St George and other vessels.
History
Great Britain
Name	HMSSt George
Ordered	16 July 1774
Builder	Portsmouth
Laid down	August 1774
Launched	14 October 1785
Honours and awards	Participated in: Naval Battle of Hyères Islands Battle of Copenhagen
Fate	Wrecked, 1811
General characteristics[1]
Class and type	Duke-classship of the line
Tons burthen	1931 (bm)
Length	177 ft 6 in (54.1 m) (gundeck)
Beam	50 ft (15.2 m)
Depth of hold	21 ft 2 in (6.5 m)
Propulsion	Sails
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	850 officers and men
Armament	Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns Middle gundeck: 30 × 18-pounder guns Upper gundeck: 30 × 12-pounder guns QD: 8 × 12-pounder guns Fc: 2 × 12-pounder guns

HMSSt George was a 98-gunsecond rateship of the line of theRoyal Navy, launched on 14 October 1785 atPortsmouth.^[1] In 1793 she captured one of the richest prizes ever. She then participated in theNaval Battle of Hyères Islands in 1795 and took part in theBattle of Copenhagen in 1801. She wrecked offJutland in 1811 with the loss of almost all her crew.

In 1793Captain John Gell was appointed aRear-Admiral of the Blue and raised his flag on theSt George.^[2] While in the Mediterranean with his division of the fleet, Gell was able to seize a French privateer and its Spanish-registered prize theSt Jago. These ships were said to be some of the most valuable prizes ever brought to England.^[2] The ownership of theSt Jago was a matter of some debate and was not settled until 4 February 1795, when the value of the cargo was put at £935,000 (equivalent to £122,020,000 in 2023).^[3] At this time all the crew, captains, officers and admirals could expect to share in this prize.Admiral Hood's share was £50,000 (equivalent to £6,520,000 in 2023).^[3] The ships that conveyedSt Jago toPortsmouth wereSt George,Egmont,Edgar,Ganges, andPhaeton.^[4]

In October 1793 Gell was able to obtain the surrender of the French frigateModeste, which had abused the neutrality of the port ofGenoa. After this Gell had to return to England for the last time due to ill health.^[2]

St George was present at theNaval Battle of Hyères Islands in 1795. In 1798, some of her crew were court-martialed formutiny.^[5]

The ship took part in theBattle of Copenhagen in 1801, flyingHoratio Nelson's flag. He transferred toElephant before the battle, as it was better suited for the shallow waters;St George remained in the background during the fighting. Her captain wasThomas Masterman Hardy, future captain ofHMS Victory under Nelson at theBattle of Trafalgar.Captain Sir William Bolton earned his promotion toCommander after his service on theSt George in this battle, on 2 April 1801.^[6] In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of theNaval General Service Medal with clasp "Copenhagen 1801" to all remaining survivors of the battle.

Hanö

Rødsand

Vinga

Sälö

Thorsminde

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Key locations of the last voyage of HMSSt. George

After thebombardment of Copenhagen in September 1807 and the capture of the Royal Danish Fleet followed theGunboat War betweenDenmark/Norway and theUnited Kingdom. As a consequence of the war, convoys of merchant ships were escorted through Danish waters by British navy ships in order to protect the merchant ships from attacks by Danish and Norwegianprivateers.St. George took part in the convoys and was therefore in the Baltic Sea in autumn 1811, where her last voyage started.

The events leading up to the loss ofSt. George are recorded by several sources. Most important is a letter by sergeant onSt. George William Galey, written to his wife and dated Gothenburg, 2 December 1811.^[7] Another key source is the ship's log ofHMSCressy, led by CommanderCharles Dudley Pater.Cressy escortedSt. George until hours before the fatal stranding on the coast ofJutland.

• 1 November 1811. The lastconvoy of the year bound forGreat Britain leavesHanöbukten atKarlshamn. The convoy consist of 129 merchant ships, escorted byRoyal Navyships of the line andbrigs under the command ofVice AdmiralJames Saumarez onHMSVictory andRear AdmiralRobert Carthew Reynolds onSt. George. Other participating ships of the line wereHMSOrion,HMSHero,HMSDefence andHMSDreadnought. A storm forces the convoy to turn around.
• 9 November. Theconvoy leavesHanö again and pass the German island ofRügen.
• 12 November.Cressy and thebrigHMSBellette leavesRostock and joins the convoy east ofFehmarn. A heavy storm forces the ships to anchor atRødsand, a sandy shoal south ofLolland,Denmark. Many merchant ships were damaged in the storm and 12 are lost completely.
• 15 November.St. George collides with another ship and sails aground atRødsand. All masts and the rudder are lost.St. George is freed from the shoal after 30 hours and fitted withjury rig and rudder, made from timber obtained fromCressy. The rudder was of the type devised byThomas Pakenham.^[8]
• 21 November. The convoy leaves Rødsand.St. George is towed byCressy.
• 1 December. The convoy arrives at the Swedish islandVinga, in the archipelago outsideGothenburg.St. George arrives the following day and undergoes further repairs.Saumarez has grave concerns about allowingSt. George to continue, but Rear AdmiralReynolds andDaniel Oliver Guion, captain onSt. George, maintain thatSt. George is able to make the journey across theNorth Sea.^[8][9]

The days leading up to the stranding are documented by Commander Pater's log onCressy and in greater detail in a classified report written by Pater to theAdmiralty and a personal letter to his friend, Commander Lukin (documents at the National Maritime Museum, London; available in Danish translation in Jepsen, 1993). The stranding itself is documented through eyewitness accounts from the few survivors and spectators on the beach and are preserved through official reports from Danish authorities and local newspapers.^[8]

• 16–17 December. Roughly 150 merchant ships leaveVinga, together with eight ships of the line:HMSVictory, HMSSt. George,HMSDreadnought,HMSVigo,HMSCressy,HMSOrion,HMSHero andHMSDefence,HMSDictator as well as some smaller navy vessels, including theBellette.Hero, which also suffered damage in the storm, andSt. George are closely followed byDefence andCressy.
• 19 December.St. George,Defence,Cressy,Bellette and numerous merchant ships are forced to turn around in Skagerrak because of storm and heavy seas.Cressy is towingSt. George, as her temporary rudder, only held in place by chains and heavy ropes, cannot maintainSt. George on course.
• 21 December. The ships seek shelter four nautical miles north-east ofSälö lighthouse. The wind changes and it is decided to do a new attempt at crossingSkagerrak and theNorth Sea. On this attemptSt. George is not towed byCressy.

• 23 December 1811. Aextratropical cyclone is now blowing from north-west and the ships are in severe difficulties.Cressy andBellette turn to avoid stranding.Defence briefly attempts to towSt. George, but the wire breaks.Defence later wrecks further down the coast with loss of all but 12 men.

• 24 December. Early during the nightSt. George attempts a downwind turn by raising thejib, but it blows out and the top sail cannot be pulled. Placingtarpaulins in the netting also fails to give any speed for turning. An anchor is dropped, but the wire catches the temporary rudder and breaks it. At 6 AMSt. George takes the ground on the outermost sandbar, 500 m from land and a couple of kilometers south ofThorsminde. She immediately develops a strong list. The carpenter reports 10 feet of water in the storage. Masts are cut to relieve the ship and all men are ordered to the pumps. All boats, except the longboat, are lost overboard. Fourteen men attempt to sail to land in the longboat but it capsizes and they drown. Themizzen mast is cut by means of knives, as all axes have been lost. Everyone around is pulled into the sea when the storm takes the mast. At 10 AM a giant wave pulls about 400 men off the ship, many already dead from hypothermia and exhaustion. At 12 PM the ship is no longer under command. Parts of the stern and great cabin were still visible in the afternoon. Some sailors are seen from the coast, trying to make their way to the beach clinging to the remnants of a mast, but they all drown in the attempt. In the evening about 150 people are still on board the wreck.
• 25 December. About 10 men from the wreck manage to make it on board a raft, but only 4 have tied themselves well enough to the raft to make it to shore, more dead than alive. Later eight men attached to drifting timber make it to the shore.
• 26 December. No further signs of life on board the wreck.

The report from Commander Pater to the Admiralty, as well as two notes signed by the officers onCressy (available at the National Maritime Museum, London, but also in Danish translation in Jepsen, 1993) describe the difficulties that alsoCressy faced during the storm. The first letter was presented to Pater at 9 PM on December 23 and states that they find it an absolute necessity to try saving the ship by setting sail and turning away from the coast. Implicitly this meant that they would leave St. George (and the vice admiral) to their own fate.The second note, delivered to Pater at 10:45 PM, gives a description of the situation onSt. George after they had turned and passed her, stating that her bow was heading east-north-east, most likely because the condition of the rudder prevented her from changing from porttack to starboardtack (meaning thatSt. George was inevitably heading for the coast) and they strongly advised the commander to set as many sails as possible to saveCressy, given that they were unable to assistSt. George in any way. Undoubtedly, Pater was very well aware of the dire situation himself, as evidenced by his report to the Admiralty, where he writes that he knew already at 3 PM thatSt. George could not be saved. The only explanation for his hesitation to change course and saveCressy seems a reluctance to leave the vice admiral without his permission. The same reluctance seems the only explanation as to whyDefence did not change course and ended up wrecked on the beach.^[8]

There is uncertainty about the number of survivors. Some sources state that only seven of her 738 crew were saved^[10] but other sources say 11, or most likely 12,^[8] citing the official journals from the interrogations of the survivors. One survivor, William Watson, stated that he was an American citizen and had beenpressed to serve on board. He, and two other Americans, who survived fromDefence, expressed a clear desire to not return to England or further serve in the Royal Navy.^[8] Over the following two weeks nearly 1,400 drowned men fromSt. George andDefence washed up on the beach south of the wrecks. The dead included Reynolds and Guion. Their bodies were never found, despite considerable effort to find them among the dead. Most of the bodies that came ashore were buried in the sand dunes ofThorsminde, which have been known ever since as "Dead Men's Dunes".^[11]

The Danish authorities quickly orderedLieutenant Wigelsen to the area asReceiver of Wreck.^[12] Despite the fact that England was at war with Denmark-Norway and the survivors thus were prisoners of war, they were treated well by the locals and the authorities. They were relatively quickly returned to England, in exchange for the double number of Danish prisoners of war in English prisons.^[8] The Danish Government promptly informed the Admiralty about the disaster and expressed their deepest empathy with what is still today the greatest loss of lives for the Royal Navy.^[8]

A memorial was raised on the Dead Men's Dunes in 1937, initiated by the Danish press and originally suggested by the Danish vice admiral H. Rechnitzer and head of the search and rescue, V. Fabricius. The memorial consists of three stones with the following inscription on the back of the main store, facing the sea:

Under Christmas in enduring days
roared the Westjutland Sea
Hundreds of young men of warfound in the dunes their graves
The stone raised to their memory
Guarded while centuries pass

(by newspaper editor Vidar Bruun, translated from Danish)

St George's ship's bell was recovered in 1876 and served as church bell in the church of No nearRingkøbing until May 2011. In May of that year the church renovated its bell tower and consequently presented the bell to the Strandingsmuseum St. George in Thorsminde.^[13]

Following the exposure of the wreck ofSt George by a storm in 1981, thousands of artefacts have been recovered from the wreck, many of which are on display at the Strandingsmuseum St George.

• List of vessels lost on the Haak Sand on 24 December 1811 the simultaneous wrecking of another convoy

• Media related toHMS St George (ship, 1785) at Wikimedia Commons
• Strandingsmuseum St. GeorgeArchived 19 February 2019 at theWayback Machine
• The Glass Bottles of the HMS St. George

56°21′30″N8°6′00″E / 56.35833°N 8.10000°E /56.35833; 8.10000

• Ships of the line of the Royal Navy
• Duke-class ships of the line
• Shipwrecks in the North Sea
• Maritime incidents in 1811
• 1785 ships

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