#royalnavy — Public Fediverse posts

This month's Journey Plotter update:
New is the 1916-1919 #WW1 journey of HMS Whitby Abbey; Mediterranean.

The journey of USS Concord (PG-3) was amended with the years 1899-1900; Asiatic Station.
Her journey now covers 1897 to 1900 and 1907 to 1909.

And USS Yorktown (PG-1) was amended with the years 1912-1913; North, Central and South American waters.
Her journey now covers 1889 to 1913, though there are some gaps when she was decommissioned.

#NavalHistory #CitizenScience #RoyalNavy #USNavy

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/tuesday-july-28-2026/

Photo of the Day 5th July 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/07/05/photo-of-the-day-5th-july-2026/

Manchester Monday 29th June 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/06/29/manchester-monday-29th-june-2026/

HMS Spartan was a British light cruiser commissioned on 12 July 1943. In Jan 1944, Spartan was stationed off Anzio during Operation Shingle. On 29 Jan she was attacked by German aircraft using a guided bomb, probably a Henschel Hs 293 radio-controlled glide bomb. Spartan sank quickly in shallow water with heavy loss of life among her crew. https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/hms-spartan-british-light-cruiser/ #cruiser #hmsspartan #LightCruiser #maritimehistory #NavalHistory #royalnavy #secondworldwar #warships #worldwartwo #ww2 #WWII

Manchester Monday 12th January 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/01/12/manchester-monday-12th-january-2026/

#OTD 11 November 1918

The #WW1 #Armistice isn't always mentioned in the log-books of #RoyalNavy ships.
HMS Rinaldo, at anchor off Simonstown, South Africa, did, though.

1.30pm: Guns fired from batteries denoting signing of armistice. Dressed ship overall

The inset shows part of the actual log-book page.

#NavalHistory #ArmisticeDay #History

“Absolutely Scandalous”: the thread about Wardie Playing Fields and the Lochinvar Camp

They aren’t in use any more, but on Granton and Netherby Roads in the north of Edinburgh there are impressive ornamental gates that lead to Wardie Playing Fields, where generations of local school children have loved or loathed playing cold and muddy games of football or rugby; have triumphed at their sports day or endured the dreaded “cross country” runs. The fields themselves are still in use, but there’s rather more their story than just 14 acres of windswept turf.

The story of these fields begins when nineteen and a half acres of feuing ground of the old Wardie estate were purchased in late 1920 by the Leith Education Authority for use as a recreation ground for its schools. Few if any of Leith’s urban schools had any playing or sports facilities of their own beyond confined, hard playgrounds and one of the last independent acts of this Authority was to purchase this ground, and that at Bangholm, for school use.

Within a year, the shotgun wedding that amalgamated Edinburgh with Leith saw the fields pass to the former Education Authority, which had a lucrative sideline in leasing it out as sheep grazing well into the 1940s. Edinburgh had also purchased at this time the rest of the undeveloped Wardie feuing grounds west of Granton Road for a public housing scheme (but that’s another story).

As it so often was, the city Corporation was slow to catch up with the population growth of its own housing schemes and the little old village school at Granton was soon at bursting point. But it was not until 10 years later, in September 1931, that a new “sunshine school” – constructed on open-air principles –was opened at Wardie for the district, taking up the southern portion of the playing fields in the process.

Our story so far has been an unremarkable one but all that was to change in 1943. That year the “stone frigate” (the Navy’s nickname for a shore base) of HMS Lochinvar – the Royal Navy’s principle school of minesweeping – found itself evicted from its base at Port Edgar along the coast and displaced to Granton Docks instead where there was already a shore training facility called HMS Claverhouse. Lochinvar had to move to make way for the pressing task of combined operations training in the run up to D-day, but it too had a vital role to play in that campaign; it trained the thousands of men to man the little ships that would keep the approach lanes and assault beaches free from sea mines.

There was plenty space in Granton Docks for the vessels of Lochinvar, but precious little for surface buildings. And that’s where the playing fields came in – an expanse of undeveloped ground just up the hill from the busy harbour and large wartime camp of Nissen Huts was quickly erected, providing everything from accommodation, catering and recreation facilities for personnel to offices, stores and workshops.

New minesweepers came up to Granton where they were allocated to a crew of largely green recruits who were then given an intensive but short period of training in the dangerous art of clearing the sea of mines and then after a few weeks they were then packed off to war. But Lochinvar wasn’t just a man’s world, there was a significant contingent of Wrens (WRNS – the Women’s Royal Naval Service) whose job it was to run the place and make sure everything from sweeps to guns were maintained in good order and would work first time, every time. In the below photo we see two Wrens in overalls – Beryl Lyster from Largs (left) and May Groosjohan of Glasow (right) – showing HRH Duchess of Kent – the WRNS Commandant of the inner workings of the Lewis and Browning Guns and Oerlikon Cannons that they are stripping and servicing for the minesweepers at Wardie. A rather pompous looking male officer looks on.

Lochinvar‘s spell at Wardie was relatively short and less than two years after it opened, at the end of the war, the complex found itself surplus to military requirements. The city’s Education Committee was raring to get the ground back, remove the huts and return the fields to school sports once more: but there was an outcry. You see it’s often forgotten that there was a critical housing crisis at the end of the war. There had been six long years of no new building and few repairs to existing stock, there was a flood of men (and women!) being demobbed and returning home and six years of pent up demand to settle down and start families. Edinburgh was no exception. Anything that could be lived in was being lived in, including properties condemned as slums pre-war. The city faced a homelessness and a squatting crisis and many families simply had nowhere to go. The Housing Committee turned its gaze to the surplus military camps to try and ease this immediate pressure. Its chairman, Councillor J. J. Robertson, said “there was no more pressing claim than the needs of the people for housing” under the headline “School Football or Housing?” in the Evening News on 18th Setpember 1945, just a month after the war’s end.

On 29th August 1946, fourteen homeless families in Edinburgh took matters into their own hands and made a night time “seizure” of the recently vacated Anti Aircraft Gunners’ camp at Craigentinny, which they took possession of as squatters. The group formalised themselves as the “Edinburgh Houseless Association” and began to take applications from other homeless families to join them. While the police investigated alleged vandalism due to stripping some huts of their interiors to improve those that were to be lived in, the residents got on with trying to better their lot and applied to the authorities to have the water and electricity supplies turned back on.

In November, the Corporation relented and the Housing Committee authorised the spending of £4,500 to put the camp in order and take over its administration – crucially, charging rents. They soon widened this action and a Prisoner of War and gunners’ camp at Craigentinny, the Cavalry Park camp in Duddingston and the Nissen Huts of HMS Lochinvar at Wardie were all taken over as housing labelled as both “emergency” and “temporary“. This was despite all of these sites all being totally inappropriate for family living – but there was nothing better and the post-war New Jerusalem would have to wait in the meantime.

Families at the optimistic renamed Lochinvar Camp at Wardie paid 12s a week for half a corrugated iron Nissen Hut, but life here was no holiday camp. Each hut had a thin internal partition dividing it up into two houses, with further thin partitions for bedrooms; this gave people only the idea of privacy. A small coal stove was provided to try and keep the place warm, but with no insulation the thin metal walls were always cold and ran constantly with condensation. You can see some photos of hut interiors here at the Edinphoto website of the late Peter Stubbs. Electricity was provided but only enough for basic lighting, residents found their wireless sets or any other electrical appliances being impounded by the Corporation’s electricians. Toilets and washing facilities were shared between six to nine families. Vermin were a constant problem and they, and the damp, ruined people’s furniture, clothing and posessions.

There was a wash house, but there were only three sinks per 50 families and no stoppers for the sinks. Cooking and cleaning facilities were communal too and centralised; mothers may have to walk hundreds of metres to and from them multiple times a day to feed their families. This would cause a heartbreaking tragedy barely a few months after opening. On October 21st 1946, Mrs Watson made one of her many daily trips to the kitchens and left 18 month old Ann and 3 year old John playing in the hut. This was not unusual and was a simple practicality of life. She was drying clothes on an airing horse by the stove which was somehow knocked over by the children and quickly caught fire. Almost everything within the hut was flammable, it had only a single door, the windows set too high for the children to reach and there was no running water. They were quickly trapped by the flames and there was nothing their mother or the neighbours could do. First the Police and then the Fire Brigade arrived, but all were beaten back by the red hot metal.

There was an outcry in the papers; the letter writers pointed the blame at the mother, the authorities, the fire brigade. The tragedy further stigmatised residents who already felt looked down upon by many. One hut dweller, Mrs Thompson, wrote in her defence to the Evening News on October 28th about the reality of life in the camp;

I am the mother of two young children and I have to go about 100 yards to cook, wash up, and clean in a communal kitchen. When I went to Castle Terrace and told them I was unable to do this, I was told the alternative was to find other accommodation.

The authorities were compelled to act and fire guards were provided for the stoves until gas and water could be laid to the huts to allow cooking and domestic tasks to be done in the home with children under supervision. The city Corporation formed a “special sub-committee to deal with the prevention of accidents in the home” and in recognition of the unsuitability of these sites for housing it cancelled plans to takeover similar camps at Muirhouse and Alnwickhill.

But although Edinburgh was one of the most enthusiastic local authorities when it came to building postwar prefab housing, it couldn’t keep up with demand for housing and the camp found itself in demand with a long waiting list. In July 1949 it was estimated that the temporary camps could be filled four times over, and one family had even taken up residence in the corridors of the city’s Social Services offices in Castle Terrace in protest. Many residents found themselves stuck in the “temporary” camps for far longer than they thought they would be – three years or more instead of six to nine months – and began to organise themselves. A Lochinvar tenants association had been set up in 1947, making an appeal in the classifieds for the donation of a typewriter to help with their secretarial burden. The Corporation set up nurseries to help watch the children while their mothers were busy or out working and social workers were sent in. Mrs Bell, one of the residents, organised sewing classes and Christmas parties for the 36 girls who called the camp home. But others had a more individualistic streak and prouder spirit and had a different response, a resident calling herself “Indignant Mother” wrote to the Evening News, outraged at the insult of being offered “public charity“.

Tensions were further stoked in the camp in 1948 when a group of German workers were installed in some huts. They were young women from the Allied Zones who had found themselves separated from families trapped in the Soviet Zone and had been brought to Edinburgh to work in mills at Musselburgh to help address a labour shortage. There were soon accusations that the Germans had gotten better huts with better heating; but this was not the case. They slept 10 or 12 to a room in dormitories and lived a regimented life of work, rations and few personal possessions. But despite the resentment, some reached out to the incomers; they found their new neighbours to be young and frightened, alone in a strange and foreign land where few spoke their language. There had little in the way of home comforts and many had no idea what had become of their parents in the Soviet Zone.

But one thing that all could agreed upon was that the camp was no fit place for housing. It was “a disgrace to the city of Edinburgh. The decent, hard-working people who have to live here surely deserve a better lot” wrote one resident to the papers in 1947. Another, calling themselves Grantonian said the site should be given instead to the newly formed National Coal Board for use as offices. In October 1949 there was a further fire at Lochinvar that left five families, eighteen people in all, homeless when a gas grill in a hut set fire to the wooden partitions. Fortunately on this occasion nobody was injured. The Evening News described the camp as “shanty town squalor” for 150 families and that conditions there were “not British“. By the 1951 the huts were well past their expected lifespans but the housing demand was such that even though the Education Committee wanted its playing fields back, it was told “no” and the camp was to remain as housing.

This was in spite of the fact the Corporation could barely keep up with the basic maintenance, never mind make improvements. In the preceding year the Lochinvar camp had an average of 176 families resident and was costing the city £4,997 for gas, £68 for coke fuel and £824 for electricity. In two years the city had run up a £19,289 deficit for fuel costs alone across its emergency camps. This was before they outlay of £55 per household (at Lochinvar) for maintenance, almost twice what each was paying in rent. Residents claimed the authorities were trying to force larger families living in huts laid out inside as one large apartment into the same sized space divided into more apartments, for which they would have to pay higher rents. Sickness rates amongst children were high and dysentery was becoming common. Vandalism was endemic and there were worrying cases of child neglect reported. Residents said that they had stopped giving out their address as being in the camps when applying for jobs as it usually saw them turned down and a case brought before the Burgh Police Court as a result of a fist-fight heard that it was brought on by the overcrowded conditions in the camp; it was “the kind of place that would make you fight with your own shadow” according to the witness.

Enough was enough. The secretary of the camp’s residents association said conditions were “absolutely scandalous” and protests were organised in conjunction with residents of the other camps and an organisation called Housing Crusade. Placards were carried with messages such as “We Want Houses, Not Promises“, “A Camp Is Not a House“, “Homes Before Festivals” and “Edinburgh – Build Your Allocation“. Residents at Duddingston Camp reported the police removed posters they had put up on perimeter fencing as a tourist bus route went past it.

At last it seemed that the city was listening and in December 1951 laid out a plan to deal with the problem of the camps. It would close down Craigentinny as soon as possible, huts in the worst repair in the other camps would be closed too and to deal with the fuel costs the huts would be fitted with coin-operated gas and electricity meters. But such was the drawn-out nature of the UK’s post-war economic malaise, in 1954 the camps at Duddingston, Sighthill and Lochinvar were still being used even though in theory each hut would be closed down when its residents left for permanent housing. It was agreed in March that year that Sighthill and Duddingston camps would be exited expeditiously by preferential allocation of new houses to tenants. But the long suffering residents at Wardie found they were overlooked, even though the place was ever more decrepit the city judged their camp to be in the best condition of the three and so they would have to stay put. Indeed, some huts that should have been permanently closed down were even brought back into use, even though it was normal practice for the resident children to commandeer the empty properties as gang huts and thoroughly trash the interiors. A similar fate befell the Wardie sports pavilion, leaving one local councillor to go on the record that it wanted a “good fire” to help improve it.

It was not until December 1955 that it was announced that they would get permanent homes and even then it took a further year for the last 71 families at Lochinvar to be moved from their “temporary” accommodation; a full ten years after it was taken over for “emergency” use. Within a year the hut bases were ploughed up and the Corporation’s groundskeepers were finally allowed back in to returf the pitches. There is nothing to be seen on the ground these days of what was – for over a decade – hundreds of houses with thousands of families passing through them.

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Recent Royal Navy test of the missile that carries Britain’s nuclear deterrent failed within seconds raising new questions about the deterrent’s viability at a time of elevated #nuclear tensions

The US-manufactured #Trident missile was launched from #submarine HMS #Vanguard off the east coast of the U.

Instead of flying the planned thousands of miles before coming down, it crashed into the sea near the launch site.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/21/british-nuclear-missile-crashes-into-sea-in-failed-test

#UK #RoyalNavy #ToryCronyism #CutsKill

Recent Royal Navy test of the missile that carries Britain’s nuclear deterrent failed within seconds raising new questions about the deterrent’s viability at a time of elevated #nuclear tensions

The US-manufactured #Trident missile was launched from #submarine HMS #Vanguard off the east coast of the U.

Instead of flying the planned thousands of miles before coming down, it crashed into the sea near the launch site.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/21/british-nuclear-missile-crashes-into-sea-in-failed-test

#UK #RoyalNavy #ToryCronyism #CutsKill

Recent Royal Navy test of the missile that carries Britain’s nuclear deterrent failed within seconds raising new questions about the deterrent’s viability at a time of elevated #nuclear tensions

The US-manufactured #Trident missile was launched from #submarine HMS #Vanguard off the east coast of the U.

Instead of flying the planned thousands of miles before coming down, it crashed into the sea near the launch site.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/21/british-nuclear-missile-crashes-into-sea-in-failed-test

#UK #RoyalNavy #ToryCronyism #CutsKill

Recent Royal Navy test of the missile that carries Britain’s nuclear deterrent failed within seconds raising new questions about the deterrent’s viability at a time of elevated #nuclear tensions

The US-manufactured #Trident missile was launched from #submarine HMS #Vanguard off the east coast of the U.

Instead of flying the planned thousands of miles before coming down, it crashed into the sea near the launch site.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/21/british-nuclear-missile-crashes-into-sea-in-failed-test

#UK #RoyalNavy #ToryCronyism #CutsKill

Supermarine Walrus I, Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton. The Walrus was designed to be an aircraft that could be catapulted from capital ships of the Royal Navy, but ended up being a most useful amphibian. As well as spotting naval gunfire, the Walrus provided excellent air/sea rescue service around the coast of Britain and in other areas. Some were supplied to the Republic of Ireland, and this preserved example is one of these. #amphibian #WW2 #royalnavy #aircraft #capitalship #navalhistory #navalaviation #naval #avgeek #FleetAirArm #FleetAirArmMuseum #yeovilton #supermarine #walrus #aviation #aviationgeek

28 of 151 ships - HMS Centurion crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107

Please follow this link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/centurion

22 of 151 ships - HMS Broke crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107

Please follow this link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/broke

9 of 151 ships - HMS Ardent crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/ardent

4 of 151 ships - HMS Acheron crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/acheron

136 of 151 ships - HMS Sparrowhawk crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107
#HMSSparrowhawk

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/Sparrowhawk

130 of 151 ships - HMS Revenge crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107
#HMSRevenge

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/Revenge

122 of 151 ships - HMS Ossory crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107
#HMSOssory

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/ossory

116 of 151 ships - HMS Obedient crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107
#HMSObedient

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/obedient

100 of 151 ships - HMS Munster crew list - recent updates
(Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project)

@battle-of-jutland-crew-lists-project

#battleofjutland #genealogy #greatwar #ww1 #history #worldwar1 #familyhistory #Skagerrakschlacht #royalnavy #ancestorian #jutland107
#HMSMunster

Please follow the link to view the crew list for this ship.
https://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/munster

The Great Storm of 1901: the thread about the tragic loss of the cutter “Active”

On the 12th November 1901 a terrible storm formed over the North Sea and battered the East Coast of Scotland. The Firth of Forth felt its full fury and by the following morning twenty men would lie dead in the cold waters of Wardie Bay, when the Royal Navy cutter Active was driven ashore and wrecked against the Granton Breakwater.

The Active was a 135 ton sailing yawl, built in Kent in 1867. For 20 years she had been stationed in the Forth as tender to the navy’s guardship at South Queensferry, the old battleship HMS Anson. She had recently returned south from secondment to the Revenue Service as a fisheries cutter off of the Shetland Islands. Her captain was Lt. Charles Culley RN, a pious and temperate man who was a “good husband, a good father and a real Christian” in the words of his widow. Culley had started out life as a pit boy in Somerset but had turned to Methodism and joined the Navy. He was therefore somewhat unusual in being a Bluejacket, having come up through the ranks and had recently learned that he was being advanced in the service and would be receiving command of a steam gunboat.

During the day on November 12th the temperature plunged and the wind got increasingly strong. Soon it brought heavy squalls of rain and sleet. The waves ran high along the Forth and were “breaking with great violence against the piers and embankments, doing considerable damage“. At the end of the eastern breakwater at Granton the green marker lighthouse and a gangway were carried away. On the quayside, part of the roof of the North British Railway station was blown off. At Trinity Crescent the sea wall was breached and the road was left impassable. On account of the intensity of the storm in the North Sea the east coast fishing fleet returned home early, boats from as far as Dundee and Aberdeen running for the safety of Granton. The Burntisland ferry was stopped, with the William Muir being kept tied up alongside at Granton. At North Queensferry the Norwegian steamer Dronning Gyda of Kristiansund was driven ashore and the Swedish schooner Tura was wrecked on the island of Inchgarvie, her crew of 7 managing to scramble ashore and seek shelter. Many vessels came into Leith Roads to seek shelter; those that could sought refuge in the harbours; those left out in the Forth were seen to be straining at their anchors. Similar stories were repeated all along the east coast of Scotland and England.

The gale swept across the city early in the afternoon and many a chimney pot came crashing down. A cartload of hay was blown over and several shop windows were blown in. Trees were brought down in the Botanics, at St. Bernard’s Crescent and on Moray Place. At the Usher’s bonded warehouse at St. Leonards the lamplighter, Donald Cormack, lost his life when an external wooden staircase he was climbing collapsed in the wind. At 74 Causewayside, twelve year old Annie Hanlan was killed as she lay in bed when the chimney breast of the tenement collapsed through the roof. A heroic effort on the part of the Sciennes firemen under the command of Lt. Grinton saw her 14 year old sister Mary, who had been sharing the same bed, rescued and taken to the Infirmary suffering from serious injuries. Two others were injured and the tenement was condemned, rendering 12 families homeless.

The maximum average wind speed during the storm would be recorded at 67mph. Beyond the city boundaries nearly all telegraph and telephone cables came down. There was no communication north, only three wires to Glasgow left intact and a single each to Newcastle and Leeds for all southwards communications. A huge backlog of messages piled up in the telegraph offices, unsent. Within the city, the telephone network was “very much out of order“, hampering the emergency response. Out in the Forth, Lt. Culley and the Active had been sent from their mooring at South Queenferry to seek shelter in Leith Roads in the time honoured way, in the lee of the island of Inchkeith. Culley had three anchors put down to secure his charge and during the day it was seen by observers on the shore to be riding out the storm as comfortably as could be expected.

Around 3 O’clock in the morning the Active was seen to be dragging her anchors. Her tiller was smashed, and orders were given to bring the spare up from below decks. Her foresail was raised to try and sail out of trouble, but it jammed and had to be hauled back down. Attempts by a Granton-based tug to reach her were futile and what few onlookers were present watched helplessly as she was soon being driven uncontrollably towards the shore. Culley let off his distress rockets to try and summon assistance and mustered the remaining men from their sleep on deck. However, before any attempt to save lives could be made, the little ship was dashed against the breakwater and “smashed to match-wood“. Observers saw her two blue marker lights disappear from view at about 4:15AM. In the last moments before disaster, Culley had ordered his men to climb the rigging in the hope of safety but of the twenty-five souls on board, only three were spared. Such had been the haste of her demise that only three men had managed to put on their cork life jackets and Ordinary Seamen W. Travis, G. Dady (or Peady) and G. Pearce would be the only men who made it off. Two of them were washed completely over the breakwater and into the harbour, being picked up by the steamer Bele who had heard their cries.

The third, dressed only in his string vest and life jacket, managed to cling to the breakwater and “through dogged persistence” crawled along it to safety. The other two survivors of the ship’s complement were Quartermaster Walsenham (or Wakenham) and the Second Mate, Boatswain John Donovan, both of whom had been allowed shore leave in Leith the day before and had been unable to rejoin ship on account of the weather.

With the telephone and telegraph systems being out of order, news had to be carried on foot to the police office at Gayfield Square from where 10 constables and two doctors were dispatched under the command of Superintendent Lamb , Inspector Cruickshanks and Sergeant Ford. By 11AM, only three bodies had been recovered, the vessel having been driven ashore on an ebb tide, which meant that most of the victims’ bodies were carried away from the shore and out into the Forth. The local fishermen, intimately in tune with the currents and habits of the Firth, pronounced that bodies would be carried to the vicinity of Elie.

All morning on the 13th, dense crowds lined the Wardie foreshore to gaze on at the macabre spectacle of wreckage and flotsam being tossed around in the bay and of policemen combing the shore with boathooks looking for survivors (or, more realistically, bodies). Rifles, cutlasses and uniforms were brought up on the slipway at Granton and large quantities of Rum had to be secured by the Customs men before they found their way into jacket pockets. Sergeant Bain of the Police was able to pull ashore the ship’s colours from the breakwater at considerable risk to his life.

On Thursday 14th, the newspapers reported that the foreshore along the coast was being searched for bodies and that divers had arrived to scour the seabed around the wreckage. The gunboats HMS Redwing and Cockchafer arrived to trawl up and down the Forth. In the aftermath, observers with the benefit of hindsight said that the Active had been anchored too close to the shore and not far enough north to be safely sheltered in the lee of Inchkeith. Some were of the opinion that she should have been brought into the safety of the harbour, however it was noted in the papers that this would have been against Culley’s instructions. Others still wrote to the Scotsman bemoaning the lack of a coastguard watch or lifeboat at Granton, Leith or Newhaven.

The first funerals took place on Saturday 16th, with a cortège leaving the City Mortuary on Infirmary Street with full naval honours on its way to the Admiralty’s plot at Seafield cemetery. The procession was led by the officers and men of HMS Anson and the band of the shore base HMS Caledonia. Thousands turned out to line the streets and pay their respects to seamen John (or Herbert) Walker, R. Pearson and E. Farrow, Carpenter’s Mate H. Williams and Ship’s Boy J. Mulvaney. The same day, a requiem mass was held for James Donovan at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea R.C. Church in Leith. All six were interred side-by-side at Seafield, the men from the Anson firing a salute over the graves. That same day, a remarkable event occurred; a glass bottle was recovered on the shore at Granton, containing a message: “H.M.C. Active, Sinking Fast. From Captain Culley. Good-bye.” Mrs Culley identified the handwriting as that of her late husband.

On Tuesday 26th of November, a further body was recovered from the mud in Granton harbour, Ordinary Seaman James Lyall could only be identified from his names stitched inside his clothing. On the 29th, tugs brought the remains of the Active to a position in Wardie Bay where they could be hauled ashore and broken up. The following day, a benevolent fund was opened for the families of the deceased by Captain William Fisher CB of the Anson and his officers, with the Lifeboat Institution making an opening contribution of £2,000. Lieutenant Culley alone left behind 6 children, the eldest being 17.

Bodies were slowly recovered in November and by the 20th, seventeen had been recovered. On 27th November, Ordinary Seaman James Lyall was buried at Seafield. A court martial into the disaster was held in distant Chatham on 3rd December. Four of the five survivors (George Pearce was still in hospital recovering) appeared, but were not charged or asked to plead. Captain Fisher of the Anson gave witness, confirming that he had ordered Culley not to risk his ship on any account, and to anchor her in Leith Roads. He did however say that Culley had not done so in the exact position he had been shown on the chart. The survivors stated that the loss of the tiller and jamming of the sails had prevented them for seeking safety, and that the Granton tugs had not approached close enough to offer assistance. The court exonerated the survivors from all blame, but noted – with the benefit of hindsight – that Culley should have “shown better judgement had he either weighed or slipped anchors and run for safety” but that when the disaster was inevitable “he appeared to have maintained discipline and done all possible to save life.” Culley’s body was not recovered until late in January 1902, and he was buried with full naval honours near his men in Seafield Cemetery.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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70 of 151 ships - HMS Lion crew list - recent updates
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#HMSLion

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57 of 151 ships - HMS Hydra crew list - recent updates
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#HMSHydra

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51 of 151 ships - HMS Garland crew list - recent updates
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#HMSGarland

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45 of 151 ships - HMS Erin crew list - recent updates
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#HMSErin

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39 of 151 ships - HMS Cordelia crew list - recent updates
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#HMSCordelia

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33 of 151 ships - HMS Collingwood crew list - recent updates
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#HMSCollingwood

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21 of 151 ships - HMS Boadicea crew list - recent updates
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#HMSBoadicea

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3 of 151 ships - HMS Achates crew list - recent updates
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#HMSAchates

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136 of 151 ships - HMS Sparrowhawk crew list - recent updates
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#HMSSparrowhawk

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119 of 151 ships - HMS Opal crew list - recent updates
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#HMSOpal

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114 of 151 ships - HMS Oak crew list - recent updates
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#HMSOak

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108 of 151 ships - HMS New Zealand crew list - recent updates
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#HMSNewZealand

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102 of 151 ships - HMS Narborough crew list - recent updates
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#HMSNarborough

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96 of 151 ships - HMS Moresby crew list - recent updates
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#HMSMoresby

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89 of 151 ships - HMS Minion crew list - recent updates

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#HMSMinion

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84 of 151 ships - HMS Menace crew list - recent updates

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#HMSMenace

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78 of 151 ships - HMS Marksman crew list - recent updates

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#HMSMarksman

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72 of 151 ships - HMS Lydiard crew list - recent updates

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#HMSLydiard

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54 of 151 ships - HMS Hampshire crew list - recent updates

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#HMSHampshire

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48 of 151 ships - HMS Fearless crew list - recent updates

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#HMSFearless

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Tenuously Jacobite: the thread about the Naval Reserves in Leith and Granton

This thread was originally written and published in September 2020.

Here is a photo of HMS Killiecrankie alongside at Leith docks in 1963. She was the training tender for the Leith & Edinburgh Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) station at HMS Claverhouse on Granton Square.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126268375@N08/14803466805/

The Killiecrankie was built in 1952 as the Ton-class minesweeper Bickington, over 100 such ships were built in the 1950s in response to Cold War paranoia that the Soviets would mine inshore waters. They were all given names ending in –ton, but in the event far too many were produced and so there was a surplus. These were given different roles and were renamed. Bickington for instance was commissioned as HMS Curzon as the tender to the Suffolk RNR. When she moved to the Firth of Forth again she took up a new name. She served this station from 1962 – 1676, before renaming to her originally intended HMS Bickington and being transferred to the Fishery Protection Squadron

HMS Claverhouse was a shore base and it is Royal Navy practice to name shore bases as if they were ships. But how did this particular name with its strong connotations in Scottish history become associated with Edinburgh and Leith, which it otherwise has a brief connection with? (And if you don’t know the connotations, all will become apparent in a few paragraphs).

The first Claverhouse was a war-surplus coastal monitor; a sort of small, slow, relatively unseaworthy ship for carrying around a few big guns to shoot at things ashore with. She was originally called the M23 and in 1922 had been sent to Dundee as RNVR (Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve) drill ship and renamed Claverhouse . I suppose someone had a sense of humour to name her after John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee. This man was variously Bonnie Dundee to his supporters or Bluidy Clavers to his opponents, given the divisive (and ultimately fatal for himself) part he played in leading the Jacobite uprising of 1689.

The RNVR was distinct from the RNR; the latter organisation was a reserve force of professional civilian seamen, the former were civilian volunteers from non-seafaring occupations.

The Claverhouse took her ships crest and motto directly from the Viscount Dundee, a phoenix rising out of the flames and “Gang Forrit” (which either is literally to “go for it”, or a euphemism for to take communion).

With war clouds on the horizon in the 1930s and a need to rapidly train up volunteers and reserves to man a wartime navy, HMS Claverhouse was shifted to a permanent shore base on Granton Square, in the requisitioned Granton Hotel. The new HMS Claverhouse took on the crest and motto of the ship from Dundee, which it also inherited as a drill vessel. At Granton merchant seamen were given training in defensive techniques (i.e. how to fire guns!) and the station was also used as an HQ for the local coastal defence forces. When war ended, Claverhouse was not returned to civilian life but was kept on as the HQ for the newly formed Forth Division of the RNVR. Again, the motto and the crest was that inherited from Viscount Dundee. Tay Division of the RNVR was based on the old wooden frigate HMS Unicorn in Dundee, so it took as a crest a white unicorn.

The old monitor was still going and stayed on at Granton as the Claverhouse drill ship until 1958 when she was sent for scrap. But given the post-war naval reserves had a primary focus with inshore minesweeping, she was joined in 1948 by a small war-surplus motor minesweeper called MMS.1089.

MMS.1089 took the name HMS Forth, but was soon renamed Killecrankie. Again someone had a sense of humour as, if you don’t already know, it was at the Battle of Killecrankie in 1689 where Viscount Dundee met a very pyrrhic end when a musket ball went through him in the moment of victory; finishing both him and ultimately the Jacobite rising.

The little Killiecrankie was too small and obsolete for the realities of the Cold War so she was sold in 1957 and replaced with the newer and bigger HMS Bickington/ Curzon, which inherited her name. This ship carried a generic ship’s crest that had been assigned to all of her type. In 1976 Killiecrankie was returned to being plain old Bickington and was replaced by her sister Kedleston, but the latter kept her own name.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/153873640@N02/41105299245/

In 1986, Kedleston was in turn replaced by a new River-class minesweeper as the Forth RNR training ship, somewhat confusingly their new vessel was called HMS Spey. She lasted at Leith until 1993 when a defence review withdrew the entire RNR fleet and moved it to other purposes. Spey spent here next 4 years in Northern Ireland before being sold to Brazil.

As part of the 1993 economy measures, in 1994 the Forth Division of HMS Claverhouse and the Tay Division of HMS Camperdown were merged as HMS Scotia and relocated to Rosyth. Another volunteer unit at Granton, the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service (RNXS), was also disbanded at this time. The RNXS was a uniformed, non-combatant volunteer service whose role was to assist in the operations of ports and anchorages in times of conflict.

Rosyth as it turned out wasn’t that smart an economy measure; although it looked good on paper, shifting your volunteer base away from the centre of population it draws from doesn’t help with recruitment. The RNR therefore re-established separate Forth and Tay divisions in 2000. The new Forth Division only lasted until 2004 before being wound down as yet another economy measure. The old HMS Claverhouse on Granton Square is now the Claverhouse Training Centre for various cadets and other reserves units.

So anyway, that’s the long version of how some rather geographically and historically unusual (you might even say inappropriate) names came to be used for naval establishments in Edinburgh and Leith.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.