Saturday 12th March 1887

Essex Working Boats and torpedos aren't the most likely of bedfellows... You may be thinking that this is a story of a poor unsuspecting fisherman dredging up a torpedo in his nets or perhaps a large coastal craft accidentally caught in friendly fire. However, this story takes place before both World Wars, making the events of this chronicle far more unsuspecting

The first use of a torpedo was in 1801 and at this point no surviving Essex Workboats were plying their trade. In fact, it took until 1877 for this technology to be refined and implemented into British Naval Ships. Many early torpedos had to be lowered into the water, often with clockwork internals, and once set on course there was no way of controlling their direction.

In the early 1880s an American Colonel-Lay had been experimenting with internal methods of controlling torpedos and was already supplying the American Navy with his updated armory. We assume that in 1887 he was acting under his British-registered company showcasing this latest cutting-edge technology. An interesting glimpse of the wider world making its way into the River Cole amongst the hustle and bustle of the Oyster fishermen and busy port-town of Brightlingsea.

Sadly, we are not able to find any trace of a name for the smack that carried the 21-feet Torpedo in this article, but we can presume it was one of the larger sized fishing smacks as manoeuvrability and stability would have been affected for a small smack lugging a torpedo of that enormity. As time goes on I am sure it will be possible to discover the name of the 1877 guard smack through further research of the archives. Although, for now we can enjoy the playing out of this little scene and envision the embarkation of the military officials, in their full uniform, clambering into some skiffs and ducking under the oars to make their way out into Brightlingsea Harbour.

Torpedos In The Colne.

Sailing Barge Edith May