Gun carriage eyebolts

[allanyed]

I understand that the center eye bolt in the following cropped portion of the painting by Daniel MaClise (The Death of Nelson)  circa 1860, is for the training tackle, but what are the outboard eyebolts at the rear of the cheeks for?  These are Bromefiled pattern carriages.  I have not seen these on other carriage drawings but would like to see these on contemporary drawings if they are indeed supposed to be there.   Note that there is no handle on the quoin and I understand that they were not on all quoins.  Must have been a bit difficult to maneuver it without a handle.

Allan

 

 

 

[BANYAN]

Hi Allan,  I have wondered the same thing   My thoughts were that as they are slightly angled they may also have been used to assist in the 'training' of the gun.  The angle would maintain a 'straight pull' on the eyebolt as the rear of the carriage was hauled around, much more than comfortably achieved using levers alone?   Apart from assisting in moving the gun to an extreme angle of firing (chase?) it  is also possible these may have assisted in turning the carriage sideways as sometimes seen when the gun was stowed fore-and-aft for rough weather?

 

Another thought being that many naval carriages were also designed with the use in coastal batteries in mind (interchangeable).

 

I have attached a book that may help  Treatise on Military Carriages and Other Manufactures of the Royal Carriage Department_ W Kemmis (1874).pdf  A tad busy to search at the moment, but if I get a chance I will poke through this for you.

I have found some answers to my questions in this but it is a little limited in its naval carriage content.  Another useful reference has been the The Mechanics Magazine which was contemporary engineering magazine that often included discussions and illustrations of naval guns, carriages etc, especially patents.  If I get a chance I will have a scan through.  Also, Captain Boxer's 'Diagrams of Guns' may be useful if you can find someone with a copy.  Although mainly diagrams, there are sometimes helpful annotations on some fittings - unfortunately I don't have a copy as it is far too expensive for my pockets

 

Blomefield, and his successor 'Dundas' introduced many innovations for the mass production of guns and carriages around this period, and it would be great to find a good reference on their work.  Douglas (1855) and to some degree 'Garbett' both provide comprehensive discussions on naval gunnery but are a bit light on in their discussions of carriage fittings in particular.

 

Hopefully, of some use?

 

Pat

Edited January 14, 2021 by BANYAN

[allanyed]

Thank you Pat!!!

[Morgan]

Those eye bolts don’t exist on the 1800 pattern carriage drawing held by the NMM ref ZAZ7009, or in the Victory’s gunners notebook - William Rivers, I’ve attached both below.  They may be era specific, but I also recall seeing somewhere that these were used on French carriages as these were for the side training tackle rather than in the cheeks as the English did, I’ll try to recall where I saw this.

 

Gary

 

 

[druxey]

Yes, there was a move to run the breeching line through the large ring bolts in order to control a gun 'jumping' on recoil.

[BANYAN]

Hi again Allan, these eyebolts were in place in the 32 pdr 25 cwt  gun carriages fitted in HMCSS Victoria (1855 supplied by the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich.  These are of the Dundas Pattern, and only differ in having a rear chock rather than trucks, and a screw elevating device rather than a quoin.

 

cheers

 

Pat 

Edited January 15, 2021 by BANYAN

[BANYAN]

Allan, I took a quick look through Kemmis without luck.  I have found other examples of carriages showing these bolts, especially where the rear transom is sited further back, and this eye sometimes appears to be an extension of the securing through bolt as shown in the first illustration, but not in the second (from NMM).

 

  

 

 

One thing I did find in Douglas (1855) though, in that his illustrations used in describing the positions etc of crew when drilling, have the gun tackles extending to this position.  I am therefore reasonably confident they were used not just as gun tackles, but also to assist in pointing the guns (due to the angles).  i am no gunnery expert and may be very wrong in these assumptions

 

 

Sadly, there is a lot of info on 'gunnery' and the guns, but not for the carriages.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited January 15, 2021 by BANYAN

[Lieste]

For the inhaul tackle, for bringing a gun inboard without firing (either because it is unloaded, or because it has suffered a misfired/been doused).

[allanyed]

Thanks to all of you for your responses.   I note that none of the posted drawings show the breasts or cleats that came about in 1795.  Perhaps these items were short lived ideas.   These are shown on another section of the same painting below.  These cleats and breasts are also shown on drawings in Caruana for Blomefield pattern 32 pounder carriages of 1795.   I assume the gun in the painting is a 32 as it has a double block on the tackle and the lesser calibers all had two single blocks.

Allan

 

[Morgan]

Allan,

 

The same carriage is to be found at p129 of Lavery’s ‘The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War; 1600 - 1815’ (copy below), he dates it to c1815.  It could be that these were the carriages in place when the painting was undertaken many years later, we know Victory had later pattern saluting guns by then, presumably the carriages would also have been of a later pattern.  This wasn’t an uncommon problem, many Victorian painters did not allow for the fact the sharp had been transformed since 1805.  This would also explain the double block anomaly, the painting is supposed to be the quarterdeck where there were short 12-Pounders in 1805, but by 1860 may have had the short 32-Pounder saluting guns, those which are now positioned on the quayside adjacent to Victory.

 

 

In respect of the rear eyebolts apparently these were optional, whilst not the most academic book Osprey’s ‘Napoleonic Naval Armaments 1792 - 1815 has these as not always fitted, but says they are associated with the breaching rope, says no more than this.  But I must admit you see carriages with and without this eye from the late 1700’s to the mid 1800’s.  I had wondered initially if they were for older pattern cannon without the cast thimble for the breaching rope, but that doesn’t seem to hold up to scrutiny as Blomefield patter examples exist with and without those eyes.

 

Gary

Edited January 15, 2021 by Morgan

[BANYAN]

Gary, thanks for the post and pointer to 'Osprey’s ‘Napoleonic Naval Armaments 1792 - 1815'.  I will have to try and find a copy.  Those rear angled eyes just seem too small for a breeching rope, would love to determine how they were used.  

 

cheers

[Morgan]

I agree, although the depictions and photos I’ve seen have various size eyes, but whatever they won’t carry the main breaching rope.  The only way that I could see this would work relative to the breach rope would be if they were to accommodate lashings to constrain the breaching rope, possibly to help control the gun jumping when fired as the breach would rise as it pivoted on the trunnions. 
 

Gary

[dafi]

In one of the posts shown above there is the drawing of William Rivers. He was on Victory  from 31-05-1790 to 25-01-1812. Is it known to when dates the drawing?

 

XXXDAn

[allanyed]

Gary, excellent  and what should have been an obvious point for me that this painting depicts the QD and would have had 12 pounders in action at Trafalgar.    The cleats and breasts came about in 1795 and would have been in general use on all ships by about 1805  (Caruana page 379)   but he does not say if these features were peculiar to one or more sizes of  carriages.   The double and single block are  definitely an indication of a 32 so is probably incorrect and as the Maclise painting was actually done 50 years+ after Trafalgar, it is not surprising that there would be errors of some sort in the details.  

Allan 

[Morgan]

A little more digging has yielded some further information.

 

In an article in The Mariner’s Mirror in November 1952 by JD Moody he has the following to say:

 

“In the late eighteenth century ‘horns’ were added to the front edge of the brackets [cheeks] to butt against the port sill when the gun was run out.  The first I have seen are those on the Royal George carriage, where they are nailed on.  Later they appear as an integral part of the lower planks of the brackets.  (These were made of two planks dowelled and bolted together.). They are referred to in 1810 as showing that a certain carriage was old fashioned, but engravers continued to show them until the 1830’s, though often in side elevation and not in plan view.  They had something to do with the amount of tumble-home of the ship’s side and the necessity for keeping the fore-trucks clear of the waterways, but it seems that they were eventually replaced by a curved chock attachment to the port sill, suggested in 1809 and in general use in 1827.”

 

“Yet another obscure addition was the use of side cleats.  These were triangular pieces of wood nailed to the outer sides of the brackets, just in front of the breast bolt.  They were usually calibre in width and occupied about two-thirds of the depth of the bracket, with the narrow sloping edge on top.  I have not been able to trace their use, as there seems to have been no need to reinforce the carriage at this point, but they lasted from the turn of the century till about 1830.  …..  Tackle loops were placed vertically on the last step of the brackets, being the upper end of the rearmost hind-axletrees bolts.  Later these ‘endloops’ replaced the older sideloops, but on models of about 1827 both kinds are to be seen in use together.  They probably indicate a greater use of tackles in the training of the gun.”

 

I understand the reference to the Royal George means the ship which sank at Spithead in 1782, earlier parts of the article state that a carriage was recovered from the wreck and displayed at the Victory museum, I have yet to locate any images or references.  This would now be the NMRN Museum Portsmouth.

 

This information doesn’t sit with Lavery that I quoted above as his reference to the 1815 drawing suggests a later use, whilst this is earlier.

 

I do wonder if these side pieces were nothing more than a sacrificial addition to protect the cheeks from chafing and damage by the breaching rope when fired.  If the rope were to act directly on the front edge of the cheeks you could envisage it causing damage to the vulnerable end grain, whereas these fittings would keep the rope away.

 

The NMM also have a model of an undated gun carriage (SLR2896) that has the side fixtures, but not the frontal horns, it's suggested dates are merely 1800 - 1900.

 

 

Daniel - the 'Rivers' image is undated, I'll be visiting Portsmouth and the NMRN library when it reopens I'll make a note to have a look.

 

Gary

 

 

[druxey]

Morgan: I would agree with your assessment of the 'stand-off' effect of the cleats, as well as preventing the breeching from hanging up on top of the front of the cheek.

[BANYAN]

Thanks for that Morgan; also adds weight to my earlier thoughts on the use of those end eyebolts in that they were the aft through bolt )of the axletree/transom, did replace the side bolts eventually, and were used to assist training of the gun.

 

Many thanks for that pointer.  I will have to chase down a copy of that article in MM.

 

cheers

 

Pat