User:Ray3055/Manby Mortar

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Below are notes for article still in progress

1807 wreck
In 1807 Captain Manby witnessed a Naval ship called the Snipe run aground off Great Yarmouth during a storm. 214? people died in the accident, which happened just 60 yards (55 metres) offshore. This tragedy prompted Manby to think about rescue apparatus and means of communicating between ships and the shore. By experimenting with a mortar borrowed from the Board of Ordinance, Manby invented a way to communicate with a vessel in trouble off the coast. he concentrated on adapting a 6 1b mortar extensively used throughout the Napoleonic wars as the main armament of Bomb Ketches - to carry the line twixt ship and shore.

1808-1809
Captain Manby experimented firing mortars to carry a line to a ship, achieving his first rescue in 1808 from the 'Elizabeth' 150 yards off the beach. The following year he brought the crew of the 'Nancy' ashore using a 'cot' slung beneath the line.

The Board of Ordnance and then Parliament endorsed Manby's invention, and the Preventive Water Guard were supplied and drilled with his Life Saving Apparatus (LSA). Apart from rockets replacing mortars, Coastguard LSA supplied by the Board of Trade altered little until the twentieth century brought electrically ignited rockets and lines of man-made fibre. (Source MGCA website)

1810 Parliamentary Committee Report
Parliamentary Committee Report on Captain Manby's Petition London, House of Commons. 1810. 17pp. Folio. Paper wrappers. 2 folding illustrations. British Parliamentary Paper. HC163. A detailed report on Captain Manbys life-saving mortar which delivered a breeches bouy to a vessel in distress. Invented after Manby had witnessed the loss of life on a vessel where he was helpless as passengers screamed whilst drowning. List of 39 vessels lost on East coast during November 1809 gale. A very clean copy. GBP 75.00 = appr. US$ 136.50

Lyle gun
An American website on Lyle Gun refers to Manby as follows: "It weights approximately 300 pounds and hard to transport. When fired on land it would often over turn in the sand.  The Manby was the forerunner of the Lyle Gun."

Lord Nelson connection?
George Manby (1766-1854), a boyhood friend of Lord Nelson(some controversy on this? Norfolk Museum says Nelson went to sea at age 12), concentrated on adapting a 6 1b mortar extensively used throughout the Napoleonic wars as the main armament of Bomb Ketches -

Critics & developements
Manby's equipment was not without its critics, the prime objection being the reliance on having a boat to hand to effect a rescue. Manby immediately set to work on an alternative using a basket or cot.

Breeches Bouy?
This more complicated method was not initially to Manby's taste yet in it lay the germ of the apparatus which was to do such yeoman service until its demise in 1987. The idea was that, as soon as the line carried over the wreck, a large hawser and a tailed block would be hauled out with an endless whip line rove through the block; the crew would having hauled the block to the ship, make it fast at as high a point as possible. Meanwhile the shore party would make an anchorage with three stakes driven into the ground and a gun tackle purchase made fast to them. As soon as all was fast the shore end of the hawser would be passed through rollers at each end of a canvas and cordage cot; the loose ends of the endless whip then made fast either end of the cot which could then be hauled twixt ship and shore with suitable tension being kept on the hawser by means of the gun tackle purchase.

Thus the forerunner of the modern whip and hawser equipment was born. It was felt that if no cot or boat were available then a clove hitch in the bight of the line would be passed over the head of the casualty and he would be hauled ashore (how many crushed chests would have ensued from this crude method is not recorded).

1814 wreck
at a wreck in January 1814 a form of sling was improvised by cutting off a length of hawser and making a grummet on the hawser large enough for a man to sit in, the Bight of the whip was made fast to the grummet and hauled between ship and shore effecting the rescue of all seven crew.

bureaucratic apathy
Manby fought bureaucratic apathy for many years but the only real progress with his method was around the coast of East Anglia. by 1823, 220 lives had been saved around the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk and only 19 over the rest of the country.

How many, where?
No more than 100 sets were ever introduced to the coast and it is probable that the final death knell of Manby's mortar was the advent of Captain Boxer's rocket in 1865.

Lives saved?
Manby devoted his life to maritime rescue and, when he died in 1854 had the satisfaction of knowing that 1000 lives had been saved using his inventions.

Prior inventions
1791, the idea of throwing a rope from a wreck to the shore by means of a shell from a mortar had

Bell
occurred to Serjeant Bell of the Royal Artillery,

La Fere?
and about the same time, to a Frenchman named La Fere, both of whom made successful experiments with their apparatus. (this is from online 1911 encyclopedia - should it be an invention from La Fère - the military school in Picardy?)

Trengrouse
In 1807 a rocket was proposed by Henry Trengrouse of Helston in Cornwall. He also proposed a hand and lead line as means of communicating with vessels in distress, the heaving cane was a result of this suggestion. (Original ref 1911 encylopedia but see also heaving cane at http://www.swanseaheritage.net/article/gat.asp?ARTICLE_ID=499&PRIMARY_THEME_ID=2

1814 grant
In 1814 forty-five mortar stations were established, and Manby received £2000, in addition to previous grants, in acknowledgment of the good service rendered by his invention.