Blackwall Frigate was the colloquial name for a type of three-masted full-rigged ship built between the late 1830s and the mid 1870s. A full rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with three or more masts all of them Square rigged A full rigged ship is said to have a ship They were originally intended as replacements for the British East Indiaman in the trade between England, the Cape of Good Hope, India and China, but from the 1850s were also employed in the trade between England, Australia and New Zealand. An East Indiaman was a Ship operating under charter or licence to the Honourable East India Company. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The Cape of Good Hope ( Afrikaans: Kaap die Goeie Hoop, Kaap de Goede Hoop Cabo da Boa Esperança Persian Language: دماغه امید نیک India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island
The first Blackwall Frigates were designed and built by the Wigram and Green shipyard at Blackwall on the River Thames. Blackwall Yard was a shipyard on the Thames at Blackwall, London, engaged in ship building and later ship repairs for over 350 years This entry concerns the area of London known as Blackwall For the type of merchant sailing ship first built there and named after it see Blackwall Frigate The Thames ( is a major River flowing through southern England. Under different owners these yards had built East Indiamen since the early 17th century as well as warships for the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service) Whereas the traditional East Indiaman had double stern galleries the Blackwall Frigate had single galleries and was superficially similar in appearance to a naval frigate. For the bird see Frigatebird. A frigate /ˈfrɪgɪt/ is a warship With only a single gallery, the hull-lines at the stern could be very fine and combined with relatively fine underwater lines at the bow, Blackwall Frigates were fast sailing ships, although not as fast as the clipper ships that appeared in the late 1840s. A clipper was a very fast Sailing ship of the 19th century that had multiple masts and a Square rig. Another feature of early Blackwall frigates was a highly rounded hull at the bow above the waterline, such ships being referred to as "apple-cheeked". The first two Blackwall Frigates, the 871-ton Seringapatam and 951-ton Madagascar launched in 1837, carried the names of two slightly larger Indian-built frigates in the Royal Navy, as did a number of their successors. The Madagascar - Building and Career The Madagascar, the second Blackwall Frigate, was built for George and Henry Green at the This appears to have been the inspiration for the popular terminology.
Over 120 Blackwall Frigates were built by British and Indian yards before the last, the 1857-ton iron ship Melbourne, was built at Blackwall by the Green family in 1875. They were generally considered to be safe and comfortable ships and were employed in premium trades, but were the victims of some of the most celebrated shipwrecks of the 19th century. A shipwreck can refer to a wrecked ship or to the event that caused the wreck such as the striking of something that causes the ship to sink the stranding of the ship on rocks These included:
- Madagascar, missing between Melbourne, Australia and London in 1853 with the loss of about 150 lives,
- Dalhousie, sank off Beachy Head on 13 October 1853 with the loss of about 60 passengers and crew,
- Dunbar, wrecked near Sydney Heads on 20 August 1857 with the loss of 121 lives,
- Northfleet, run down and sunk by a steamer in the English Channel on 22 January 1873 with the loss of 320 lives,
- Cospatrick, destroyed by fire south of the Cape of Good Hope on 18 November 1874 with the loss of 473 lives. The Madagascar - Building and Career The Madagascar, the second Blackwall Frigate, was built for George and Henry Green at the Melbourne ( is the second most populous city in Australia, with a Metropolitan area population of approximately 3 London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. Beachy Head is a Chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, The Dunbar was a full-rigged ship that was wrecked near the entrance to Sydney Harbour, Australia in 1857 with the loss of 121 lives Sydney Heads (also simply known as 'The Heads' is the entrance to Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Northfleet was a British Full rigged ship that is best remembered for its disastrous sinking in the English Channel in January 1873 History of the Cospatrick The Cospatrick was a Blackwall Frigate of 1199 tons on dimensions of length between perpendiculars beam depth of hold The Cape of Good Hope ( Afrikaans: Kaap die Goeie Hoop, Kaap de Goede Hoop Cabo da Boa Esperança Persian Language: دماغه امید نیک
A well known example of later Blackwall frigates was the True Briton of 1046 tons built in 1861, which made frequent voyages to Australia and New Zealand carrying passengers, convicts and cargo. Photographs of this vessel are on display in the State Library of Victoria. The State Library of Victoria is the central Library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in Melbourne.
By the 1860s the main difference between Blackwall frigates and clippers was the stern gallery (which "true clippers" never had, though many "semi-clippers" did) and the residual "tumble-home" or hull curvature such that the hull was narrower at deck level than at the waterline) which was greater in a Blackwall frigate than in a clipper or semi clipper.
Both types became superseded as passenger carrying vessels by steamships during the 1870s and later sailing ships of the type colloquially called windjammers were built for cargo carrying only. A windjammer was a type of Sailing ship with a large Iron or Steel hull, built to carry Cargo in the late Nineteenth century
Sources
- Basil Lubbock, The Blackwall Frigates, Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, 1922.
- Lloyd's Register of Shipping
- David Lyon, The Navy Sailing List - All the Ships of the Royal Navy built, Purchased and Captured - 1688-1860, Conway Maritime Press, London, 1993
External links
- National Maritime Museum catalogue entry for painting entitled "The Indiaman Seringapatam arriving home"
- National Maritime Museum catalogue entry for print entitled "The Seringapatam East Indiaman, 1000 Tons"
- National Maritime Museum catalogue entry for a hull model of The Seringapatam
- National Maritime Museum catalogue entry for painting entitled "The Blackwall frigate Owen Glendower at anchor off a coastline"
- National Maritime Museum catalogue entry for print entitled "The Owen Glendower, East Indiaman, 1000 Tons (Entering Bombay Harbour)
- National Maritime Museum catalogue entry for a hull model of The Owen Glendower
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic