Builders refused to work near navy smallpox ship | Nostalgia

I was sent this photograph by Pat Kinsella, of Guildford. At first he thought it might be a mess deck at either HMS Ganges or HMS St Vincent.
Looking forward along the deck ward of hospital ship HMS Atlas. Picture: Pat Kinsella collectionLooking forward along the deck ward of hospital ship HMS Atlas. Picture: Pat Kinsella collection
Looking forward along the deck ward of hospital ship HMS Atlas. Picture: Pat Kinsella collection

As an HMS Ganges old boy, I immediately put him straight on that one! There were no such comforts as bed canopies or thick mattresses, and definitely no women.

I enlarged two parts of the photograph and a man can be seen in bed on the immediate right or is it a ghost!

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Further down the deck you can just make a out a woman, either a matron in white or someone visiting. On the left are two women in dark uniforms, possibly in blue, no doubt nursing staff.

This is the deck of the hospital ship Atlas. She was built at Chatham and launched in 1860, the same year as HMS Warrior, as a second rate ship. She was to have had 91 guns but she was never completed. She would have had a complement of 860 officers and men.

With advances in technology she was reduced to 54 guns and disarmed completely in 1879. She spent the whole of her time in reserve.

In June 1881 the Admiralty lent the ship to the Metropolitan Asylums Board to be converted to a hospital ship as there was a smallpox epidemic at the time. Whether she was ever prefixed HM Hospital ship Atlas I do not know. The ship had 120 beds.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She was to be berthed at Deptford in London but when the local authority found out she was to be used as an isolation ship the berth was denied. She was then taken to Greenwich but local shipbuilders refused to work near the ship.

In 1882 Atlas was moved to Deptford Creek where she remained until 1904 when the Joyce Green Hospital was opened in Dartford, Kent. Atlas was then sent to the breaker’s.

Looking forward in the photograph we can see how light and airy the ‘deck ward’ was with the former gun ports letting in light and air.

• Sandra Matthews (née Stuart) saw my piece about Gill Preston and her memories of South Parade Pier, Southsea, in the 1950s and adds her own memories.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She says: ‘I used to be taken down to the pier at that time, usually by my grandmother, and remember going into a side door on the east side to see the puppet show, and especially Mr Fish.

'I remember too, going through the main entrance of the pier and into what seemed a large hall that had slot machines. The first item on the right was an elephant in a glass cabinet, that after you had put sixpence in, travelled into a tunnel and brought out a present in a small cardboard packet.'Much later, when I was at the Northern Grammar School for Girls in the ’60s, we would go to the theatre on the pier on a Saturday morning, to watch a Shakespeare play as part of our coursework.’

Sandra wonders if any readers have archive material about Mr Fish and the pier in general. She adds: ‘I’m sure many Portsmouth children of the ’40s and ’50s would love to see them.’

• My photograph of the Dunkirk beach last month after the evacuation, was seen by former soldier and military historian Richard Boryer who says many soldiers remained in France after the evacuation.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He says: ‘ British and French troops where still fighting in France after Dunkirk? There were two other operations.

One was Operation Cycle, an embarkation from Le Havre that ended on June 13 and Operation Aerial to get troops out of ports in western France. This lasted from June 15 to June 25.

‘From the end of Operation Dynamo to the end of Operation Cycle and the end of Aerial, another 191,870 troops were rescued. This bought the total of military and civilian personnel returned to the UK to 558,032 including 368,491 British troops.’

• With the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War next week, the extent to which railway employees played their part might be of interest.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The total employed on main line railways and London Transport at the end of the war was 656,498. For some reason the 105,703 women also employed were not included. I imagine this was because many women stood in for the men who would want their jobs back when they returned from the forces.

Ninety thousand employees were in the Home Guard and 170,000 were trained in civil defence duties. In addition, 100,000 men were serving with in the army, navy and air force. Many of these staff would have been signalmen employed in the 10,300 signal boxes.

• The photograph on Friday, April 24, of Roy West, The News former chief photographer, standing beside his famous photograph of HMS Vanguard, was taken by Clare Ash.

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.