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Map Notes
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Dummer's Charts, Historical Context
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map type: HantsMap & Dummer 1698
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The defeat of the English by the French at the Battle of
Beachy Head in June 1690 left England in a vulnerable position.
Louis XIV of France took full advantage of the fact that the
English army at the time was almost entirely occupied in Ireland
and the possibility of an invasion was a real one, so he sent a
fleet of 80 sail and 30 fireships to attack the English fleet.
Unfortunately the main body of the English fleet completely
missed this French armada who went on to inflict some very heavy
casualties on the smaller part of the navy, and thus gaining
control of the English Channel. The French did come ashore but
only in small numbers but this was something which was not easily
forgotten, or forgiven and the English fleet had been heavily out
numbered so the need for more vessels and improved harbours was
ever more apparent.
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The wheels were put in motion and when King William III
delivered his speech to Parliament on the 3 of December, 1697, he
could proudly boast that the naval force of England was nearly
double to what it had been at the time of his accession. It was
also worth noting that the number of vessels lost between 1688
and 1697 by the English was only 50, compared to the French who
had lost 59 ships, but twice as many guns. So with Britain
becoming an even greater naval power and as the Dutch were being
overtaken in the race for supremacy, to continue the dominance of
European waters Britannia needed the logistics to achieve a
prominent position. As part of the planning process, all of the
coast of Southern Britain was to be surveyed to see if any
expansion could made in the number of harbours suitable for the
use of the Royal Naval. The men chosen to undertake this survey
were Edmund Dummer and Captain Thomas Wiltshaw.
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On the 25th of June 1692 Edmund Dummer was appointed to the
position of Surveyor of the Navy at Portsmouth. This position was
held by a man who was not a naval officer, but one who described
himself in 1698 as a commissioner of His Majesties Navy whose
official capacity put him in charge of the dockyards, stores and
ship maintenance at Portsmouth. As Surveyor of the Navy he would
have been responsible for any hydrographic surveying which was
needed to be undertaken, at any of the dockyards under his
charge, to insure the safe transit of any vessel within his
jurisdiction. Dummer had been working for the Admiralty at least
since 1689, when he was ordered to go to Plymouth to select a
site for a new dry dock, which he contracted Robert Waters to
build in 1690 at Point Forward, having overruled the objections
by the local agent who wanted to build it at the Slate
Quarry.
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In 1698, under orders from the Lords of the Admiralty, he
undertook a plan to survey various harbours along the south coast
of England, at a time when a new war with France was a real
threat, and Portsmouth would have been a major target. To survey
all of the south coast was not something that could be undertaken
by one man alone, as the title page testifies the work was
undertaken with three others, Captain Thomas Wiltshaw or Wilshaw,
Captain James Conoway and Captain William Cruft. Conoway and
Cruft were two officers from Trinity House at Deptford, who were
presumably assisting the Navy because of their navigational
experience, which Dummer may not have had. Wiltshaw on the other
hand was very different as he was serving as a commissioner at
Portsmouth in 1690, then in 1693 he was commissioned as a
lieutenant, followed three years later by his captaincy. He kept
the post of commissioner until at least 1698 which would have
made him the more senior commissioner, in length of service, if
not in age.
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The surveying was completed in the months of July and August
of 1698 which was rather quick to say the least, as eighteen
harbours were visited, and the resulting charts appear to be
rushed. On closer examination they appear to be incomplete as in
most cases they show few soundings, only the high and low water
lines, and few, if any, navigational features making it difficult
for any large vessel to enter one of these so-called ports, but
this was not the purpose of this undertaking. Dummer and Wiltshaw
were looking for sites for new dockyards, and also to see if any
of the existing smaller ports could be improved to accommodate
larger vessels. The charts were rushed because they were only
superficial to the main task in which Conoway and Cruft played a
crucial part. As captains of Trinity House they would have had
access to the vast records of that well established organisation,
which along with their practical experience, presented the Navy
with the means to gather all the information they needed.
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Another reason for the relatively short time it took to
complete the surveys is clear when you compare their work with
what was commercially available in 1698. In 1693 the first
attempt to chart the whole of Great Britain by an Englishman was
brought into print under the title of Great Britain's Coasting
Pilot, based on the surveys of Captain Greenvile Collins, RN.
This published work took Collins almost eight years and it
naturally included a reasonable coverage of ports on the south
coast of England. Dummer and Wiltshaw clearly copied Collins
survey for some of their charts, sounding for sounding, rock for
rock, but when they presented their charts in portrait, instead
of landscape as Collins had, they made some subtle changes. They
added a crude depiction of the relief, changed the scale
slightly, used a key to show names of features, orientated the
chart with north to the top and one strickingly obvious advantage
was the use of colour, which Collins did not use because his
charts were all copper pulls and not individually hand drawn.
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The descriptions of the ports contain amongst other things
observations of the state of the tide, adjacent land, draughts of
vessels and the problems of silting. The entry for Falmouth tells
us a survey had been undertaken in 1693 which proved the Cornish
port did not
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abound in those Qualifications which are proper for the
Improvement of the Navy
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Other entries, such as the one for Helford, give an indication
of local commerce mentioning trading vessels
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convenient for Small Coasters
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used in the export of tin and corn, and at Lymington
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Ships of good Bulk may be here Built for the Merchants Service
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When all the surveys were completed and the critique written
up, the work was addressed to the Principal Officers and
Commissioners of his Majesties Navy and sent to the Lords of the
Admiralty some time after 19 November 1698, just over four months
after it was started. It was suggested in this report that the
only ports worth considering were the ones in the area around
Portsmouth and Isle of Wight!
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list of map notes |
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map type Dummer 1698 -- menu of resources |
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HantsMap Notes -- DUM1HIST.txt
Webb, Adrian: 2.2002
last edit: 14.10.2002
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