HMS Sidon 1846 – A Revolution at Sea.

HMS Sidon – A Revolution at Sea.

by Peter Duckers

The story of the paddle-steamer HMS Sidon is the perfect exemplar of one man’s drive and ambition, in this case directed towards iron ships and steam power. That man was Captain (later Admiral Sir) Charles Napier – “mad Charley” – whose obsession was driven by a legendary ego. Launched in 1846, the ship was very much Napier’s own creation, designed under his personal supervision and named in honour of his capture of the port of Sidon during the 1840 Syrian campaign.

Sir Charles Napier (1786-1860). One of the most active and distinguished naval officers of the 19C.

It wasn’t his first steamship; as early as 1821 Napier and Aaron Manby (1776-1850), an engineer and master of the Horseley ironworks, had together designed, paid for and seen through construction the modestly-named Aaron Manby, the first iron-hulled paddle-driven steamship. In June 1822 – very early in the history of steam powered ships – the Aaron Manby had crossed the Channel to Le Havre then sailed under steam down the Seine to arrive in the centre of Paris – the first steamship to enter the city, which caused an absolute sensation! She made the voyage under Charles Napier’s command, with Manby’s son on board as engineer. Napier’s was the first direct steam crossing from London to Paris and the first seagoing voyage by any iron ship. Based in Paris for the next ten years, the Aaron Manby then had a civil maritime career, used by the Compagnie des Bateaux a Vapeur en Fer to operate a mail and goods service between Paris and Le Havre.

Amongst many other elements of a remarkable naval career, Captain Napier was a vociferous and radical supporter of the introduction of iron-hulled warships and steam power and was a constant critic of the Admiralty’s early steam warship designs, which he felt were too slow and too poorly armed; they did not achieve the potential that he felt was possible with iron ships and the powerful new method of propulsion. In an unusual move – since relations between them were not always very cordial! – the Admiralty allowed Napier to collaborate with naval surveyors to design a ‘first-class steam frigate’ very much according to his own novel specifications.

Napier wanted a ship that combined the speed of a paddle-steamer with the heavy ‘punch’ of a traditional sailing frigate. It would have novel and, at this time, unique features of design – a deeper draft for greater stability and a very specific engine placement so that the ‘vitals’ (internal machinery) of the ship were better protected. Napier had designed her boilers and engines to sit lower in the hull (below the waterline), so even if the ship took hits to her upper works, her motive power remained intact. Napier also insisted on fitting massive capacity coal bunkers, to allow for long-range cruising, since a paddle-steamer, despite its sailing capability, was really only as effective as its coal supply. The coal storage was set along the sides of the ship, surrounding the engine room. Interestingly – and as another example of how thoroughly he had thought through the design – Napier claimed that the compressed coal acted as ‘armour’, which would absorb the force of roundshot before they could penetrate the mechanical heart of the ship.

But all this meant that the ship sat much lower in the water than intended, which hindered its speed and made its main guns sit dangerously close to the waterline. Also, because of this, the crew’s living quarters on the lower decks were notoriously damp and poorly ventilated compared to other frigates.

The construction of HMS Sidon was a relatively swift process considering her novel design and complexity, undertaken at Deptford Dockyard. She was officially ordered by the Admiralty on 22 May 1845 and construction began later that year. Work moved quickly because the design was a high-priority ‘personal project’ of Charles Napier, who was eager to see his theories on steam frigate design put to the test. She was launched on 26 May 1846.

The gap of only about a year between being laid down and launched was impressive for a vessel of her size (1,316 tons burthen). However, while the hull was floated as soon as May 1846, it took months to fit her out with her heavy armament of 22 guns and her massive side paddle-wheels, whose tops would be protected by inverted boats (‘paddle-box boats’) which could be removed to be used as boats in their own right. Her high-pressure engines (by Seaward & Capel) would generate 560 hp (high for that era). She was finally completed and commissioned for service in August 1846.

Sidon carried a standard complement of approx. 300 officers and men (including approx. 30-40 Royal Marines). This compares favourably with a contemporary sailing frigate of similar size, which might have carried 350 to 450 men, since steam frigates required slightly fewer ‘topmen’” (sailors working the sails and rigging) but added a new category of technical personnel: engineers, with an Engine Room Department of approx. 30 men. It should be remembered, however, that although being primarily a ‘steamer’, HMS Sidon was fully rigged for sail, meaning that she still had to carry a complement of crewmen capable of ‘handing, reefing and steering’ in the traditional manner.

The ship’s main armament was be 22 heavy guns, giving it a much greater fire-power than other contemporary steam sloops and frigates. Its main deck carried 20 guns, primarily 32-pounders which provided the traditional ‘broadside’ capability, although paddle-steamers always suffered from the fast that their side paddles broke the line of the broadside. Sidon also carried two massive 68-pounder ‘monster’ guns, mounted on pivots at the bow and stern, allowing them to fire in nearly any direction. These were the most powerful guns in service in the Royal Navy at the time. A single shell could penetrate the thickest oak hulls or shatter granite masonry. The guns’ design was influenced by the introduction of French-designed Paixhan shells – firing explosive shells rather than solid shot. This was a direct result of Napier’s experience in Syria, where these shells had proven to be far more destructive against stone fortifications. Unfortunately, the sheer weight of these heavy guns was another contribution to a slowness of speed and to the very low freeboard, so that in heavy seas the gun ports had to be closed to avoid flooding the ship, which effectively reduced its usable armament to the two 68-pounders mounted fore and aft.

Apparently, most of Their Lordships – the ‘Old Guard’ at the Admiralty – disliked the Sidon‘s appearance. They called it ‘Napier’s Ugly Duckling’ because the paddle-boxes and the lack of a traditional sleek silhouette offended their aesthetic sensibilities. As the Royal Navy eventually moved toward screw-propellers (which were even better protected) rather than the paddle-wheel designs, Sidon and her sisters were the last and greatest of a dying breed.

Despite some of these design quirks – at what was anyway a time of innovation and novelty – the Sidon became one of the most famous ‘paddle-frigates’ in the mid-19th century Royal Navy. Its first interesting service came in Egypt in 1847-48, when the ship carried Lord Dalhousie to his new appointment as Governor General of India, leaving Southampton in November 1847. The ship also took the famous botanist and Charles Darwin’s closest friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker. Because of his father’s influence (the Director of Kew Gardens), Hooker was granted free passage by the Admiralty and Dalhousie ‘adopted’ Hooker into his official party for the duration of the voyage. When the Sidon reached Alexandria late in 1847, the party had to traverse Egypt to reach their next ship on the Red Sea, so Hooker used the opportunity to explore parts of the Nile. Sidon returned to duty on the Mediterranean station and on 28 May 1848, she rescued the crew and passengers of the P&O ship Ariel, which had run aground and was sinking off the coast of Italy (near Livorno). The Sidon remained as part of the Mediterranean fleet until her service in the Russian War, 1854-55.

The ship’s designer, Sir Charles Napier, commanded the Baltic Fleet in 1854 – at that time the largest and most powerful warship fleet ever to sail from England – but HMS Sidon was not involved in the campaign; she was assigned to the Mediterranean fleet based at Malta. Napier actually complained that he didn’t have enough ‘Sidon-class’ steamers to navigate the shallow Russian coastal waters near the major Russian fleet anchorage at Cronstadt. His letters to the Admiralty (specifically to Sir James Graham) were increasingly brusque:

“I have the flagship ‘Duke of Wellington’—a magnificent castle, but she draws 26 feet of water. The Russians have retreated into the shallows of Cronstadt where I cannot follow. Had I six more ships of the ‘Sidon’ class, I would have the Russian fleet burned in their harbours by next Tuesday.”

As part of the Mediterranean fleet in 1853, as relations between Britain, France and Russia deteriorated, HMS Sidon served with the British squadron ordered to Besika Bay (near the entrance to the Dardanelles) to demonstrate Britain’s clear support for the Sultan. Her real moments of glory came during service in the Black Sea in the Crimean War in 1854 and in 1855. Serving under Captain George Goldsmith, in April 1854, very early in the war, she blockaded the mouths of the Danube and participated in the bombardment of Odessa in October; her ability to manoeuvre independently of the wind allowed her to close in on Russian coastal positions, fire broadsides, turn quickly and then retreat before the Russian gunners could find their range. In September 1854, with the full-scale Allied invasion of the Crimea, Sidon was assigned to escorting French troop transports and assisted the French battleship Algiers, which had gone aground in Eupatoria Bay. On 4 October, she shelled a column of 12,000 Russian soldiers on their way to the Crimea. Next year, she was part of the Allied armada which occupied the Strait of Kertch in May 1855 as a preliminary to operations in the Sea of Azoff. At the end of the campaign, Sidon played a leading role in the naval attack on Fort Kinburn in the mouth of the Dnieper on 17 October 1855 – exactly a year to the day after the attack on Odessa – where iron paddle frigates were really at the forefront of the action.

A view of Sebastopol from the deck of HMS Sidon.

Immediately following the Crimean war, HMS Sidon remained in the Mediterranean under the command of Captain (later Sir) Edward Augustus Inglefield, a well-known Arctic explorer recently returned from two of the Franklin search expeditions. She was used to repatriate troops from the Crimea and later served as a vital link in the ‘overland route’ to India via the eastern Mediterranean and Gulf of Suez. Again, during the Indian Rebellion (the Indian Mutiny), Sidon transported stores and reinforcements and helped maintain communication lines between Malta, Egypt and the Red Sea to ensure the movement of British troops to India.

Following this, HMS Sidon entered a transitional phase that mirrored the Royal Navy’s own shift from Mediterranean power-politics to a wider-ranging imperial ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and, in her case, the suppression of the slave trade off the African coast. While she was becoming technologically ‘aged’ due to the rapid rise of faster, screw-propelled ships, her heavy armament and large coal capacity made her useful for long-range colonial service.

In 1859, under Captain Richard B. Crawford, Sidon was dispatched to serve on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station to enter what was arguably her most gruelling service, on anti-slavery patrols. Despite being a large, heavy frigate, she was assigned to intercept lighter, faster slave ships. Her steam power was a great advantage in the ‘calms’ off the African coast, where sailing slavers would often become becalmed. Off East Africa, she spent significant time cruising the Mozambique Channel as part of the ‘East Africa Mission’ to block the Arab slave trade. The heat and humidity were brutal on the crew and the machinery; the paddle wheels, in particular, required constant maintenance in tropical waters where fouling (barnacles and weed) was a major problem.

In her final major deployment, HMS Sidon served as part of the British squadron off Mexico, 1861-63, and was sent in 1863 to Vera Cruz. Britain, France and Spain initially sent a joint force to pressurise the Mexican government into paying its debts. The Mexican government, led by Benito Juárez, had suspended interest payments on foreign debts, and the European powers sent a combined fleet to Vera Cruz to seize the custom house and enforce payment. Sidon served as part of that deterrent, her massive 68-pounders reminding the local Mexican authorities of British naval reach if they reneged on their obligations. However, as French intentions to intervene much more forcefully became clear, eventually to install the Archduke Maximilian as Emperor, which led to his brief and unfortunate reign, Britain withdrew its forces and Sidon returned home.

By the early 1860s, the Royal Navy had fully committed to iron-hulled warships (‘ironclads’) like HMS Warrior and screw-driven propulsion replaced paddle-power and wind power. The paddle-wheel frigate was increasingly deemed to be an obsolete relic. HMS Sidon was finally paid off in 1863 after her return from Mexico and was sold to Castle and Beech for breaking up at Charlton, on the south bank of the Thames between Greenwich and Woolwich. The specific location where HMS Sidon was broken up was the Anchor and Hope Wharf (also known as Riverside Wharf), situated at the end of what is now Anchor and Hope Lane, close to the present Thames Barrier.

Sidon had an active career of only 16 years but survived long enough to see the old wooden navy she had helped to modernise being rapidly replaced by the age of armoured iron and steel ships and steam-powered screw propulsion.

Medals to HMS Sidon – specifically for the Crimean War and to her Engineer crew – would be an interesting find.