NATAL HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 73, 28 March 1933, Page 7

NATAL HISTORY

H.M.S. GANGES

The inscription on the seat made from tho timber of the old line-of-battle ship Ganges and presented to the City of Nelson by their Excellencies, Lord and Lady Bledisloe, recalls something more even than tho hundred and eleven years of history indicated by the dates, for thcro has been a Ganges *n ithe British Navy since 1782, and one*of them fought under Nelson, after whom the city was named, at the battle of Copenhagen,

The Ganges from whose ancient timbers the seat was made took part in no great battles. Launched at Bombay in 1821, she was an 84-gun ship of the line, and her main claim to fame is that she was the last of the old "woodenwalls" of tho age of sail to act aa flagship of a squadron at sea. From 1860 to 1899, the period in which wooden ships were being broken up or swept away into remote harbours to act as training ships or as coal hulks for their successors—sea-monsters of steel and steam—the Ganges lay in Falmouth Harbour as a training ship for boys. In the latter year she was towed to Harwich, where she was renamed. For many years she was known, as the Tencdos 111. In 1910 she beeamo tho Indus V, and in 1922 the Impregnable 111. Ten years later she was broken up, although then, in spite of her 111 years, she was newer by sixtyJive years than. Nelson's famous Victory, which still flies the flag of tho Admiral commanding at Portsmouth.

Tho first Ganges, a 74-gun ship of the line, was launched in 1782 when -England "was still trying vainly to subdue her rebellious American colonies. She took part in various minor operations, including the capture of the West Indian island of Santa Lucia from the French in 1796. Her day of crowning glory came on April 2, 1801, when she sailed into Copenhagen as one 'of Nelson's ships to do battle with the Danes. Six years later she took part in another expedition against Denmark, this time to break up the Federation of Northern States against England. With her consorts she received the surrender of the Danish Fleet, just as more than a century later British ships received the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea.