Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, C.B., R.N. (1819 – 7 September 1870), was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
naval captain with the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
. Coles was also an
inventor; in 1859, he was the first to
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
a design for a
revolving gun turret. Upon appealing for public support, his turrets were installed on
HMS ''Prince Albert'' and
HMS ''Royal Sovereign''. Coles died in a maritime accident in 1870 when , an experimental warship built to his designs, capsized and sank with him on board.
Naval career
The son of the Reverend John Coles and his wife Mary Ann Goodhew Rogers, he entered the Royal Navy at the age of eleven. On 9 January 1846, he was promoted to
lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations.
The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
and on 5 December 1849 posted to ''Phaeton'' commanded by George Augustus Elliot. On 24 October 1853, he was posted to ''Agamemnon'' as
flag lieutenant for his uncle, Rear Admiral
Sir Edmund Lyons. He distinguished himself at the
siege of Sevastopol during the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
against the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. On 13 November 1854 promoted to
commander and on 2 August 1856 was commanding officer of the paddle boat in the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
.
![Lady nancy taganrog](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Lady_nancy_taganrog.jpg)
It was during the
Siege of Taganrog
The siege of Taganrog is a name given in some Russian histories to Anglo-French naval operations in the Sea of Azov between June and November 1855 during the Crimean War. British and French forces were implementing a strategy of destroying the ...
that he and other British naval officers and sailors constructed a raft named ''Lady Nancy'' from twenty-nine casks lashed together with spars. The raft supported a long
32-pounder gun and because of its small draft could be moved into shallow water from where it was used to attack Russian government stores in
Taganrog
Taganrog ( rus, Таганрог, p=təɡɐnˈrok) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of the Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population:
History of Taganrog
Th ...
. Coles became a hero for this action, when the press correspondent on board ''Stromboli'' reported his daring deeds. Coles expanded the idea by drawing up plans for a better raft, mounting a gun enclosed within a hemispherical shield. Admiral Lyons was impressed with the ideas and Coles was sent to London to present his ideas to the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
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*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
. Plans were prepared for rafts with a
draught of which would be used to attack the
Kronstadt
Kronstadt (russian: Кроншта́дт, Kronshtadt ), also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt or Kronštádt (from german: link=no, Krone for " crown" and ''Stadt'' for "city") is a Russian port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city ...
forts. The rafts would be able to approach through shallow waters not protected by the fort guns. Unfortunately for Coles, the war ended before the raft could be built.
Turret ship designer
![Double Turret Ship Design](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Double_Turret_Ship_Design.jpg)
On 27 February 1856, Coles was made captain. He was placed on half pay after the war ended and spent his time creating designs for turret ships. Up to this time the principal armament of warships had been batteries of guns firing from fixed ports in the sides of the ship. On 10 March 1859 he filed a patent for a revolving turret, although it is not clear how he came by the idea. The American , constructed by John Ericsson in 1861, incorporated a revolving turret and Ericsson claimed the idea of a revolving protected gun was an old one. ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' suggested that
Marc Brunel
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Born in Franc ...
had given Coles the idea. Coles' design aim was to create a ship with the greatest possible all round arc of fire, as low in the water as possible to minimise the target. This proved to be a weakness in designs he created, because he was unwilling to compromise these aims for the practical necessities of sailing ships' rigging, decks sufficiently high to be clear of heavy seas and other necessary superstructures which restricted the guns' rotation.
The Admiralty accepted the principle of the turret gun as a useful innovation, and incorporated it into other new designs. However, they could not accept his other ideas on ship design. Coles submitted a design for a ship having ten domed turrets each housing two large guns. The design was rejected as impractical, although the Admiralty remained interested in turret ships and instructed its own designers to create better designs. Coles submitted his plans to anyone who might be interested and succeeded in enlisting a number of supporters, including
Prince Albert, who wrote to the first Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, supporting the construction of a turret ship. In January 1862, the Admiralty agreed to construct a ship, , which had four turrets and a low freeboard, intended only for coastal defence. Coles was allowed to design the turrets, but the ship was the responsibility of the chief Constructor
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts (17 July 1674 – 25 November 1748) was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. His works include "When I Survey the ...
.
Coles had another proposal, to take an existing timber ship, remove its upper decks and existing broadside guns and replace them with four turrets on a flat deck. The ship was also to be fitted with of armour in a belt around the waterline. was completed in August 1864, ahead of ''Prince Albert''. Like ''Prince Albert'' it had only minimal sails intended to steady the ship rather than drive it along at any speed. The low freeboard was countered by hinged sections increasing the height of the sides above the deck; these were dropped down to allow the guns to fire. Coles later took command of ''Royal Sovereign'' for the
July 1867 Naval Review.
While these ships were building, Coles made further proposals which the Admiralty resisted pending completion of the trial ships already under construction. However, once ''Royal Sovereign'' was completed and had received favourable reports, he requested Admiralty assistance in creating a new design. This was to be based upon the existing designed by the new Chief Constructor,
Edward Reed. The Admiralty provided the original plans of the ship plus Joseph Scullard, constructor at Portsmouth dockyard, to assist. The resulting single turret design was rejected, but the Admiralty instructed Reed to create a larger version with two turrets which became , laid down in 1866 and completed in June 1869. Coles complained at the inclusion of a forecastle and poop which prevented the guns firing fore and aft, and the high position of the guns above water level, but his objections were dismissed. Reed maintained the features were all intended to improve seaworthiness.
HMS ''Captain''
![HMS captainWilliam Frederick Mitchell](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/HMS_captainWilliam_Frederick_Mitchell.jpg)
Coles once again resorted to appealing to public opinion to obtain support for a ship more closely in accord with his design ideas. The civilian First Lord remained agreeable to his plans, although the Board of Admiralty was split. Eventually the Board agreed to pay for the construction of a ship, although this was to be supervised by Coles himself in an Admiralty-approved yard; Laird Brothers agreed to build her. Plans for were submitted to the Admiralty as would be normal, but Reed declined to 'approve' them, instead marking all drawings 'not objected to'. He eventually resigned over the affair in July 1870, two months before the disaster. Construction commenced in January 1867.
''Captain'' was designed to have a freeboard of only , but owing to mistakes in construction leading to increased weight, the ship eventually floated lower in the water. She had a full set of sails and the highest masts in the navy. She was completed in January 1870, and initial trials were successful. In May, she accompanied the Channel fleet and successfully weathered a gale. Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Symmonds commanding commented favorably on both ''Captain'' and ''Monarch''. ''Captain'' achieved , compared to ''Monarch''s under steam, but with smaller engines. Under sail, ''Captain'' was faster. All in all, she was hailed as a vindication of Coles' ideas.
In August, the ship sailed again with Coles on board. The weather deteriorated, and again she had to face a gale. This time, however, the wind was gusting and unpredictable. Extensive rigging had been necessary to make the ship oceangoing. This forced the creation of a "hurricane deck" above the turrets, which increasingly caught the wind as she heeled over. This may have been instrumental in ''Captain''s tragic
capsize
Capsizing or keeling over occurs when a boat or ship is rolled on its side or further by wave action, instability or wind force beyond the angle of positive static stability or it is upside down in the water. The act of recovering a vessel fro ...
. Coles perished in the disaster after midnight on the night of 6 September.
It emerged that the ship had a maximum righting moment at an angle of heel around 18 degrees. If she was pushed over beyond this angle, the moment declined. By contrast, ''Monarch'' had a maximum restoring force at an angle of 40 degrees, so that any heel up to this limit would always meet increasing resistance.
Family
In 1856, Coles married Emily Pearson, niece of
Admiral Lord Lyons. Coles was himself a nephew, by marriage, of Admiral Lord Lyons, his mother being the sister of Augusta, Lyons' wife. A son was
Sherard Osborn Cowper-Coles, metallurgist and inventor of the
sherardising process of
galvanisation
Galvanization or galvanizing ( also spelled galvanisation or galvanising) is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron, to prevent rusting. The most common method is hot-dip galvanizing, in which the parts are submerged ...
.
Artist
Coles was also an artist. The
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unite ...
has a number of his watercolours, and sell prints of some of them.
See also
*
References
HMS ''Captain''Brief biography*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coles, Cowper Phipps
Royal Navy officers
British marine engineers
1819 births
1870 deaths
Companions of the Order of the Bath
Royal Navy personnel of the Crimean War
Deaths due to shipwreck at sea
19th-century British inventors