Taking on the Slavers, Zanzibar, 1881
Captain Charles James Brownrigg, HMS London
Royal Naval College, Dartmouth & Grave Island, Zanzibar
Thomas Bishop, Ordinary Seaman, HMS London
John G. R. Aers, Writer 3rd Class, HMS London
Richard Henry Monkley, Stoker, HMS London
Captain Charles James Brownrigg, HMS London
Royal Naval College, Dartmouth & Grave Island, Zanzibar
Thomas Bishop, Ordinary Seaman, HMS London
John G. R. Aers, Writer 3rd Class, HMS London
Richard Henry Monkley, Stoker, HMS London
Introduction
Walk into the chapel of The Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Gaze around the neo-classical entrance chamber, study the marble memorial to Sir John Franklin’s North-West Passage Expedition, then prepare to mount the steps leading into the chapel and its glorious ceiling – but before you do, pause and look around again. Note the brown wooden boards either side of the doorway which list in black lettering the names of Old Boys of the college who have died on active service. They are intriguing because they give you no detailed history. All you get is a name, a vessel or regiment, a campaign, and a date. No eulogies here, just stark facts, but each name will have a story behind it, and I decided to investigate “Captain Charles J. Brownrigg, HMS London, 3rd December 1881, Zanzibar”.
The Man
The Brownriggs turn out to be a fascinating family, embodying the range and extent of the Empire. Captain Brownrigg’s father, Marcus Freeman Brownrigg, was also a Royal Navy officer, the younger son of a County Wicklow military family. As a midshipman he accompanied Lord Amherst on his diplomatic mission to China in 1816, before marrying a native of the Cape Colony, Maria Caroline Blake, in 1834. The itinerant nature of a Royal Navy life can then be deduced from the birthplaces of their children over the next eleven years: Mauritius; India; Dover; Lancashire; India again. In the 1850s the family were back in England, in Plymouth, but 1856 saw the last major move, as Marcus emigrated to Australia, becoming a magistrate in New South Wales, before dying in 1882 in Launceston, where his eldest son, another Marcus, was rector.
The one member of the family who did not go to Australia was Charles James. He had attended the Naval College in Greenwich, and then joined the Navy as a mate in 1855. He was made Lieutenant in 1857, then Commander (second-in-command) in 1866, before gaining his Captaincy in 1873. His first command, HMS Tamar, saw action in the Ashanti war of 1874; his second, HMS Euphrates, was a troopship ferrying soldiers between England and India; his third, in June 1880, was HMS London, in Zanzibar.
The Background
The London had been built as a 90-gun ship of the line, but by 1873 she was effectively a hulk, moored in Zanzibar Bay to serve as a depot supply ship. In 1878 she was refitted and once more afloat, as a depot ship for repairs, storage and hospital use. What prompted such actions, and such expense?
In 1881 Zanzibar was under Arab control, as it had been for nearly two hundred years. The Sultanate of Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula, had taken it in 1698, even though Zanzibar was nearly 2,500 miles south, and over the next two centuries Zanzibar developed as a major trading centre, its main commodities being spices, ivory and, most significantly from the Victorian British point of view, slaves.
In the 1830s Zanzibar had become so important that the then-Sultan, Said bin Sultan, moved his capital there from Muscat in Oman. In his will he split the Sultanate into two, making one son Sultan of Oman and creating the Sultanate of Zanzibar for the other son. The will was disputed, and it is noteworthy that the independent arbiter who judged that the will was valid was British: India’s Governor-General, Lord Canning. Clearly by the 1850s British influence on the African east coast was already established.
The British were bound to get involved in Zanzibar eventually, not just to develop mercantile interests, but also to attempt to eliminate the slave trade. It is easy, and often justified, to be critical of Britain’s activities in Africa, but credit must be given where it is due, and the country’s commitment to the eradication of slavery has to be praised.
As early as 1842 Britain had told the Sultan to abolish the slave trade that existed between Zanzibar and the sultanate’s other centres in Arabia and on the Red Sea, although prospects were initially reduced by the active involvement of other Western nations in the trade, and by the shortage of Royal Navy ships in the region.
By 1873, however, Britain felt confident enough for the British Consul, Sir John Kirk, to inform Sultan Bargash that if the trade in slaves from Zanzibar did not cease then the British would impose a blockade on the port. Bargash capitulated, and Royal Navy ships were moored in Zanzibar Bay to impose the embargo. To be fair this was only a partially successful outcome; the slavers moved further along the coast, or to other islands in the region, notably the island of Pemba, eighty miles to the north.
The Action
Captain Brownrigg probably had his wife, Charlotte, and youngest child, Blanche, on board the London with him when he set sail from Zanzibar for Pemba in early December 1881 - they were certainly on board earlier that year. The London was following the policy of harassing and arresting any slave traders it encountered, but it was rather large for such a job; instead the navy used a steam pinnace (a light boat attached to the ship) to intercept suspicious vessels. On December 3rd Captain Brownrigg set out in the pinnace Wave, accompanied by a crew comprising four sailors, three stokers, a Goanese steward, a local interpreter and a writer (not a journalist, but a member of the ship's accounting department). Their mission was to sail around Pemba, inspecting any small craft they encountered, and boarding any suspicious dhows.
To the west of Pemba two smaller islands, Kokota and Funzi, are separated by a stretch of water known as the Kokota Gap. As Wave was passing through the gap at 9 a.m. a dhow flying French colours was spotted. Knowing that European colours were often flown by smugglers and traders to discourage closer examination, Brownrigg steered Wave alongside the dhow. His crew were told not to board without orders, as he intended merely to check the dhow’s papers. As they approached Brownrigg was in the stern of the boat, steering, accompanied by the steward and the interpreter. The rest of the crew were forward, with sails separating them from their captain. What Brownrigg did not know was that the dhow, under the command of a slaver named Hindi bin Hattam, was actually carrying over one hundred slaves, guarded by twenty-five well-armed men.
As the sailor at the bow of the boat prepared to hook up to the dhow he saw men crouched in its bottom, all carrying guns or swords. He shouted a warning, prompting the armed Arabs to jump into the pinnace. That sailor, fighting with one of the boarders, toppled overboard with his assailant. With a first volley of fire the Arabs killed two outright and wounded another three, leaving just five of the Wave’s crew standing. Three were driven overboard by the attack, which left only Brownrigg and the steward at the stern. Brownrigg seized a rifle and fired off one shot, but he was then surrounded by sword-wielding assailants. He resorted to swinging the gun around him as a club, but such a defence is limited: a slice across the forehead led to him being blinded by the blood flowing down from the wound; cuts across his hands severed his fingers, and his elbows were slashed, forcing him to drop the rifle. After further sword thrusts, blinded and, almost literally, unarmed, he was shot through the chest. A classic heroic last stand.
The dhow fled, but within a few days it was captured, its captain shot and killed. Of the Wave’s crew, five died with their captain: Ordinary Seaman Thomas Bishop (a 20 year old from Lambeth); John Aers the writer (aged 19, from Portsmouth, the son of a pensioned seaman); two unidentified stokers; and the interpreter (name, unfortunately, unknown - in 1881 the London had 11 interpreters aboard). The steward escaped by feigning death, and the third stoker, the one who had gone overboard, clambered back on to the pinnace when the dhow had gone, and steered it to land to pick up the remaining three sailors (Samuel Massey, Alfred Yates and William Colliston) who had, despite their wounds, struggled ashore.
Afterwards
Brownrigg’s bravery attracted attention and praise, and Hansard records, in 1882, that his widow and children were being granted the “highest special annual allowances”. They did not remain long in England however, nor did they join the rest of the Brownriggs in Australia. In 1886 they emigrated to the USA, and the last reference I can find to Charlotte locates her living in Orlando, Florida, with Blanche and another daughter, Maria; Charlotte’s occupation is splendidly Victorian American – “capitalist”. In 1920 one of her sons, Harry, was a paymaster living in Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey. Presumably, therefore, there are a number of Captain Brownrigg's descendants living in the States; I wonder if they know that one of their ancestors was a genuine Victorian hero?
Sources
Pictures
HMS London, Zanzibar, 1881 - Illustrated London News, 17th December, 1881
Rendering of a pinnace chasing a dhow - ibid.
Military
en.wikipedia.org
www.lookandlearn.com
www.nhcra-online.org - site of the Naval Historical Collectors Research Association
www.old-merseytimes.co.uk
www.pdavis.nl - site covering naval officers who served with he site author's ancestor
www.trove.nla.gov.au - contains edition of The Queenslander, Brisbane, 4th March 1882
'British Naval Swords and Swordsmanship' (Mark Barton & John McGrath, Seaforth Publications, 2013) - Google ebook
'Gunboat! Small Ships at War' (Brian Perrett, Hachette UK, 2012) - Google ebook
Genealogy
'David Griffiths and The Missionary 'History of Madagascar'' (Gwyn Campbell, BRILL, 2012)
'A Naval Biographical Dictionary" by William Richard O'Byrne - on en.wikisource.org
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.stepneyshapcotes-shapcott-family.com
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2016
Walk into the chapel of The Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Gaze around the neo-classical entrance chamber, study the marble memorial to Sir John Franklin’s North-West Passage Expedition, then prepare to mount the steps leading into the chapel and its glorious ceiling – but before you do, pause and look around again. Note the brown wooden boards either side of the doorway which list in black lettering the names of Old Boys of the college who have died on active service. They are intriguing because they give you no detailed history. All you get is a name, a vessel or regiment, a campaign, and a date. No eulogies here, just stark facts, but each name will have a story behind it, and I decided to investigate “Captain Charles J. Brownrigg, HMS London, 3rd December 1881, Zanzibar”.
The Man
The Brownriggs turn out to be a fascinating family, embodying the range and extent of the Empire. Captain Brownrigg’s father, Marcus Freeman Brownrigg, was also a Royal Navy officer, the younger son of a County Wicklow military family. As a midshipman he accompanied Lord Amherst on his diplomatic mission to China in 1816, before marrying a native of the Cape Colony, Maria Caroline Blake, in 1834. The itinerant nature of a Royal Navy life can then be deduced from the birthplaces of their children over the next eleven years: Mauritius; India; Dover; Lancashire; India again. In the 1850s the family were back in England, in Plymouth, but 1856 saw the last major move, as Marcus emigrated to Australia, becoming a magistrate in New South Wales, before dying in 1882 in Launceston, where his eldest son, another Marcus, was rector.
The one member of the family who did not go to Australia was Charles James. He had attended the Naval College in Greenwich, and then joined the Navy as a mate in 1855. He was made Lieutenant in 1857, then Commander (second-in-command) in 1866, before gaining his Captaincy in 1873. His first command, HMS Tamar, saw action in the Ashanti war of 1874; his second, HMS Euphrates, was a troopship ferrying soldiers between England and India; his third, in June 1880, was HMS London, in Zanzibar.
The Background
The London had been built as a 90-gun ship of the line, but by 1873 she was effectively a hulk, moored in Zanzibar Bay to serve as a depot supply ship. In 1878 she was refitted and once more afloat, as a depot ship for repairs, storage and hospital use. What prompted such actions, and such expense?
In 1881 Zanzibar was under Arab control, as it had been for nearly two hundred years. The Sultanate of Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula, had taken it in 1698, even though Zanzibar was nearly 2,500 miles south, and over the next two centuries Zanzibar developed as a major trading centre, its main commodities being spices, ivory and, most significantly from the Victorian British point of view, slaves.
In the 1830s Zanzibar had become so important that the then-Sultan, Said bin Sultan, moved his capital there from Muscat in Oman. In his will he split the Sultanate into two, making one son Sultan of Oman and creating the Sultanate of Zanzibar for the other son. The will was disputed, and it is noteworthy that the independent arbiter who judged that the will was valid was British: India’s Governor-General, Lord Canning. Clearly by the 1850s British influence on the African east coast was already established.
The British were bound to get involved in Zanzibar eventually, not just to develop mercantile interests, but also to attempt to eliminate the slave trade. It is easy, and often justified, to be critical of Britain’s activities in Africa, but credit must be given where it is due, and the country’s commitment to the eradication of slavery has to be praised.
As early as 1842 Britain had told the Sultan to abolish the slave trade that existed between Zanzibar and the sultanate’s other centres in Arabia and on the Red Sea, although prospects were initially reduced by the active involvement of other Western nations in the trade, and by the shortage of Royal Navy ships in the region.
By 1873, however, Britain felt confident enough for the British Consul, Sir John Kirk, to inform Sultan Bargash that if the trade in slaves from Zanzibar did not cease then the British would impose a blockade on the port. Bargash capitulated, and Royal Navy ships were moored in Zanzibar Bay to impose the embargo. To be fair this was only a partially successful outcome; the slavers moved further along the coast, or to other islands in the region, notably the island of Pemba, eighty miles to the north.
The Action
Captain Brownrigg probably had his wife, Charlotte, and youngest child, Blanche, on board the London with him when he set sail from Zanzibar for Pemba in early December 1881 - they were certainly on board earlier that year. The London was following the policy of harassing and arresting any slave traders it encountered, but it was rather large for such a job; instead the navy used a steam pinnace (a light boat attached to the ship) to intercept suspicious vessels. On December 3rd Captain Brownrigg set out in the pinnace Wave, accompanied by a crew comprising four sailors, three stokers, a Goanese steward, a local interpreter and a writer (not a journalist, but a member of the ship's accounting department). Their mission was to sail around Pemba, inspecting any small craft they encountered, and boarding any suspicious dhows.
To the west of Pemba two smaller islands, Kokota and Funzi, are separated by a stretch of water known as the Kokota Gap. As Wave was passing through the gap at 9 a.m. a dhow flying French colours was spotted. Knowing that European colours were often flown by smugglers and traders to discourage closer examination, Brownrigg steered Wave alongside the dhow. His crew were told not to board without orders, as he intended merely to check the dhow’s papers. As they approached Brownrigg was in the stern of the boat, steering, accompanied by the steward and the interpreter. The rest of the crew were forward, with sails separating them from their captain. What Brownrigg did not know was that the dhow, under the command of a slaver named Hindi bin Hattam, was actually carrying over one hundred slaves, guarded by twenty-five well-armed men.
As the sailor at the bow of the boat prepared to hook up to the dhow he saw men crouched in its bottom, all carrying guns or swords. He shouted a warning, prompting the armed Arabs to jump into the pinnace. That sailor, fighting with one of the boarders, toppled overboard with his assailant. With a first volley of fire the Arabs killed two outright and wounded another three, leaving just five of the Wave’s crew standing. Three were driven overboard by the attack, which left only Brownrigg and the steward at the stern. Brownrigg seized a rifle and fired off one shot, but he was then surrounded by sword-wielding assailants. He resorted to swinging the gun around him as a club, but such a defence is limited: a slice across the forehead led to him being blinded by the blood flowing down from the wound; cuts across his hands severed his fingers, and his elbows were slashed, forcing him to drop the rifle. After further sword thrusts, blinded and, almost literally, unarmed, he was shot through the chest. A classic heroic last stand.
The dhow fled, but within a few days it was captured, its captain shot and killed. Of the Wave’s crew, five died with their captain: Ordinary Seaman Thomas Bishop (a 20 year old from Lambeth); John Aers the writer (aged 19, from Portsmouth, the son of a pensioned seaman); two unidentified stokers; and the interpreter (name, unfortunately, unknown - in 1881 the London had 11 interpreters aboard). The steward escaped by feigning death, and the third stoker, the one who had gone overboard, clambered back on to the pinnace when the dhow had gone, and steered it to land to pick up the remaining three sailors (Samuel Massey, Alfred Yates and William Colliston) who had, despite their wounds, struggled ashore.
Afterwards
Brownrigg’s bravery attracted attention and praise, and Hansard records, in 1882, that his widow and children were being granted the “highest special annual allowances”. They did not remain long in England however, nor did they join the rest of the Brownriggs in Australia. In 1886 they emigrated to the USA, and the last reference I can find to Charlotte locates her living in Orlando, Florida, with Blanche and another daughter, Maria; Charlotte’s occupation is splendidly Victorian American – “capitalist”. In 1920 one of her sons, Harry, was a paymaster living in Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey. Presumably, therefore, there are a number of Captain Brownrigg's descendants living in the States; I wonder if they know that one of their ancestors was a genuine Victorian hero?
Sources
Pictures
HMS London, Zanzibar, 1881 - Illustrated London News, 17th December, 1881
Rendering of a pinnace chasing a dhow - ibid.
Military
en.wikipedia.org
www.lookandlearn.com
www.nhcra-online.org - site of the Naval Historical Collectors Research Association
www.old-merseytimes.co.uk
www.pdavis.nl - site covering naval officers who served with he site author's ancestor
www.trove.nla.gov.au - contains edition of The Queenslander, Brisbane, 4th March 1882
'British Naval Swords and Swordsmanship' (Mark Barton & John McGrath, Seaforth Publications, 2013) - Google ebook
'Gunboat! Small Ships at War' (Brian Perrett, Hachette UK, 2012) - Google ebook
Genealogy
'David Griffiths and The Missionary 'History of Madagascar'' (Gwyn Campbell, BRILL, 2012)
'A Naval Biographical Dictionary" by William Richard O'Byrne - on en.wikisource.org
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.stepneyshapcotes-shapcott-family.com
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2016
