Everyone then waited for the return of the king:
Between five and six of the evening of the day, whilst we were at dinner, the King passed along the high road on the opposite side of the green, on his return to Kew; upon which, as had been previously arranged, a royal salute was commenced on the top of the house with maroons. The loud reports called us all to the stone platform at the front of the house; and whilst Lord Heathfield, who had been wheeled in his chair to the door, was waving his hat to his Majesty, who had ordered his carriage to be stopped, and was leaning out of the carriage window, bowing and waving his hat in acknowledgement of the compliment, a large piece of the parapet-wall coping was thrown down by the repeated explosions: it fell to the ground with great force, grazing the left arm of his Lordship, but doing him no further injury. On returning to the dinner-table, he seized a bottle of port wine, filled a bumper, and standing up, enthusiastically exclaimed, ‘Here’s to the health of my beloved King—George the Third, God bless him!’23
Because Eliott was by now much improved, he decided to travel to Germany to try the waters at the spa of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), where he arrived in mid-June. ‘Soon after he took a country house at a place called Kalkhofen [Schloss Kalkhofen],’ Macdonald said, ‘about a mile from the town, to have the purer air. And from this place his lordship came every morning to town to bathe and drink the water. We stayed there until October and then returned to his lordship’s house at Turnham Green, where we spent the winter at home.’24
As a military commander, loved by some and loathed by others, Eliott had success
fully guided Gibraltar through the years of siege and still held the office of governor. He decided that the Rock was where he wanted to end his days, so he obtained permission from the king to return. Because he was not well enough to embark on a long sea voyage, and because France was now in the turmoil of revolution, a circuitous overland route was chosen. He therefore set off for Aix-la-Chapelle, arriving in May. Here he took the waters for several weeks, but suffered another stroke and died the next day, 6 July 1790, at the age of seventy-two. Rumour and gossip then erupted about a possible marriage, though Macdonald – who would have witnessed everything – remained loyal as a discreet butler and revealed nothing. The Gentleman’s Magazine reported conflicting gossip that Eliott had been due to marry on the day he died, but on the other hand they had heard his pension of £2000 per year was left to ‘his long-beloved Irish mistress, to whom, it is said, he was married at Aix-la-Chapelle, a short time before his decease’, and also that ‘he was married, and that he has settled a jointure of 400l. on his lady’.25
The Times sounded more authoritative: ‘The Lady to whom his Lordship meant to be united, and who would certainly have been his wife had not death stepped in, is the sister of a Lady of whom his Lordship was extremely fond, but she dying about ten years ago, he transferred his affections to the other who is about thirty-five years of age. His Lordship had for a long series of years been acquainted with the family.’26 Colonel Landmann and his family had been very close to Eliott, and his analysis is probably the most accurate: ‘At Aix-la-Chapelle, his Lordship met with a lady towards whom, in earlier days, he had felt much esteem, and probably sentiments of a more tender nature. Feeling himself rapidly sinking, and being anxious to provide for her future comforts, he offered to marry her, but died before the ceremony could be performed.’ Eliott’s will finally put an end to such speculation, because his estate passed to his descendants, apart from two specific bequests – £600 to Lieutenant George Frederick Koehler and £400 to George Mackay.27
