HMS Association

1707

Scilly, longitude miscalculated, four ships in an hour Location: Gilstone Ledge, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall · Coordinates: 49.89°N 6.39°W · Casualties: ~800 (Association) · ~2,000 total · Survivors: 0 (Association) · Depth: 30 m · Cause: grounding — Struck Gilstone Ledge in thick weather on the night of 22 October 1707 while returning from the Mediterranean with Admiral Cloudesley Shovell's squadron. Longitude miscalculation placed the fleet well north of where the navigators believed. HMS Eagle, HMS Romney, and HMS Firebrand were lost in the same disaster. · Fate: located 1967 · protected · Type: warship · 90-gun second rate · Tonnage: 1,459 tons · Crew: 800 · Flag: Kingdom of Great Britain · Launched: 1697 Flagship of Admiral Cloudesley Shovell, returning with the Mediterranean squadron on the night of 22 October 1707. Shovell's navigators miscalculated their longitude in thick weather and put the fleet onto the rocks of the Isles of Scilly; four ships went down inside an hour. Between 1,400 and 2,000 dead, the worst peacetime naval disaster in British history. The catastrophe was the direct spur to the Longitude Act of 1714 and the search for an accurate marine chronometer. The Vessel HMS Association was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line, the flagship of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell of the Royal Navy Mediterranean Squadron. She had been laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1696, launched in 1697, and was considered by her contemporaries one of the finest English capital ships of her generation. She was 50 metres long on the gun deck, 1,459 tons, and manned at her final voyage by 800 men. Her main armament of twenty-six 32-pound lower-tier guns was the heaviest metal afloat under an English flag. She was the product of the Royal Navy's late seventeenth-century professionalisation under William III, the moment at which the English navy surpassed both the French and Dutch fleets in tonnage, training, and operational organisation. Her career under Shovell between 1704 and 1707 had been one of the highest-profile flag assignments in the service: she had been present at the capture of Gibraltar in August 1704, at the Battle of Vélez-Málaga that same month, and at the failed allied attempt on Toulon in the summer of 1707. Her return from the Toulon campaign in autumn 1707 was to be Shovell's triumphal homecoming. The Mediterranean Squadron, 21 ships in all, was under orders to return to Portsmouth by the end of October 1707. The weather through that autumn had been severe across the western Channel approaches. On 21 October 1707 Shovell's fleet was approximately 1,000 kilometres west of Brest, running east-northeast on a course toward Plymouth under topsails The Disaster At approximately 20:00 on the evening of 22 October 1707, the lookout aboard Association sighted breaking water directly ahead. The alarm was given; the ship was already too close to the rocks to clear them. Association struck the outer reef of Gilstone Ledge off the Bishop Rock at 20:02. Her hull opened below the waterline and she sank inside four minutes. Of her 800 crew, none survived the initial impact. Admiral Shovell, his two stepsons Henry and James Narborough, his flag captain Edmund Loades, and the 796 other men aboard Association drowned within sight of the Scilly coast. Shovell's body washed ashore at Porthellick Cove on St Mary's the following morning; local tradition records that he was still alive when he reached the beach and was murdered for the ring on his finger by a local woman who was subsequently remembered in Scilly folklore. His body was preserved for autopsy and eventually buried at Westminster Abbey with full state honours. Three other Royal Navy ships of the squadron were lost in the same sequence of events: HMS Eagle (70 guns, 380 dead, wrecked at Crim Rocks that night), HMS Romney (48 guns, 300 dead, wrecked at Bishop Rock), and HMS Firebrand (fireship, 24 dead, wrecked at St Agnes). Two other ships of the squadron, HMS Phoenix and HMS La Valeur, ran aground but were refloated with heavy casualties. The total death toll was between 1,400 and 2,000 English sailors in a single night, the worst peacetime naval disaster in British history at the time a