in the Hornblower seriesTechnical Innovations
in the Hornblower series
by Jetse C. Reijenga
Introduction
In a previous essay [2], the Flying Colours novel by C.S. Forester was analyzed with respect to geographical detail. Apart from some minor details, CSF's research proved quite accurate, more accurate in several instances than Northcote Parkinson [3]'s extrapolations and assumptions in the fictional biography. In addition to having a feel for historic detail, CSF was a man with a wide interest in things technological, in spite of the opinion of John Forester in CSF's Biography [4], that his father had a "limited knowledge of technology" (page 248-9), the only example given being from the African Queen. Let's not confuse "knowledge of" with "interest in". The author was fully aware of his own limitations as can be read in "some personal notes" about the Hornblower personality:
I myself was constitutionally unable to make the leap from the binomial theorem to calculus and it would be pleasant to have a hero to whom it was easy......Yet, of course, in making Hornblower a mathematician I was indulging in shameless wish fulfillment, but it is only today, while writing these lines, that I realize it. (Long before Forty [5], page 196) And according to John Forester [6] "CSF didn't know beans about celestial navigation, not even what had been known for two hundred years (or more) before HH's time".
The description of the "perfect landfall" of the Lydia in the South Sea, as just being lucky, indicates that CSF was as self-critical as his alter ego on the limitations of mathematics in this respect.
It was quite possible that he had made a perfect landfall, after eleven weeks out of sight of land........but Hornblower was painfully aware that no very great error in his navigation would have brought him anything up to two hundred miles from where he thought he was. (The Happy Return [7], page 17-21)
So much for mathematics. In the present essay I will illustrate and analyze a few examples where the author and his alter ego show interest in technical innovations. CSF's purpose of course was to increase the authenticity of the historic setting. The analyses will focus on the timing in history of those innovations, and in the line of Hornblower's career and personal circumstances.
Canned food
I always thought Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) invented food conserving by pasteurization or sterilization (apparently not the same). I was therefore mystified when reading in Hormblower in the West Indies, situated in 1821, about:
.....food sealed in a tinned box (glass serves equally well, but not so conveniently on shipboard), sealed at high temperature. I venture to suggest that this new method will make a noticeable difference to the food supply on shipboard. The beef can be eaten cold or hashed up as you have it here. It was nothing like Hornblower had ever tasted before. (Hornblower in the West Indies [8], page 160)
But here I was wrong: canned food [9] was before Louis Pasteur was born. In 1795, the five-man French Directory offered a prize of 12.000 francs to anyone who could present them with a new, effective means of preserving food. Nicolas Appert (1749-1841), an obscure Parisian who had worked as a candy maker, chef, brewer, pickle maker and vintner, had an idea: Why not pack food in bottles like wine? For the next 15 years he worked on his idea. Finally, after partially cooking food, sealing it in bottles with cork stoppers, and immersing the bottles in boiling water, he arrived at his theory: If food is sealed in an airtight container and the air inside is expelled, and if it is sufficiently heated, the food will keep. Interesting, this Napoleonic connection........
Appert's theory was demonstrated by the samples he submitted. Whether or not Napoleon actually said that an army travels on its stomach, he had learned through hard experience that it does. Scurvy and hunger had disabled more of Napoleon's soldiers than combat itself. Appert's samples were sent to sea for four months and ten days — partridges, some vegetables, and gravy — "When opened, eighteen different kinds of preserved foods were tasted," Appert wrote, "Everyone of which had retained its freshness, and not a single substance had undergone the least change at sea." Appert was awarded the 12,000 francs by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte himself. The British responded directly to this development. In 1810 Peter Durand was granted a patent by King George III of England for his idea of preserving food in "vessels of glass, pottery, tin, or other metals or fit materials." (it appears that patenting ideas of others is not a recent phenomenon....) The process was perfected by Bryan Dorkin and John Hall, who set up the first commercial canning factory [10] in England in 1813. They had the advantage over glass bottles of being lighter, easier to seal and less prone to damage during transportation and storage - and so the food can was born. The iron was coated with a fine layer of tin to stop it from rusting. In 1818 Peter Durand introduced the tin-plated can in America.
Another meat preservations issue, in Hornblower and the Hotspur [11] situated in 1803-04, it is mentioned in a sideline, that Hornblower's "captain's stores" only contained six dozen (not so fresh...) eggs and six pounds of heavily salted butter donated by his mother-in-law, but "no potted meat". At first I thought this must refer to high-temperature preserved canned food as described above. Given the financial situation of Hornblower at that time, one must conclude from his disappointment that canned food was not an unusual item, although 1803 would be a trifle early in view of Durand's 1810 patent. Moreover why would Hornblower, 18 years later in the West Indies, be impressed by a novelty such as canned food? A minor anachronism? No, Judith Edwards [36] in Reflections 10 and Andrew Troup [37] of Christchurch, New Zealand pointed out that "potted meat" is a different thing. In short, meat is cooked, seasoned, and chopped or minced. Then it is pressed in a heatproof container (originally pottery) and further heated au bain Marie. Finally it is covered with a layer of hot fat. In a recipe on internet potted meat is decribed as "a cousin of rillette", a specialty of the region of Le Mans, France. My experience is that most people find it either delicious (I do) or disgusting.
Train at Maidstone in 1848 and other steam matters
In The Last Encounter, Napoleon Bonaparte (later to be known as Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte or Napoleon III) is on his way from London to Paris, after a train break down knocks on the door of the Hornblower residence in Smallbridge, wishing to be taken to Maidstone by coach in order catch the train to Dover and the packet boat to Calais. The date: early November 1848. It is described how the residents were bewildered by the appearance, assumed identity and intentions of the visitor, but not in the least by the fact that Maidstone was not situated on the London-Dover railway.
So Your Highness wishes to be driven to Maidstone? Yes my lord. It was eight miles of fairly easy road - not an impossibly extravagant request from a stranger in distress. (The Last Encounter [12] page 154)
The South Eastern Railway [13] had planned to take its main line from London to Dover via Maidstone but landowners opposed this so when the line opened in 1842, the nearest station (Maidstone Road, now Paddock Wood) was 10 miles from the county town. A branch line to Maidstone was sanctioned in 1843, and one year later, on 25 September 1844, the first train ran along the single track to the town. The engine was called Kentish Man and all the passengers were carried free of charge. [14]
Accidents on the South Eastern Railway [15] such as described in The Last Encounter (a land slide due to heavy rainfall) were not uncommon in those days. The following picture was taken in 1868, the engine was called "Rob Roy". In 1865, Charles Dickens had described a similar accident on the South Eastern Railway in a letter to Thomas Mitton.
Accident
on the South Eastern Railway in 1868
The Fictional Biography [3] provides quite an artificial explanation of this inconsistency: Brown and the coachman would have decided to take the Frenchman to Paddock Wood instead of Maidstone, without informing their employer. A very unsatisfactory explanation if ever there was one. Clearly CSF was in (minor) error with regards to the details of the railway track.
In many other instances, the
advance of steam power in society and the navy in particular, is referred to. In
The Last Encounter (part of Hornblower and the Crisis), it is also mentioned that the packet to Calais ran
according to a time table rather than on tide and wind, to some annoyance of the
retired sailor. Wind and tide however were still of importance. Ferries still had to wait for high tide to come in and out, so could not keep to
regular timetables. Navigating the entrance was tricky in rough seas. In the
1850' most ships were still powered by sail - paddle steamers also kept masts
and sails in case the engine broke down. Small steam ferries could make a fast
crossing whatever the wind direction - but were tossed around on the waves.
During the second half of the 19th century, better deep-water harbors began to
be built on both sides of the channel. The Admiralty Pier was Dover's first
deep-water berth. From 1850, ferries could land their passengers at any state of
the tide, without having to pass the shallow inner harbor entrance - a
revolution! [16], but still one that was not
fully complete at the time of The Last Encounter (1848).
paddle steam ferry off Dover [16]
Steam pressure as a metaphor: in the Hotspur, Hornblower has to pass honours to a French frigate for the first time in his life. The year is 1803, a brief interval of peace is about to end, but Cornwallis' orders are clear: do not start hostilities.
We must render passing honours, Mr. Bush, said Hornblower. There was something madly stimulating in forcing himself to be coldly formal when internally he was boiling with excitement. That must be what went on inside one of Mr. Watt's steam engines when the safety valve did not function. (Hornblower and the Hotspur [12], page 59)
This makes one wonder whether this figure of speech had penetrated into daily language already in 1803; I would think it hadn't. Regarding the safety valve however, one must realize that the it [17] is older than the steam engine: it was developed in the 17th century by the German Glauber and the Frenchman Papin. In his treatise on furnaces, translated into English in 1651, Papin describes the modes by which he prevents retorts and stills from bursting from an excessive pressure. Also, the safety valve is a typical Forester metaphor:
Presumably for years the canny half of me and my family as well had been sitting on the safety valve of my desire for artistic self expression. The pressure accumulated had become enormous, and now that it had found a vent it blew itself off with a terrific crash. (Long before Forty [5], page 119)
The stream tug in (admiral) Hornblower in the West Indies, is just another example of early naval steam. In a recent article Donald Hines [18] highlights the particular event of the steam tug in New Orleans in 1821. Evidently steam power had advanced further into daily life in the rivers and coastal waters of the New World than it had in England, at least in the Navy. The Navy obviously waited until screw propulsion proved its worth. Paddle wheel propulsion wouldn't do in a battle ship because it would not survive the first broadside [6]. The introduction is illustrated by the following two examples: the first naval steam paddle ship and the first warship built with screw propulsion. (sources Clarke [19] and Lambert [20])
The sixth HMS Ech0 [21] was one of the first handful of steam paddle ships built for the Admiralty, and was launched at Woolwich Dockyard in May 1827. She was built to an altered version of the ‘Cherokee’ Class design – the ‘coffin’ brigs, so-called for their less-than-lovely lines – and measured 109 ft. 8 in. length on deck, 293 ½ tons burthen. Her two cylinder, side-lever engines were built by Watt and developed 100 NHP (nominal horse power) giving her a theoretical 7.6 knots under power.
As well as being a pioneer of naval steamships, she was the originator of the tradition of HMS Echo as a survey ship name; based at Woolwich, her first commission included surveys of the Thames and its estuary. As an experimental vessel, the first couple of years saw her variously employed as dispatch vessel, survey ship and occasional tug in the Thames and at the home naval bases. In 1830 she was in the Mediterranean and Adriatic as a dispatch vessel, then from 1831 to 1836 off the coast of Portugal and Spain. In late 1836, with improved reliability, HMS Echo went to the West Indies where she served as mail packet and dispatch vessel until late 1839. From 1840 she served as a tug at Portsmouth, until she was sold to the ship breakers Castle & Co. in 1885.
The HMS Agamemnon [22]: Laid down in 1849, launched in 1852, and commissioned the following year, the ship-rigged steam battleship Agamemnon was the first warship built with screw propulsion, though other sailing vessels had been fitted with engines after commissioning. Agamemnon's success was such that she remained the basic model for the first decade of Britain's steam battle fleet. As flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons's Black Sea fleet (Captain William Mends commanding) during the Crimean War, she took part in the bombardment of Sevastopol on October 17, 1854. She also took part in the shelling of Fort Kinburn, at the mouth of the Dnieper one year later. In 1857 the British government fitted out Agamemnon to carry 1,250 tons of telegraphic cable for the Atlantic Telegraph Company's first attempt to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable. Although the first attempt was unsuccessful, the following year the project was accomplished. Agamemnon was paid off in 1862 and sold in 1870.
Semaphor mistery
Communication over land using semaphores plays a role in several of the Hornblower novels, a major one in Hornblower and the Hotspur [11]: a telegraph station at Brest was completely demolished (and an ammunition depot blown up). In several other of the Hornblower series, the importance of semaphor communication was indicated. In another instance, the system was mentioned being of importance to communication along the French coast, but from the relevant literature it appears that the semaphore system was mainly intended for communication between the coastal region and Paris.
Regarding the timing let's take this as a test case. In Hornblower and the Crisis [12], our hero is in the office of Mr. Barrow and Mr. Marsden at the Admiralty, having delivered some captured documents. The year is 1805. Orders for the secretary's assistant Mr Dorsey:
That's for his Majesty at Windsor. See that the Courier leaves within fifteen minutes. That's for the telegraph to Plymouth. So is that. That's for Portsmouth. Have the copying begun immediately. (Hornblower and the Crisis [12], page 90)
This presumes that an optical telegraph connection existed between the War office at Whitehall and Plymouth. Let's look into the historical facts in the Early History of Data Networks [23]. In September 1795 the Admiralty accepted the design of Lord George Murray [24] (1761-1803), the Six shutter system and constructed the first line of 15 stations from London to Deal, it was completed on 27 January 1796. The beginning network was extended in 1796 to 10 additional stations for a line going south via Beacon Hill to Portsmouth. In 1806 it was extended again, with 22 additional stations leading from Beacon Hill 200 miles southwest to Plymouth . So in 1805 Plymouth was not yet connected.
A slightly different account in the History of Telegraphy [25]: In England the shutter systems were not developed much further than the Admiralty line to Portsmouth and the line from London to Chatham and Sheerness. However, by the 1820's semaphore development in France caused the Admiralty to consider its use as a replacement line and, among several contenders for this task, Sir Home Riggs Popham [26] (1762-1822) was asked to establish his design for a semaphore line linking London to Portsmouth, and later to extend this to Plymouth (which further task was never completed).
Semaphore systems [23, 25] according to (from left to right) Edelcrantz, Murray, Popham and Chappe
The Semaphor [27] was even more explicit about the Plymouth connection: On 23rd October 1805 estimates for a direct line to Plymouth were called for, but on the 31st George Roebuck was asked to survey ground to Plymouth, with a branch from the Portsmouth line, and in two months the survey was completed and his line approved by Their Lordships, who ordered him to erect the stations. There were to be 22 new stations throughout Hants, Dorset and Devon to Mount Wise in Plymouth Dockyard, which were completed with all Roebuck's dispatch. It has been said that on the 4th July 1806 he was able to make a report that "at the Admiralty Telegraph a reply from Plymouth began to be spelled out, only 20 minutes from the time that same telegraph had made 'message ended'." But it is known that Roebuck on this date was at Portsmouth and the message was actually transmitted from there via Beacon Hill and Chalton to Plymouth and return. It was on the previous 4th May that he had carried out his test message from London to Plymouth - 'the Preparative call taking 17 minutes'. Before very long the one o'clock time signal could be made and acknowledged in three minutes, at a distance of 200 odd miles each way.
Richard Clarke [28] argues as follows: Are we in a position to say that no telegraph message could be sent to Plymouth in 1805? I think so, but it might depend upon the definition of 'telegraph message'. Here's what Holmes [27] says on page 30 - The Admiralty, of course, had no telegraphs and this appears to be the first time that they became interested in them, but they had in the spring of 1795, erected signal towers on the coasts, 48 of which were on the south coast from Sheerness to Lands End....... All of these stations made signals by means of balls and flags, but as these signals had only fixed meanings regarding the enemy, etc., the idea of a telegraph (Murray's shutter system and Popham's semaphore) was brilliant.
Whereas Murray's system more or less resembles the one by the Swedish inventor Abraham Niclas Clewberg-Edelcrantz [29] (1754-1821), one cannot deny that the one by Sir Home Riggs Popham looked more like the French semaphore system by Claude Chappe [30] (1763 - 1805), a truly Napoleonic connection again. Incidentally, it has been suggested by John D. Grainger [31] that Hornblower's career ran surprisingly parallel to that of Sir Home Riggs Popham's, in the end they became nearly identical. Popham was commander-in-chief of the West Indies station in 1820-22, the very post Hornblower had at the time. But Popham died in 1822; Hornblower lived another thirty-five years.
All in all: it is most likely that in 1805 no advanced telegraph was operational between London and Plymouth, suitable for transmitting an arbitrary, coded message, another minor anachronism in the Hornblower series.
Pistol ammunition
The Commodore [32] starts off in the year 1815. Hornblower is getting ready to sail for the Baltic.
I'll put the pistols in the locker, said Brown, completing the unpacking. Pistols?, said Hornblower. He looked down to examine the pistols. They were beautiful weapons, of bright steel inlaid with silver, double-barreled, the butts of ebony, giving them a perfect balance in the hand. There were two copper tubes in the case to open next; they merely contained pistol bullets, each cast flawlessly, a perfect sphere...........Inside the barrels were bright spiral lanes; they were rifled pistols then. The next copper box in the case contained a number of discs of thin lather impregnated with oil; these would be for wrapping up the bullet before inserting it into the barrel, so as to ensure a perfect fit..............With these pistols he could rely on himself to hit a small bull's-eye at fifty yards, as long as he held true............. But there was one more copper box to open. It was full of little square bits of copper sheet, very thin indeed. He was puzzled by the site of them; each bit of copper had a bulge in the center, where the metal was especially thin, making the black contents just visible through it. It dawned slowly upon Hornblower that these must be the percussion caps he had heard vaguely about recently. (The Commodore [32], page 38-)
The Percussion Cap [33] ignition system was developed in 1805 by the Reverend John Forsyth of Aberdeenshire. This firing mechanism was a great step in advancement from its predecessors because it does not use an exposed flash pan to begin the ignition process. Instead, it has a simple tube which leads straight into the gun barrel.
the Flint Lock [34] Vs the Percuss
ion
Cap [33] 
The key to this system is the explosive cap which is placed on top of the tube.
The cap contains fulminate of mercury, a chemical compound which explodes when
it is struck. This is the same stuff as is used in the paper or plastic caps in
a child's cap gun. As illustrated above, when the cap is struck by the hammer,
the flames from the exploding fulminate of mercury go down the tube, into the
gun barrel, and ignite the powder inside the barrel to propel the bullet.
This firing mechanism provided a major advance in reliability, since the cap was
almost certain to explode when struck. This mechanism is almost immune to
dampness, though in a rainfall one must still be cautious to avoid getting water
in the gun barrel or into the ignition system while loading the weapon. The
percussion cap was the key to making reliable rotating-block guns (revolvers)
which would fire reliably, and in the early 1800s several manufacturers began
producing these multiple-shot side arms in mass quantities. The percussion cap
firing mechanism gave an individual soldier a weapon of precision and
reliability which was used to devastating effect in the U.S. Civil War
(1861-1865).
This seems in slight disagreement with another
source [35], stating that the percussion cap did not last very long - perhaps 50
years. Manufacturing processes were developing rapidly at the time and it became
possible to integrate the cap, powder and projectile into a single metal package
at low cost. This was the end of front-loaded pistols. These are the bullets we use today.
Does it seems feasible that 10 years after the invention, a British naval officer had heard about it vaguely?
Conclusions
In the Hornblower series of novels, C.S. Forester successfully incorporated numerous technical innovations, thereby creating a marked degree of authenticity of the historical setting. The author has obviously taken pains to ensure correct description of details. Only in a few minor instances the timing in history of these inventions reveals some slight anachronism. Here the assumption remains, that data and sources available today, as cited, were also accessable by the author at the time of writing, an assumption that can hardly be considered likely. His background research on the topics mentioned therefore must have been quite comprehensive. Providing an authentic background for historic novels may be considered self-evident, the fact remains that C.S. Forester succeeded in doing this, with flying colours......
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Daniëlle Mothes of Maidstone for information on the South-Eastern Railway, Richard Clarke of Guildford, Surrey for semaphor sources and valuable discussion, John Forester for comments on a prelimenary version, http://dse.nl for providing webspace and the people at http://google.com for their magnificent search engine.
References
title photograph, steam tug Flying Meteor of 1875 http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/photodb/wc0833.htm
Jetse C. Reijenga, http://dse.nl/~jetse/flying_colours.htm
Cecil Northcote Parkinson, the Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower, Sutton, Stroud, UK (1996), ISBN 0-7509-1224-3
John Forester, Novelist & Storyteller, the life of C.S. Forester, John Forester, Lemon Grove, CA, USA (2001), ISBN 0-940558-04-1
SER accidents: http://learningcurve.pro.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot18/snapshot18.htm#Links
Dover-Calais ferries: http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/ferries.htm
Donald Hines, Hornblower, Turner and the Fighting Téméraire, Reflections, number 5, september 2003, C.S. Forester Society
Arthur Charles Clarke, Voices across the Sea, Luscombe, rev. edition
Andrew Lambert, Battleships in Transition.: The Creation of the Steam Battle fleet, 1815-1860, United States Naval Inst.; (March 1985)
HMS Echo: http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/3497.html
HMS Agamemnon: http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_001900_hmsagamemno2.htm
Gerard J. Holzmann and Björn Pehrson, The early History of Data Networks, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, USA (1995), ISBN 0-8186-6782-6
Lord George Murray, http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/MURRAY_BIO.html
Ken Beauchamp, History of Telegraphy, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London (2001), ISBN 0-85296-792-6
Sir Home Riggs Popham, http://69.1911encyclopedia.org/P/PO/POPHAM_SIR_HOME_RIGGS.htm