The naval dockyard at Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1828 as described by sir John Barrow

Ron van Maanen

Barrow visited in 1828 with his family the Netherlands, departing London in the autumn of 1828. He was able to visit some of the navy dock yards in the Netherlands. His description is quite useful while strange enough it’s hard to find such descriptions even in Dutch!

P. 61: “We found some difficulty in getting admittance to the dock-yard. It was necessary, we were told at the gate, to have an order or a recommendation from some respectable inhabitant; but as the dock-yard was situated at the extremity of the town, and our time was pressing, we desired the

p. 62: porter to take our cards to the Schuyt by Naght [Ronald: schout bij nacht], or rear-admiral, who was acting as the commissioner, and whose name was De Reus. He immediately gave an order that we should see every thing; on which the officer who attended us seemed to lay great stress, as a special mark of favour; but we soon found that this ‘seeing every thing’ was in fact to see very little worth seeing. It consisted chiefly of three objects, which seemed to be considered as the only ‘lions’ that could be interesting to a landsman, and the only ones shewn to strangers, though it is more than probable there was nothing more to be seen than the nakedness of the land. First, there was the armoury, in which the muskets, pikes, swords, pistols, and all the offensive weapons, except the great guns, used in ships of war, are kept, in bright order, and tastefully enough arranged. They are contained in two small rooms, and could not, at the most, be more than sufficient for the supply of five or six sail of the line. The second object of exhibition was a new steam-boat lying afloat in a canal, that was housed over, built expressly for the use of his majesty, and intended to convey himself and family between the Hague and Brussels, or any other part of his dominions, traversed by rivers or canals; though it is probable they will soon give up the navigation of the latter by steam on experiencing the havoc and destruction which the waves, raised by the paddlewheels, will occasion to the earthen banks. The length of this vessel measured 135 feet; it had two engines of 35 horse power each. The

p. 63: chimney or funnel, and the rigging that supports it, the railing that runs along the sides, and every thing on deck that is metal, were of copper, kept bright by constant scouring and rubbing, which, in this damp climate, and not the best of all possible atmospheres, must be a daily drudgery to several persons. The sides are painted green, and the upper works green and gold, highly ornamented with emblematic sculpture, covered with gilding. Even the rudder is gilt down to the water’s edge. The cabins are neatly fitted up, and lined with mahogany. The king and queen have each a bed-room. There are bed places for eight gentlemen attendants, and for two maids of honour. The third ‘lion’ was a twenty-oared barge, of a beautiful model, built also for the use of the king. This magnificent boat is sixty-four feet long, splendidly painted in blue and gold. On the prow, which projects considerably beyond the cut-water, is the figure of Neptune, with his trident, sitting in a splendid car, drawn by four tritons, exceedingly well carved, and richly gilt; the whole of the carved work on this barge, and the steamboat, is indeed far superior to any of those gilt logger-heads, which we sometimes see stuck under the bowsprit of our ships of war. The builders of our dock-yards in fact admit that the art of carving wood in ship building has of late years been lost. With the Dutch it is kept as a separate branch, and in each of their yards is a carver’s shop. We next visited some of their storehouses, which in this yard are not extensive, but they were nearly

p. 64: empty. The timber was scanty, and mostly fashioned, in which state, we were told, it is brought into the yard. A seventy-four gun ship, not further advanced than her keel, had just been laid down, and her floor-timbers were all ready, but we did not observe any of the other timbers for her frame.(1) The roof under which she was to be built very much resembled those in our dock-yards; but we saw nothing of those galleries within it, which have been commended as an improvement on our own. Under a second roof was a fifty-gun frigate building, and under a third, one of the same class repairing. The new frigate had a round stern, similar to those which Sir Robert Seppings was accused of having pilfered from the Dutch, but which, though perhaps superior for all naval purposes, he has reconverted almost to square ones, reserving, however, the principle of upright timbers, which by giving strength constitutes its greatest merit. The Dutch frigate's stern was certainly round with a projection in the centre, like one of those sentry boxes sometimes seen in the angle of a bastion, and which serves in the ship as the substitute for a quarter gallery. The opening between the timbers of this frigate were filled in, so as to make the hull one solid mass, and the builder took care to observe, as if it was something new, that if a plank should start, there would be no danger of the ship sinking. We did not go into the hold, but our conductor said that she was strengthened with diagonal braces, and that all her bolts below the water-line were of copper. They also made use of straight

p. 65: timbers, and the futtocks of the ribs had square heads and heels fastened by cogues. In short it appeared to us that the whole of Sepping’s inventions had been adopted in the dockyard of Rotterdam; and so satisfied were they of the utility of roofs, that all the small craft even were building under cover. The timber, made use of in the Dockyard of this place, is brought by water from various parts of the Netherlands, and is squared, and mostly fashioned in the forests, but being used without a proper degree of seasoning, the ships are not of long duration. This was particularly the case with those built under Buonaparte’s reign, at Antwerp, one half of them being rotten without ever going to sea, and nearly useless at the end of five or six years. In fact all the German timber is light and porous, in comparison with our best Suffolk oak, and liable to that speedy species of decay which has been called, improperly enough, the dry-rot; a disease which was converted into one of the greatest bugbears that, for a long time, had infested our naval arsenals, but the ghost of which has, at last, been laid for ever in the Dead Sea. One would be led to conclude, that the Dutch must experience a considerable degree of inconvenience from the want of dry docks, though they seem not to feel it. In our dockyards, they are so common, that the bottom of a gun-brig or a cutter cannot be looked at, without their assistance. When the Dutch have occasion to examine the bottoms of their largest ships, the operation of heaving them clown, while afloat, is resorted to, by means of careening pits, in which the necessary

p. 66: blocks and purchases for the purpose are placed. It is, however, but an awkward process, when performed on large ships of war, and not without considerable danger, but it is resorted to in preference to the certainty of incurring a large expenditure for the construction of a dry dock, especially in a country where the foundations are bad, and no materials to be had except what must be imported from other countries at a great expense.”

Sources

Sir John Barrow. A family tour through South Holland; up the Rhine, and acrosse the Netherlands, to Ostende. London, 1831.

W.J.L. Poelmans. ‘Nieuwberichten Rotterdamse Courant’. Rotterdams Jaarboekje, for the year 1840.

G.J.A. Raven. De kroon op het anker, 175 jaar Koninklijke Marine. Amsterdam, 1988.

A.J. Vermeulen. De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1813-1964.

‘Schepen op de admiraliteitswerf gebouwd’, Rotterdamsch Jaarboekje, reeks 01, jaargang 07, 1900.

Archive Ministerie van marine inv.no. 1127 (National Archive at The Hague)

Note

1. There was in fact no ship of the line building at the naval yard at Rotterdam according to the sources I used. Perhaps there was ever an intention, but until more research I have severe doubts. There was also none 50-gun frigate building at that moment, but there was that year the keel laid down by the constructors P. and C.J. Glavimans of a 60-gun frigate caled Waal! One source claimed 1829, another (Vermeulen 1828). She was launched 16 May 1840 as the first 60-gun frigate for the Royal Dutch Navy. In 1844 she was renamed Prins van Oranje. Became later guardship at Hellevoetsluis and replaced there 11 June 1896 by the Zr. Ms. Van Galen. Sold 1897 to be broken up. Displacement 2485 ton. Dimensions 54 (between perpendiculars) x 14,30 (on load line) x 6,30m (draught), sail area 2170m2, crew numbered 10 October 1877 400 men, when she was armed with 12 long 30pdr. A state dated 7 August 1834 described her lying on slip no. 1 completed for 16/20% under a roof, and which ordered to be completed in 1834 for 18/20%.