F. STEWART HINDMARSH _ The author and his wife Anna-Karin THE AUTHOR Frederick Stewart Hindmarsh, A.A.I.1., A.1.N.Z., is a New Zealander who commenced work at the age of 14 with afirm of Lloyds Insurance Brokers in the City of Londonin early 1941. (The office was bombed a few weeks iater.) He saw service with the R.A.F.V.R., Infantry and Special Air Service. When World War Il ended he was about to commence training in the Glider Pilot Regiment for the invasion of Japan. In 1954 he married Anna-Karin Eklund in Stockholm, Sweden and they have two children. Mr Hindmarsh has travelled extensively and, at the time of his retirement in 1986, was the Marine Underwriter for New Zealand for the General Accident Group. He is at present employed by the Marine Underwriting Agency N.Z. Ltd as a consultant. In addition to his fifty-three year interest in marine insurance, and writing for a variety of magazines and newspapers, Mr Hindmarsh is a keen historian and archaeologist, Co- ordinator forthe local Community Emergency Centre and teaches English to new Asian settlers. Wingfield Ottowa fae yy Gey ho JUNGTION Road CFO! inal Angle | Park Park c Mansfield A7 ‘ Park Kil Bla p,. Neoduie staal Te ae RO, GANS. Ferryden Sa Ne ane iavill rank ty }2 k i ve NA REGENCY 6 RD Way CroydonjPk. 4, Prospect 5 Bal N Heverley Ridleyton Thor Allenby Ovinghart Eiteng gate , Gdns. Brompton y As Welland ‘eos S Pk. 4 North Adelaide Hindmarsh - Terrenaville 2 fe, inderdale ys RO (aie)| Mile} End cITvic yn Pky } Hilton ; RD Ps J Cowandilla 2 ADELAI ) ’ Richmond da RICHMOND RD Marleston lee ele Ashford, > Netley * woo:z Kurralta ~ Everard 5 ia & Park Pk, - boil Black Millswood AH Forest~ _- J Kings |< F Clarence hes Pki ence e un Clarence Gare: Cumberland Westbourne Pk, Hermitage YATALA VALE AD. ss RE TH, N G ara Pooraka ‘ 4 Gilles Plains { Casta Rostrevor BERNARDS : ne i : a Trinity | St. Magill nf Norton ; Cherry KENSINGTON : ee Summit Marryatville Pk Toorak] Heathpoo! wih Gdns. Tusmore Leabro : ; 9 y To Lob (ood Aj Linden} P x 0 Lob tr oe Ashton Basket R rewvilledhes\i ic 14 the 5 Beaumont a > a0. Glenunga er abit St. iy Georges Waterfall Gully : raidla 5 i ummertown smond Leawd Carey Gi ; hose? Fai © q Bes cys“avin lew. aeaebh pert Mac ews Tree apa os 6 G ebaxnerite 20% atta. swpi wie > HETRLT lapote? yt bang rh p= ti} ety, yr re yu bore ehlteet <= — breivtwl Vis AST xofl OF : —_ 4 is y rl T 4 4 ; a ¢ : a ‘ 7 * cy J 1 t a , -. “ vi » sy) ' 1 ; L , ‘ 1 ? i“ j ; 5 > : ie t " > « - ‘ a ~ a The endpapers are reproduced by permission of Countrywide Tourist Promotions South Australia from their “Adelaide and Suburbs” map and illustrate the unique greenbelt layout, surrounding the central city block, designed by Colonel Light. Published by Access Press P.O. Box 132, Northbridge, Western Australia. Copyright © F. Stewart Hindmarsh, 1995 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. Typesetting, layout and design by Typeset Graphics. National Library of Australia Cataloguing in Publication data From Powder Monkey to Governor ISBN 0 949795 88 7 Distributed in Australia and Overseas by the Publisher. FROM POWDER MONKEY TO OVERNO The life of REAR ADMIRAL SIR JOHN HINDMARSH, Kt., R.N. 1785 — 1860 First Governor of South Australia; Lieut. Governor of Heligoland F. STEWART HINDMARSH This is an ACCESS PRESS Publication II I] Vil Vil me XI Xl CONTENTS Introduction * The Hindmarsh family The Glorious First of June 1794 Cornwallis’s Retreat The Battle of the Nile The First Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar Aix-Roads Walcheren and Flushing Capture of the Ile de France Capture of Java Africa England and the Mediterranean_ Voyage to South Australia Founding of South Australia Death of Sir John Jeffcott The Execution of Magee Hindmarsh recalled from South Australia Heligoland The Last Years Epilogue Footnotes Bibliography Index —" 24 35 46 63 72 92 103 127 135 145 166 185 190 194 197 Replica of “H.M.S. Buffalo” at Glenelg, South Australia (photo courtesy Ashwood Studio, Adelaide, S.A.) ILLUSTRATIONS Replica of H.M.S. Buffalo, Glenelg, South Australia (Photo courtesy Ashwood Studio, Adelaide, S.A.) The author and his wife Rear Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh, Kt., R.N. (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) The Old Gum Tree : (Photo courtesy Ashwood Studio, Adelaide, S.A.) Chart of the route of H.M.S. Nisus 1810-1813 (Permission Victoria University, Wellington) Muster Roll of H.M.S. Bellerophon 19th July 1790 (Permission The Public Record Office, London) Note from Lord Nelson ordering Hindmarsh to join H.M.S. Victory (Permission Bolton family, New Zealand) Lady Hindmarsh H.M.S. Buffalo (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) John Hindmarsh (Permission Mr T.F. Hindmarsh, Perth, W.A.) Plan and Section of the hold of H.M.S. Buffalo (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) Government ‘Hut’, Adelaide, South Australia, 1837 by Mary Hindmarsh (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) Heligoland in 1936 (Permission M. u. L. Schensky of Heligoland) Lady Hindmarsh circa 1840 SS (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) Government House, Heligoland by Mary Hindmarsh Stephen (Permission National Gallery of South Australia) Portrait of Sir John Hindmarsh (Permission of the Hindmarsh family, N.Z.) Governor Hindmarsh (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) The ‘unofficial’ bars to the Hindmarsh medal (Permission Bolton family, N.Z.) The Hindmarsh Naval General Service Medal — 7 bars (Permission of the Hindmarsh family, N.Z.) 12 Albany Villas, Hove, Sussex (Now No. 30) The grave of Sir John and Lady Hindmarsh and Ann Hindmarsh Lady Hindmarsh, 1858 (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) The Hindmarsh sword of honour (Permission of the Hindmarsh family, N.Z.) Mary Hindmarsh Stephen 1870 (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) 10 39 45 93 95 7 115 147 149 151 161 168 175 175 181 183 183 187 189 The author and his wife Anna-Karin at home in New Zealand THE AUTHOR Frederick Stewart Hindmarsh, A.A.I.I., A.I.I.N.Z., is a New Zealander who commenced work at the age of 14 with a firm of Lloyds Insurance Brokers in the City of London in early 1941. (The office was bombed a few weeks later.) He saw service with the R.A.F.V.R., Infantry and Special Air Service. When World War II ended he was about to commence training in the Glider Pilot Regiment for the invasion of Japan. In 1954 he married Anna- Karin Eklund in Stockholm, Sweden, and they have two children. Mr Hindmarsh has travelled extensively and, at the time of his retirement in 1986, was the Marine Underwriter for New Zealand for the General Accident Group. He is at present em- ployed by the Marine Underwriting Agency N.Z. Ltd as a consult- ant. In addition to his fifty-three year interest in marine insurance, and writing for a variety of magazines and newspapers, Mr Hindmarsh is a keen historian and archaeologist, Co-ordinator for the local Community Emergency Centre and teaches English to new Asian settlers. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the many people who have assisted me in gathering material for this book, but above all to Professor Douglas Pike, the General Editor of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and Mr Godfrey H. Williams, C.B.E., a relative of Lady Hindmarsh, for their generous co-operation in the hunt for further material on Hindmarsh’s early background; the naval historians and authors Dudley Pope and Colin Pengelly for their advice and assistance with my naval problems. My thanks are also due to the Hindmarsh family in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, who have been most generous in making available their collection of Rear Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh’s papers and letters. Iam particularly grateful to Mrs Leola Bolton and her son David, Mrs Hope C. B. Steele, Mrs E. A. Evans, Mrs E. M. Hindmarsh, Mr H. J. Hindmarsh, Mr A. F. Hindmarsh, Mr W. E. Hindmarsh, Mrs June Hull. Iam also indebted to Mr S. B. Leighton, Mr Robert Langdon, Mr Reg Longden, Mr David Elder, Miss J. Milan, The National Maritime Museum, Mr K. Fink-Jensen, Dr James Packross and Lottie Schensky of Heligoland, Doris Thompson of the Public Library, Wallsend, Philip O’Shea, Mr H. Scharnke, Mr C. N. Miller, Captain G. T. Stagg, Mr R. G. Appleyard of the National Gallery of South Australia, The Royal Geographical Society of Australia (South Australian Branch), Scott Polar Research Insti- tute, Cambridge, Mr Henry Bruun of the Rigsarkivet, Copenha- gen, Kapitan z S. G. Bidlingmaier of the Militargeschtliches Forschungsamt, Freiburg im Breisgau and Dr Kausche, Staatsarchiv, Hamburg, Mr G. L. Fischer of the Public Library of South Australia, The Librarians of the Mitchell Library, Sydney, The Guildhall Library, London, The British Museum Library, The Brighton and Hove Libraries, The Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, and the General Assembly Library, Wellington. Tran- scripts of Crown copyright records in the Public Record Office appear by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. Lastly, my special thanks to Mr W. T. Parham for reading and checking the manuscript and advising me on naval matters. ros eoDi LEA Rear Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh, Kt., R. N. (Permission the Alexander Turnbull Library) INTRODUCTION The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone round him o’er the dead : Mrs Hemans Many people are familiar with Mrs Hemans’ famous poem and have read the story of the brave 19 year old French midship- man Casabianca, who died on the blazing flagship L’Orient at the Battle of the Nile, rather than leave his injured father. Very few, however, have heard of the thirteen year old English midship- man, John Hindmarsh, who also served with his father and helped to set fire to the deck of L’Orient. In the action young Hindmarsh received such a severe contusion that he later lost the sight of one eye. After the action he was publicly thanked by Lord Nelson for saving his ship shortly before the French flagship blew up. Hindmarsh was born at Chatham, Kent, in 1785 and was the son of a Gunner in the Royal Navy. At the age of five he served with his father in H.M.S. Bellerophon and again during Lord Howe’s action of the Glorious First of June, 1794, being then only nine years old. One of his early shipmates was Mathew Flinders, later to become the virtual discoverer ofsSouth Australia, and little did young Hindmarsh dream that he was destined to be the first ruler of that part of the continent which his senior messmate made known to the world. There was a fascinating linkage between Captain James Cook, R.N., explorer of Australia’s east coast, and the discoverer and founders of South Australia. William Bligh of the Bounty sailed with Cook on his last voyage and, in 1791, Flinders was a midshipman under Bligh. Hindmarsh was involved in nearly a hundred clashes with the enemy and in the capture or destruction of upwards of forty sail of the line besides frigates, small craft and privateers. He was areal life ‘Hornblower’ and when the Naval General Service Medal was introduced, it was discovered that he was entitled to the War Medal with seven clasps, for his distinguished service, being the greatest number save in one instance received by any commissioned officer in the Royal Navy. After the war he served with the Pasha in Egypt and was later appointed first Governor of South Australia. His term in Australia was nota happy one and he quarrelled with the Surveyor-General over the site of Adelaide. He was eventually recalled and was later appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Heligoland. Considering his lack of influence, his record of promotion from Gunner's Servant on the lower deck to Rear Admiral, in class conscious England, was no small achievement. “The Old Gum Tree”, Glenelg, South Australia. The founding colonists and Governor Hindmarsh assembled here after landing in 1836 to hear the Governor issue a proclamation establishing the Government of South Australia. (photo courtesy Ashwood Studio, Adelaide, S.A.) Chapter 1 THE HINDMARSH FAMILY According to Bede, greatest of the Anglo Saxon historians, the Angles came from Angeln in Schleswig and Northumbrians are descended from them. The Hindmarshes are one of the oldest local families and the name is derived from the old English words Hind, female of the red deer, plus Mersc or Marsh. Although some fifteen centuries have now elapsed since the Angles left Schleswig for England, the Danish spelling of these two words is still almost identical, Hind and Marsk. For centuries the English and Scottish borderers were hereditary foes. The Glen near Wooler is where King Arthur was said to have fought the first of his twelve great battles. In the Border wars, which continued for twelve centuries, each clan would vie with a particular opponent. The Hindmarshes and Fenwicks were thus constantly at war with the Elliotts on the other side of the Border. It is said that the slogan or rallying-cry of the Fenwicks “A Fenwyke! a Fenwyke! a Fenwyke!” was never heard in vain. One old chronicler recorded: “The Englysshemenne and the Skottes are mighty menne of warre, and whenever they meet there is a good fyghte without sparynge.” Not all the Hindmarshes were gentlemen and when a dull period occurred in the Border disputes a few of them would search elsewhere for their loot and plunder. In the year 1385 it was reported that one Robert Hynmerssh! and others, malefac- tors and breakers of the peace, had carried off horses, heifers and chattels valued at £100, and had assaulted, beaten, and wounded men and servants and done other damage, etc., to the amount of £1000. From the fifteenth century the Hindmarshes were mainly prominent in the church, or as master mariners and tanners. Edward Hindmarsh? was a Benedictine monk who reached high office in the Durham Monastery. As Spiritual Chancellor to Bishop Tunstall, Edward supported his Bishop when he preached against the Pope’s authority in his diocese. This, and Tunstall’s - acquiescence in measures which completed the severance be- tween the English Church and Rome, was of material service to Henry the Eighth. Later, when the English abbeys were surren- dered to the crown, the King remembered Edward’s past services and made him the first Prebendary of the first Stall in Durham Cathedral’. As the result of this appointment, the Hindmarshes became the largest landowners in Little Benton, Willington, and Wallsend in Northumberland and Aislaby in County Durham. The armorial bearings of the Northumberland branch of the family are “Vert Three Hinds heads couped argent”.*Those of the Aislaby branch are “Gules on Marshland vert a Hind couchant proper”® and the family motto is “Nil Nisi Patria” —- “Nothing but one’s country”. The breakup of the Hindmarsh estates occurred shortly after 1693,° when one of the Fenwicks left his family estate to his wife and, failing children, to his sister Grace, the wife of Edward Hindmarsh, one of the Six Clerks in the Court of Chancery and later of Long Benton. Fenwick’s wife survived him barely a year and the Fenwick estates passed to Grace Hindmarsh and her husband. Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Grace and Edward Hindmarsh, married Thomas Bigge of Newcastle and the estates passed into the hands of the Bigge family.’ The immediate result of this was a long succession of lawsuits which left the Hindmarshes and Fenwicks almost penniless and the Bigge family with a considerable fortune. The grandfather of Rear-Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh was William Hindmarsh of Darlington, County Durham. He had no land and little or no money. For a number of years he worked as a gardener on one of the large estates near Darlington. In 1760 he moved to Low Carlbury, a few miles from Darlington, where his wife died in 1767 leaving him with eight children all under the age of sixteen. John Hindmarsh, his second son and the father of Sir John, was born 27th June 1753 and baptised at St Cuthbert’s Church, Darlington, on 8th August. He had very little education and left home at the age of fourteen after his mother died. Like Captain Cook, he probably first went to sea on one of the colliers trading between Durham and London. In Sunderland, about the year 1773, he either volunteered or was pressed into the Royal Navy, and within a few years was in charge of a press-gang himself collecting several men from the Wallsend area. The next official record of Hindmarsh senior appears in April 1780, when he joined His Majesty's Ship Floraas an able seaman. On 6th July 1780 he was promoted to the rank of Gunner's Mate.® The Flora was a new and large thirty-six gun frigate, carrying eighteen pounders on her main deck and an experimental addition of six eighteen pounder carronades. These carronades were Britain’s latest secret weapon, named after the Carron Ironworks in Scotland where they had been recently invented and manufactured. The navy name for carronades became ‘Smashers’ because of their ugly effect at close quarters, and Hindmarsh soon became a leading expert in their use. The main advantage of the carronades was that they possessed a very reduced windage. This was the difference between the diameters of the bore of the gun and the projectile. Guns had this tolerance for ease of loading and to allow for the expansion of hot shot. It was then impossible to cast shot either perfectly or of a uniform diameter. When heated, it expanded about 1/80th to 1/140th. Too much windage dissi- pated the force of the charge, with a loss of gas and loss of initial velocity, irregularity in the flight of the projectile and injury to the bore of the gun. Flora’s new carronades were thus able to project shot of large calibre with accuracy at distances form five to six hundred yards, with great saving of metal, powder and gun- detachments. Carronades had no trunnions and were cast with an eye underneath. A large bolt passed through this securing to carriage. A flash ring, or enlargement at the muzzle facilitated the entry of shot and also obviated the use of rigging and hammock nettings. When fired these pieces were very unsteady in their recoil owing to their lightness and the position of the eye. The Admiralty was thus watching the activities of Flora with great interest. As Gunner’s Mate, Hindmarsh was also destined to receive a small share of the limelight. England was in the fifth year of the American War when Flora met the French thirty-two gun frigate Nymphe in August 1780 and her victory was easy. The Nymphe lost sixty-three men killed and seventy-three wounded. Against this, Flora had only nine men killed and twenty-seven wounded. With such a decisive result Captain Williams should have had full confidence in his new and devastating armament, but this does not appear to have been the case. In March 1781, his ship was with the fleet under Vice-Admiral Darby at the second relief of Gibraltar. Later she was sent on to Minorca with the twenty-eight gun frigate Crescent, in charge of some victuallers. On their return voyage through the Straits on 30th May 1781, they met the Castor and the Briel, both Dutch frigates of thirty- six guns. After a sharp action, Flora captured the Castor, but in the meantime Briel had compelled the Crescent to strike her flag. Flora then attacked the Briel but the latter escaped. On 19th June the two English frigates and their prize were off Cape Finisterre; progress had been slow as the Crescent and Castor had been dismasted in the engagement. The two damaged ships were jury rigged in a very make-shift manner and Castor only had a prize crew on board who were unable to leave the pumps. When the two French thirty-two gun frigates Friponne and Gloire appeared, Captain Williams made the signal to sepa- rate and left the Crescent and Castor easy prizes to the French- men. Although there was no Admiralty enquiry into the conduct of Captain Williams, it was felt unofficially that he did not fully understand the novel conditions in his favour. Flora’s broadside was nearly as heavy as those of the Friponneand Gloire combined, although in his defence he had lost nine killed and thirty-two wounded, eight mortally, in Flora’s earlier engagement with the Castor. Captain Williams was put on half pay, and although he eventually reached the rank of Admiral of the Fleet in 1830, by seniority, he saw no further service afloat. The navy was well satisfied with Hindmarsh’s part in these actions. On 14th November 1781 he was appointed Gunner of the Renown as a replacement for Gunner Thomas Mead, who at the time was sick ashore.°® Hindmarsh’s rank was now ‘Gunner’, which meant that he was a warrant officer, the only man on the ship with that title.’° Individuals who were ‘captains’ of individual guns were not noted down as such in the muster, but men under a lieutenant, responsible for groups of guns were listed as ‘quarter gunners’ in large ships. They directed, for example, the first ten guns on the port side of the main deck. The Gunner did not become a ‘commissioned’ officer until the 1850s. With the boatswain and master, Hindmarsh was appointed by warrant. The quarter- gunners were simply petty officers and could be disrated by the Captain at will, whereas Hindmarsh could not. Hindmarsh’s new ship, the Renown, was only a fourth rate 50 gun ship. She had been built at Fabian’s Yard at Chapel on the River Itchen and launched in December 1774. Shortly after Hindmarsh joined her, she was attached to Rear-Admiral Richard Kempenfelt’s detachment.!! Towards the end of 1781, Kempenfelt, flying his flag in Victory, put to sea with twelve ships of the line and some frigates. According to recent intelligence reports a French convoy and squadron of seven ships were bound for the West Indies. Kempenfelt’s orders were to intercept and destroy the enemy. When the British sighted the convoy on the 12th December,