T.S. CORNWALL

A FLOATING BORSTAL IN THE THAMES

by Pat O'Driscoll

This is the only known photograph of the original Cornwall, moored off Purfleet and with probably most of her assignment of boys positioned on the yardarins, no doubt for the benefit of the camera. If this is all of the boys then on board, it would place the date around 1860. Cornwall was originally built in 1812, by Bamard of Deptford, as a 3rd rate 74 gun frigate but in 1831 she was razeed to a 4th rate 50 gunner. She was 176 feet long, 48 feet beam and her tunnage was 1,75 1. This latter was a calculation done by the builder, based on
the number of tuns (casks) it was estimated a vessel could carry, and was the standard method of indicating a ship's capacity up until 1873, after which displacement tonnage was used. Cornwall swapped places and names with Wellesley in 1868 but came back south from the Tyne when her career finally ended, to be broken up- at Sheerness in January 1875.

Courtesy of National Maritime Museum, London

For nearly a century a number of training ships, mostly old 'wooden walls', were moored in the lower
Thames. They existed as floating schools, mainly for poor boys, who were lodged, educated, fed, clothed and prepared for a seafaring life. By 1878 there were seven of them, London being the port with the greatest number. Other British ports had their training ships as well, brought into being as a result of a manning crisis in the Royal Navy in the late 1850s.

The seven in the Thames were: Cornwall, established in 1859; Warspite, moored off Chariton in 1862; Worcester, founded in 1862 for prospective Merchant Navy officers; Chichester was opened in 1866, while Arethusa, Shaftesbury and Exmouth were products of the 1870s. The last survivor, Worcester, lingered on until 1978. Now there are none, although some of the social problems which caused them to be established still remain.

While most of the ships took boys who were 'poor but honest' or living on the streets and in danger of becoming criminals, the Cornwall was founded specifically as a reformatory by George Chambers, a London businessman. He had noticed the success of a similar ship, the Akbar, on the Mersey and thought that one was needed on the Thames, to reclaim friendless and uncared for boys who had been before the courts. The alternative, prison, would only make them into hardened criminals. He approached the Admiralty for the loan of a ship.

At this time the Navy had a number of surplus wooden ships, made obsolete by the development of steam power and, a little later, iron construction. The 50-gun frigate Cornwall was lent, on condition that adequate funds be available to equip the vessel and to establish the institution, initially called the School Ship Society, on a firm footing. £2,000 was speedily raised and an influential Committee formed. As Master of Trinity House, the Prince Consort agreed to become Patron.

In April 1859 Cornwall was moored off Purflect, then an isolated part of the Thames with a Government powder magazine ashore. Captain Augustus Burton R.N. was the first Captain-Superintendent (such posts normally went to retired Naval officers). The first boy was admitted on June 6th and by the end of the year there were a total of 46 on board. The regime was a combination of school and training in seamanship, with the boys wearing a Naval-type uniform and sleeping in hammocks.

Discipline was necessarily strict but the boys thrived on regular meals and a regular life. Many entered the ship undersized because they had been living on the streets, eating what they could get. All training ship boys were supposed to be fit for a seafaring life when they left. An undersized boy was generally accepted in the knowledge that a combination of food and physical exercise would soon build him up. The R.N. had minimum physical standards for boy entrants and other training ships had to bear this in mind but Cornwall boys were not affected as the Navy insisted upon good character, which automatically ruled them out.

During 1861, 81 boys had been sent to the ship. By 1868, over 200 boys were on board, indicating that a bigger ship was needed. The School Ship Society heard that the 75gun Wellesley, built of teak at Bombay in 1815 and now Receiving Ship on the Tyne, was going to be disposed of. The Admiralty, when approached, agreed to lend them the ship, valued at £4,217, complete with masts, rigging, stores and three boats. She took the name Cornwall.

Information about conditions aboard Thames training ships can be found in the regular reports of London's Port Medical Officer, within whose 'parish' they came. Dr. Leach, the P.M.O., submitted his first report in January 1874. A year later he mentioned that he had no real control over the training ships unless there was an epidemic, for the Sanitary Act of 1866 had laid down that all ships belonging to the Queen were exempt from the jurisdiction of Port Sanitary Authorities. Most of the training ships were on loan from the Admiralty, so the attention of the Local Government Board was directed to this loophole, which was closed.

In November 1874, Dr. Leach had made a night inspection of all Thames school ships. He drew up a list of suggestions for improvements which could be adopted by all of them without extensive structural alterations. These included more attention to lavatories, better ventilation and the provision of a floating or shore hospital, so that cases of infectious disease could be swiftly isolated.

Captain (later Admiral) Arthur Morrell R.N. was in charge of the ship from 1873 until 1902, actively helped by his wife and daughters. He was succeeded. by Aylmer Williams after increasing age, coupled with the death of his wife, were instrumental in leading to a breakdown in discipline among the boys. Captain Williams himself suffered a heart attack in June 1903 and was replaced in December by Captain H. W. Steele R.N. Among other things, Steele held a class on the theory of navigation for the brighter boys, thus giving them a head start in studying for their Second Mate's Certificate if they wished to become ships' officers. In his report for 1907, Dr. Williams, London's P.M.O., stated that in his opinion Thames training ships should be abolished and the boys trained ashore. Captains Superintendent were not amused. One of them said that it was the strip of river between ship and shore that made all the difference!

Cornwall celebrated her jubilee in 1909. To mark the event a small book was published, written by Walter Millachip, the elderly Secretary to the School Ship Society. While the book contains a lot of information, anyone familiar with the ship's story will know how 'economical with the truth' the author was at times. Captain Steele died in January 1916 and, because of a wartime shortage of suitably qualified officers, his widow became Lady Superintendent until August, when Captain Pyddoke took command. Mrs. Steelejoined the Committee of Management and was still there in 193 1. At the annual meeting of this Committee in July 1918 it was announced that over 500 Cornwall old boys had served in the war. Ten of them had won the Distinguished Conduct Medal and five the Military Medal but 54 had been killed in action.

In the summer of 1926 the ship had to move from Purfleet because the land ashore (playing field for the ship) was wanted for a coal wharf. A new berth was found for her off Denton, just below Gravesend, another lonely spot where several hulks laden with explosives lay on moorings. By 1927 all school instruction was carried out ashore; only seamanship was taught afloat. The Admiral's annual inspection report for this year was very critical of a number of aspects about the ship and its conditions, especially the dietary, but the Home Office (H.O.), after asking the Managers for an explanation, said 'we cannot at this stage press for the Managers to abandon the ship. It has recently been removed at great expense and we are practically bound to put up with it for a time'. The following two files are still closed. They give details of the ViceAdmiral's report for 1928, an adverse one. Cornwall's Managers were told bluntly that the ship would have to be closed unless the standard improved very sharply and very quickly. A full-time cook was needed.

During the 1930s the H.O. was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the Management Committee, even its composition ('retired Admirals and busy City men') who seldom came near the ship except on Prize Day.

They were not satisfied with the Captain, who was about to retire, and hoped that his successor would be better as 'the Committee always wanted a Naval man and Naval men who are really good at the training of difficult lads are hard to find'. If the ship were to be closed there would be a severe shortage of Approved School accommodation for senior boys, because of which the H.O. reluctantly decided to keep the ship going. Nevertheless, the proportion of boys who actually got jobs at sea was dwindling.

There was competition from the Gravesend Sea School for the lessening number of jobs, a cause of the shipping slump and the general recession of the 1920s and 30s. Some boys had to take berths on sailing barges.

While the Cornwall was certified for 200 boys, there was not satisfactory accommodation for that number. Several areas could not be used for slinging hammocks and, in areas where it was possible, there was only 22 inches of space per boy. The number of boys was reduced to 175, a compromise. The Children and Young Persons' Act, 1933, turned the Cornwall into a H.O. Approved School. The time spent aboard was reduced from four years to three. Inspections in 1937 and 1938 were again critical.

The latter, undertaken by a mere R.N. Captain, commented adversely on the 'heads' (toilets) and the galley, and included the comment that 'the CaptainSuperintendent says that he turns out 95% of his boys as successfully reconditioned members of society. This, to my mind, is very much in spite of the conditions the boys live under while being trained'. H.O. notes on this file say that the school received a month's warning of an inspection, so that to still find the galley not clean was bad. It was also thought that the claim that 95% of the boys turned out well was optimistic.

After leaving the ship a boy was followed up for three years. Using this data, the H.O. was able to state that of the 80 boys licensed in 1934, 18 had been before the courts on some charge before the end of 1937, with 7 sent to Borstal and 3 to prison. At the end of that year, 11 boys were reported as being unemployed, a dangerous position for a somewhat unstable boy'.

Early in 1938 the H.O.'s Chief Inspector noted that it would be necessary to renew the upper deck, previously redone in 1884, and that the Managers would have to raise a bank loan to enable the work to be carried out. The lowest tender was £2,195, with repayment of the £2,500 loan over six years. The condition of the mainmast was also deteriorating. In January Captain Ellery, the Principal Examiner of Masters and Mates, inspected the ship (the first visit by a Merchant Navy representative seen in the files). He noted that boys now spent two years in the ship, attending school for the first three to six months, but that Navigation was not now taught.

He recommended that it should be resumed for the more intelligent boys and that a school ashore would be much better. Half the boys left for shore jobs and those who did go to sea only received the minimum of preparation for an ordinary deckhand's job. In none of the files is there any query about the kind of seamanship instruction given, bearing in mind that there are often differences between R.N. and M.N. practice. The instructors were all ex-R.N. and, as Cornwall boys were not allowed to join the R.N. there was, on the face of it, no point in training them the Navy's way, geared to the crew of a large warship.

By 1939 the rotten mainmast had been hoisted out. A file dated July of that year notes that it was intended to close the ship but the earliest possible date was 31st March 1941. The finance Branch demonstrated how payments via Grant could be accelerated so that by then the cost of renewing the upper deck could be covered. since the ship was on loan from the admiralty it would have to be returned to them. By the time all the payments had been met , alternative accommmodation would be available and, in the meantime , the number of boys would be reduced.

The war upset everything. In August 1939 the boys were evacuated to a ministary of Labour camp at Brandon, Suffolk, but discipline broke down and it was not a success. After considerable correspondence back and forth, it was decided to licence as many boys as possible, disperse the rest and close the establishment. The H.O. had had enough. The Managers decided to retire from the work of training the boys.

The Admiralty was informed of this as the Managers wanted to hand the Cornwall, now in the hands of two Shipkeepers, back to them. The problem was that the vessel was not free of debt. There was an outstanding balance of £1,800 on the 1938 bank loan and one of the conditions under which the ship was lent to the Managers in 1868 was that it should be returned free of all liabilities for expenses. The Admiralty could not assume these and, consequently, the assets of the Managers were 'frozen', and held as security for the bank loan.