HMS Chesterfield was a 44-gun fifth-rate ship of the Royal Navy which saw active service in both the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. Built to an antiquated design, she was commissioned into service in 1745 and assigned to the Navy's Western Squadron guarding the English Channel and the nearby waters to protect merchant vessels en route to English ports. In 1747 she secured her first victory at sea with the capture of a 10-gun Spanish privateer.
In the following year Chesterfield sailed to West Africa to make an annual survey of British forts. A mutiny during this voyage led to the stranding of her captain on shore and an attempt by the first lieutenant to take the ship to the West Indies to steal supplies. Retaken by loyalists among the crew, Chesterfield was surrendered to British authorities in Antigua in December 1748. A subsequent court martial led to the execution of two officers and five others on board.
Chesterfield was decommissioned in 1748 but restored to active service in 1755 as Britain rearmed for the Seven Years' War with France. Present but not directly engaged in the Battle of Minorca in 1756, she was instrumental in transporting British wounded to Gibraltar for care. Later service included voyages between England and North America to protect British convoy vessels, as well as patrols of American coastal waters. In 1758 she captured two brigantines on the York River in Virginia, which were later found to be trading with the enemy. For the remainder of the Seven Years' War she was principally assigned to convoy escort duties between England and North America, other than one brief return to West Africa in 1760 during which she fought off an assault by pirates. After 16 years of service, she was wrecked off northern Cuba in July 1762 while escorting troop transports to assist in Britain's Siege of Havana.
Construction Chesterfield was an oak-built 44-gun fifth-rate, one of 16 vessels constructed according to the 1741 revisions to the 1719 Establishment which set specific requirements for scantlings, materials, fitting and armament for Royal Navy craft.Winfield 2007, pp. 170172Lavery 1984, pp. 1920 Principles underpinning the 1719 Establishment were drawn from Admiralty observation and practice from the mid-seventeenth century, with minor modifications in the subsequent revisions. For Chesterfield the 1741 revisions allowed minor increases in length, beam and depth of hold, and the addition of four 6-pounder guns at the rear of the quarterdeck.Clowes 1898, p. 9 These changes aside, Chesterfield was built to a design largely unchanged from that of fifth-rate Royal Navy ships from the previous century. Notably, no allowance was made for the use of longer, sleeker hulls such as were becoming common in equivalent French vessels by the 1740s.
Orders for Chesterfield were issued during the middle years of the War of Jenkins' Ear, when Britain's Royal Dockyards were fully engaged in building and fitting-out ships of the line. Consequently, and despite some Navy Board misgivings, contracts for small and mid-sized vessels were issued to private shipyards, with an emphasis on rapid completion. Chesterfields contract was therefore signed on 23 May 1744 with private shipwright John Quallett of Rotherhithe in South London. Work was to be finished within one year for a 44-gun vessel measuring approximately 705tons burthen, for a fee of £7,554 paid through periodic imprests drawn against the Navy Board.Clowes 1898, p. 10Baugh 1965, pp. 255256 In practice neither the timeline nor the budget was met. Chesterfields keel was laid down on 2 June 1744 but construction lasted seventeen months with the ship not ready for launch until 31 October 1745. The final cost was £7,931, with an additional £5,097 set aside for fitting out.
The vessel was named after Chesterfield, a market town in Derbyshire, England. This continued a Board of Admiralty tradition dating to 1644, of naming ships for geographic features. Overall nine of the 16 vessels in the 1741 Establishment were named after well-known regions, castles or towns.
As built, Chesterfield was long with a keel, a beam of , and a hold depth of . At 719 tons burthen, she was the second largest vessel in the 1741 Establishment after , and a full fourteen tons over the stipulated contract size. Her armament comprised 20 nine-pounder cannons on her upper deck, and 20 eighteen-pounder cannons on the enclosed lower deck close to the waterline. These broadside weapons were supported by four six-pounder guns at the rear of the quarterdeck behind the wheel. The Admiralty-designated complement was 280 comprising four commissioned officers a captain and three lieutenants overseeing 59 warrant and petty officers, 133 naval ratings, 45 Marines and 39 servants and other ranks.Rodger 1986, pp. 348351 Among these other ranks were six positions reserved for widow's men: fictitious crew members whose pay was retained by the captain to be reallocated to the families of sailors who died at sea.
Strategic rationale The concept of 40- and 44-gun fifth rate ships such as Chesterfield had been developed in the seventeenth century when the Royal Navy was principally deployed in short-range operations in the English Channel and adjacent waters.Lambert 2000, p.112 Chesterfield was one of the last to be constructed before Admiral Ansons 1751 reforms introduced a new class of 74-gun vessels as the minimum size for a ship of the line and promoted development of small fast frigates of around 32 guns to chase the enemy close to shore.Marcus 1975, pp. 78 Under these reforms a 44-gun fifth-rate such as Chesterfield became an anachronism: too small to be effective in the line of battle and too slow to pursue opposing frigates or privateers.Winfield 2007, p. 175 Instead, the impetus for Chesterfields construction was Admiralty's realisation that too few middle-sized vessels were available to protect merchant convoys and conduct routine patrols in the Channel, the Mediterranean and off the coast of Africa. Many existing fifth-rate vessels were also derelict: of the nineteen listed as being in service in 1739 only seven were seaworthy with another five salvageable after major repairs.Baugh 1965, p. 246 The dearth of convoy escorts was so severe that in 1741 Admiral Thomas Mathews complained that he was using 70-gun ships of the line simply to guard Mediterranean trade.Baugh 1965, pp. 249250 Vessels such as Chesterfield were urgently needed to alleviate this shortfall and allow larger vessels to resume other roles.Clowes 1898, p.6
However her antiquated design left Chesterfield at a disadvantage even for escort and patrol. The 44-gun fifth-rates such as Chesterfield were top-heavy with a tendency to roll in bad weather.Report by the Navy Board to Admiralty, 15 May 1747, quoted in Gardiner 2007, pp.2022 In addition the lower deck gunports were too close to the waterline and could not be opened in rough seas for fear of flooding the ship. In approving the designs, Admiralty argued that a slightly wider hull gave greater room for crews to work any accessible guns while the enclosed upper deck reduced exposure to enemy small arms fire in close combat.Gardiner 2007, p. 22 Despite these modifications, naval historian John Charnock suggests that the vessels of Chesterfields group were built more from a sense of tradition than from coherent strategic thinking, and indeed were "the worst vessels which, at that time, composed any part of the British navy." Only one new 44-gun fifth rate was constructed between 1750 and 1770, though the concept was later revived to suit the specialised needs of coastal warfare in the American Revolutionary War.Winfield 2007, pp. 175176
War of the Austrian Succession English Channel
Chesterfield was launched at Rotherhithe on 31 October 1745 and sailed to Deptford Dockyard for fitting-out and to take on armament and crew. She was formally commissioned in November, entering Royal Navy service during the latter stages of the War of the Austrian Succession against France and Spain. Command was assigned to Captain William Gordon, previously of Chesterfields sister ship . There were delays in mustering sufficient crew, and Chesterfield was not finally ready to put to sea until January 1746. She was then assigned to the Navy's Western Squadron under Admiral William Martin, tasked with protecting shipping in the English Channel and supporting a blockade of France's Atlantic ports. In this capacity she secured her first victory at sea by capturing the 10-gun Spanish privateer San Elmo in April 1747. The captured vessel was sailed to the Portuguese port of Madeira to be sold as a prize with the proceeds divided between the Admiralty and Chesterfields crew.
West Africa
In November 1747 command of Chesterfield passed to Captain O'Brien Dudley, with orders to patrol the coasts of West Africa to survey the state of British fortifications and slaving establishments. The orders followed an agreement between Admiralty which provided a vessel for annual patrol, and the Royal African Company which had responsibility for reviewing the survey and maintaining the forts. In general Britain's West African forts were poorly armed and maintained, with small garrisons and little capacity for defence. Historian Joshua Newton describes them as "feeble and frequently dilapidated ... little more than guarded warehouses" at risk from attack from European or African opponents. For this reason the British settlements viewed the annual presence of a Royal Navy vessel as a welcome reminder of national military strength. The annual patrol was also generally considered an agreeable assignment for the Royal Navy crew, as there was little risk of encountering a well-armed enemy ship and many opportunities for small-scale trade in gold and souvenirs.
Chesterfield sailed for her African patrol in January 1748, stopping first at Spithead and then at Cork Harbour in Ireland, before heading south to Gibraltar and Madeira.Barham 1907, p. xiii In early May she fell in with the 50-gun and the 44-gun , both on Mediterranean service; together with these vessels she secured her second victory at sea with the capture of St Peter, a French polacca. The captured French craft was sent back to England as a prize with the proceeds of her sale divided among the English crews. Chesterfield then continued alone, reaching the Portuguese settlement of Porto Praya in Cape Verde in June 1748. Shore leave was unwisely granted to some of Chesterfields men, leading to a street brawl with local inhabitants which left two crew members dead and several others wounded.
Leaving Cape Verde in late June 1748, Chesterfield turned to the African mainland to cruise the coast of Gambia and Sierra Leone before turning east along the Bight of Benin to Cape Coast Castle, the Royal African Company's headquarters in Ghana. As seaborne combat was unlikely her crew had been reduced from 250 to 120, under the command of Dudley and his first lieutenant Samuel Couchman. After an uneventful six-month cruise along the African coast Chesterfield reached Cape Coast Castle on 19 October 1748. On 21 October Captain Dudley went ashore in the longboat accompanied by most of his officers as well as the Master's mate Thomas Gilliam and the boatswain Roger Gastril. Lieutenant Couchman was the sole officer left on board, with orders to keep Chesterfield at anchor until the captain's return.Rodger 1986, p. 243
Mutiny