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HMS Queen Charlotte (1810)

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For other ships with the same name, see HMS Queen Charlotte.

Detail of Robert Salmon's The British Fleet Forming a Line off Algiers
History
United Kingdom
NameHMS Queen Charlotte
NamesakeCharlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Ordered9 July 1801
BuilderDeptford Dockyard
Laid downOctober 1805
Launched17 July 1810[1]
CommissionedJanuary 1813
FateSold, 12 January 1892
General characteristics [2]
Class and type104-gun first-rate ship of the line
Tons burthen2289 bm
Length190 ft 0+1⁄2 in (57.9 m) (gundeck)
Beam52 ft 5+3⁄4 in (16.0 m)
Depth of hold22 ft 4 in (6.8 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Armament
  • Gundeck: 30 × 32-pounder guns
  • Middle gundeck: 30 × 24-pounder guns
  • Upper gundeck: 30 × 12-pounder guns
  • QD: 2 × 12-pounder guns + 12 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Fc: 2 × 12-pounder guns + 2 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Poop deck: 6 × 18-pounder carronades

HMS Queen Charlotte was a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 July 1810 at Deptford. She replaced the first Queen Charlotte sunk in 1800.

William Brown

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In 1815, a Black sailor from Grenada named William Brown. Brown was discharged from Queen Charlotte 'for being a woman'[3] as recorded on the ship's muster register. Brown's real name remains unknown, though she allegedly joined the crew of Queen Charlotte following a quarrel with her husband. The Annual Register, published the same year as her discharge, described her as being around 26 years of age and that she was rated able on the books.[4] Historians debate the length of her naval service, with many arguing she served no more than eleven days before her identity was discovered, whilst some sources at the time state she served for upwards of eleven years, including as captain of the fore-top.[5] Brown is largely believed to have been the first Black woman to serve in the Royal Navy.

Career

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Queen Charlotte spent a short amount of time as part of the West Africa Squadron in 1816, formed in 1808 in response to An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain that was passed in 1807. The role of the Squadron was to patrol the West Africa coastline, intercepting slaving vessels. Most notably, Queen Charlotte gained notoriety when she captured the Le Louis – a French slaving vessel – on 11th March 1816. Le Louis was taken off Cape Mesurado having set sail from Martinique in January 1816.[6] Following engagement, the ship was taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where the Admiralty courts legally confirmed the free status of those on board who had been enslaved. They were then consigned by the colonial government to a variety of unfree labour apprenticeships as part of their transition to becoming 'free subjects'.

HMS Queen Charlotte’s seizure of Le Louis, however, caused a legal controversy that tested and defeated Britain’s right to search suspected and actual slaving vessels by challenging the Vienna Declaration of 1815.

Sir William Scott, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, ruled that the right to visit and search royal warships did not exist in peacetime, except in the case of piracy, but because the transatlantic slave trade was not piracy under the Law of Nations, nor had the French declared the transatlantic slave trade to be piracy, the Royal Navy had no right to intercept Le Louis. Scott added:  

“A nation is not justified in assuming rights that do not belong to her merely because she means to apply them to a laudable purpose; nor in setting out upon a moral crusade of converting other nations by unlawful force...”[7]

He ended by stating that no government could “force the way to liberation of Africa by trampling on the independence of other states of Europe.”  

Later that year, Queen Charlotte was Lord Exmouth's flagship during the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816.

On 17 September 1817, Linnet, a tender to Queen Charlotte, seized a smuggled cargo of tobacco. The officers and crew of Queen Charlotte shared in the prize money.[Note 1]

On 17 December 1823, Queen Charlotte was driven into the British ship Brothers at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England.[9] Brothers suffered severe damage in the collision.[9]

  • Representations of Queen Charlotte
  • Council of war on board Queen Charlotte, 1818, by Nicolaas Baur
    Council of war on board Queen Charlotte, 1818, by Nicolaas Baur
  • Detail of Robert Salmon's The British Fleet Forming a Line off Algiers
    Detail of Robert Salmon's The British Fleet Forming a Line off Algiers

Figurehead

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The figurehead of HMS Queen Charlotte was carved by an unknown carver and fitted to the ship ahead of its launch in 1810.

Queen Charlotte

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Members of the Royal Household were commonly chosen as the namesake for naval vessels, with portraits and favoured periods of their lives used as inspiration for the ship's figurehead.

Queen Charlotte, or Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland upon her marriage to George III in 1761 until her death in 1818.

The possible African heritage of Queen Charlotte first emerged in Racial Mixture as the Basic Principle of Life published in 1929 by German historian, Brunold Springer. The debate around her ancestry has resurfaced in recent years after historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom argued that her features in portraits were distinctly African. Many were painted by Allan Ramsay, known for his support of the abolition movement against the enslavement of African people. Some argue that Charlotte's heritage was known or at least considered at the time and that Ramsay simply painted the monarch as he saw her; others argue that any features that suggested Black ancestry were accentuated by Ramsay to further the abolitionist cause.

In spite of the debate around the monarch's heritage, Charlotte is considered a role model as the potential first Black queen of Britain.

When HMS Queen Charlotte was sold for breaking up, the figurehead was removed and mounted high up on the gabled end of an accommodation block near the entrance to the gunnery training base on Whale Island. When those buildings were demolished in 2004, the figurehead was removed and placed upon a plinth at the entrance to HMS Excellent (shore establishment).[10]

The figurehead, as it came to the National Museum of the Royal Navy, depicts Queen Charlotte in a regal red gown, complete with crown, a three-stranded gold necklace and white edging, though no records survive that hint at her original colour scheme. She is depicted as a white woman.

Conservation
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The figurehead of HMS Queen Charlotte was recently conserved by Orbis Conservation[11] as part of a two-year conservation and interpretation project at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, ending in 2025.

Paint analysis conducted by Orbis evidenced varying numbers of paint layers, suggesting the figurehead had undergone multiple repaints.

Analysis Area Paint layers Colours
Robe Eleven Painted cream until third blue/grey layer, then white followed by red.  
Crown (gold section) Eight Aluminium primer, white, red (possible transfer), cream, blue, yellow and finally gold.
Ruffle Eleven Cream until fourth red primer layer, then white, blue and then alternating between grey and white.
Shoulder Three Grey/blue then skin tone.  
Eyes Five White, brown and black.
Hair Twenty Cream, until fifth layer than painted varying shades of brown.  

The use of a cream paint throughout indicates that much of the figurehead was painted this colour initially, which would be in keeping with many figureheads being painted white.  

Traces of a blue/grey paint were initially thought to be evidence of the paint scheme as seen in the Cigarette Card image, however Orbis has since identified this as a widely used oil-based primer, used commonly on marine wood.

Reinterpretation
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Consultation with several community groups about the future appearance of Queen Charlotte were ongoing throughout the restoration project, taking inspiration from the conversations surrounding her heritage[12]. Charlotte’s skin remains white, though some facial features - such as eyebrows and complexion - were altered to reflect her potential African lineage. Despite criticism around Charlotte’s possible heritage[13], several references were made during the queen’s lifetime to her appearance and Black ancestry. She was described by doctor, Baron Stockmar, as having a “true mulatto face”, and was said to have descended from the “Vandal race” - a Germanic people who maintained a kingdom of North Africa – in a poem written ahead of her marriage to King George III and thus her coronation.[14] The groups also drew upon portraits of Queen Charlotte painted by artist Allan Ramsay. This struck a balance between honouring a potential identity that many feel personally connected to, whilst refraining from extreme alterations without any direct historical proof as to the monarch's true ancestry.

The Excellent, in Portsmouth Harbour c. 1862, firing her great gun in a practice drill. George Washington Wilson

Notes

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  1. ^ A first-class share was worth £101 18s 8d; a sixth-class share, that of an ordinary seaman, was worth 8s 2¼d.[8]

Citations

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  1. ^ The Times (London), Wednesday, 18 July 1810, p.3
  2. ^ Lavery, Ships of the Line Vol. 1, p. 187.
  3. ^ Frhists, Dr Jo Stanley (10 April 2017). "Gender and the sea: Black woman cross-dressed seafarer 'William Brown' - exhibition". Gender and the sea. Retrieved 11 June 2025.
  4. ^ TNA ADM ADM 37/5039, Annual Register, September 1815
  5. ^ Cordingly, David (2001). Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways and Sailors' Wives (1st ed.). London: Random House Trade.
  6. ^ Bryant, Jonathan M. (2015). Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Antelope. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
  7. ^ Report of the Directors of the African Institution Read at the Annual General Meeting: On the . London: African Institution. 1818. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  8. ^ "No. 17360". The London Gazette. 16 May 1818. p. 892.
  9. ^ a b "The Marine List". Lloyd's List (5865): 78 v. 19 December 1823.
  10. ^ Pulvertaft, David (2009). The Warship Figureheads of Portsmouth (1st Colour ed.). UK: The History Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0752450766.
  11. ^ "Art and Antique Restoration London | Orbis Conservation". orbisconservation.co.uk. Retrieved 11 June 2025.
  12. ^ "Queen Charlotte | FRONTLINE | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 11 June 2025.
  13. ^ Jeffries, Stuart (12 March 2009). "Was this Britain's first black queen?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 June 2025.
  14. ^ "Queen Charlotte | FRONTLINE | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 11 June 2025.

References

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  • Lavery, Brian (1983): The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
  • Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates (revised ed.). Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.
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