Golden Hinde, a sea-worthy reconstruction of the original vessel
History
England
NamePelican
Launched1577
Sponsored byQueen Elizabeth I of England
RenamedGolden Hind(e) (1578)
FateDisintegrated and broken up in late 1600s; two replicas exist
General characteristics
TypeGalleon
Tonnage100–150 tons[1]
Displacement300 tons
Length102 ft (31 m) on deck
Beam20 ft (6.1 m)
Draught9 ft (2.7 m)
PropulsionSail; Wind
Speed8 knots (15 km/h)
Complement80–85
Armament22 guns
ArmourNone
NotesSail area: 386 m²

Golden Hind was a galleon captained by Francis Drake in his circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580. She was originally known as Pelican, but Drake renamed her mid-voyage in 1578, in honour of his patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest was a golden hind (a female red deer). Hatton was one of the principal sponsors of Drake's world voyage. A full-sized, seaworthy reconstruction is in London, on the south bank of the Thames.

History

Queen Elizabeth I partly sponsored Sir Francis Drake as the leader of an expedition intended to pass around South America through the Strait of Magellan and to explore the coast that lay beyond. The queen's support was advantageous; Drake had official approval to benefit himself and the queen and cause the maximum damage to the Spaniards. This eventually culminated in the Anglo–Spanish War. Before setting sail, Drake met the queen face-to-face for the first time and she said to him, "We would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that we have received."[2]

The explicit object was to "find out places meet to have traffic." Drake, however, acted as a privateer, with unofficial support from Elizabeth.[3] The design of the Golden Hind was based on the Spanish built nao Victoria,[4] the first ship to circumnavigate the world, and is described as a "mid-16th-century warship during the transition from the carrack to the galleon," and weighed about 120 tons.[5] He first named his flagship Pelican, but renamed her Golden Hind on 20 August 1578[6] to honour his patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, whose family crest was a golden hind. He set sail in December 1577 with five small ships with a complement of 164 and reached the Brazilian coast in early 1578.[7]

On 1 March 1579, now in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Ecuador, Golden Hind challenged and captured the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. This galleon had the largest treasure captured to that date: over 360,000 pesos (equivalent to around £480m in 2017).[8] The treasure took six days to transship and included 26 tons of silver, half a ton of gold, porcelain, jewellery, coins, and jewels.[9][10]

On 26 September 1580, Francis Drake sailed his ship into Plymouth Harbour with 56 of the original crew of 80 left aboard. The ship was unloaded at Trematon Castle nearby, supervised by the Queen's guards.[11] The final treasure also included six tons of cloves from the Spice Islands, at the time worth their weight in gold.[10] Elizabeth herself went aboard Golden Hind, which was then permanently at Deptford on the south bank of the Thames, where she had requested it be placed on permanent display as the first 'museum ship'. There, she shrewdly asked the French ambassador to bestow a knighthood on Drake.[12] Over half of the proceeds went to the crown - her share of the treasure came to at least £160,000: "enough to pay off her entire government debt and still have £40,000 left over to invest in a new trading company for the Levant. Her return, and that of other investors, was more than £47 for every £1 invested, or 4,700%."[9]

After Drake's circumnavigation, Golden Hind was maintained for public exhibition at the dockyard at Deptford, London. The ship remained there from 1580 to around 1650, 45 years after Elizabeth had died, before the ship eventually rotted away and was broken up. In 1668, the keeper of the stores at Deptford, John Davies of Camberwell, had the best remaining timber of Golden Hind made into a chair now called the Drake Chair which was presented to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford,[5][13] where it remains (with a replica in the Great Hall, Buckland Abbey, Devon, Drake's home and now maintained by the National Trust).[14][15]

A table, known as the cupboard, in the Middle Temple Hall, London is also reputed to have been made from the wood of Golden Hind. Upon the cupboard is placed the roll of members of Middle Temple, which new members sign when they are called to the Bar. The ship's lantern was hung in the vestibule of Middle Temple Hall, but was destroyed during the Second World War.

Replicas

Essex

A replica of Golden Hind was constructed at Peter Pan's Playground (now Adventure Island adventure park), Southend-on-Sea, Essex. It was constructed in 1947 and opened in 1949 together with a waxworks. By 1992, attendances had dropped, and combined with rising maintenance costs with the need for a major renovation to the wooden structure caused its closure in 1997. The ship was replaced by a replica of Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, which was demolished in 2013.[16]

Devon

The first replica in Brixham, 1968
The first replica in Brixham, 1968
The second replica in Brixham, 2003
The second replica in Brixham, 2003

A replica of Golden Hind has been permanently moored in the harbour of the sea port of Brixham in Devon (GB-TOB 50°23′48″N 3°30′46″W / 50.39667°N 3.51278°W / 50.39667; -3.51278) since 1963 following its use in the TV series Sir Francis Drake, which was filmed in and around the bays of Torbay and Dartmouth. The replica ship used in the TV series cost the film studio £25,000 to construct had no rear gallery or gun deck and was a converted fishing boat.[17] The ship sank in heavy seas whilst under tow in 1987 to Dartmouth for restoration and could not be saved. A second replica was completed in 1988 and stands in the harbour being visited by thousands of visitors annually. The current vessel based on a steel barge is not full size and could never sail.[18]

London

Present day

Golden Hinde moored by the Tower of London in 1974
Golden Hinde replica moored at Tower Pier in 1974, before her transatlantic voyage.

Golden Hinde, a full-size reconstruction of the ship, was built by traditional methods in Appledore, Devon, and launched in 1973. Golden Hinde was the result of three years research and construction. Since then, she has travelled more than 140,000 miles (225,000  km). She sailed from Plymouth on her maiden voyage in late 1974, arriving on 8 May 1975[19] in San Francisco. In 1979, she sailed to Japan to make the miniseries Shōgun, after which she returned to the UK having completed a circumnavigation. Between 1981 and 1984, she was berthed in England and was established as an educational museum. In 1984–85, she sailed around the British Isles and then crossed the Atlantic to St Thomas in the Caribbean. In 1986, she passed through the Panama Canal to sail on to Vancouver, where she was the main attraction in the Marine Plaza at Expo86. In 1987, she began a tour of US coastal cities, spending two years on the Pacific coast. In late 1988, she passed back through the Panama Canal to continue port visits on the Gulf and east coasts of the US. In 1992, she returned home to the UK and spent the next four years visiting ports in Europe. Since 1996, she has been berthed at St Mary Overie Dock, in Bankside, Southwark, London, where she is open to the public and hosts a range of educational programmes.[20]

1920s

A replica of Golden Hind formed part of the children's playground at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, on the recommendation of Agatha Christie.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Raymond Aker, expert nautical architect, calculated the Golden Hind at "150 tons with twelve guns on the lower deck and six smaller ones on the upper deck. She had a hull length of about eighty feet, breadth of about twenty-three (feet), and a draft of thirteen feet when deeply laden."Aker, Raymond; Von der Porten, Edward (2000). Discovering Francis Drake's California Harbor. Drake Navigators Guild. p. 16.
  2. ↑ "Sir Francis Drake" Archived 29 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine by Lord Simon Fitz Tomas
  3. ↑ Kelsey, Harry, Sir Francis Drake; The Queen's Pirate, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998, ISBN 0-300-07182-5
  4. ↑ Gorrochategui Santos, Luis (2018). English Armada: The Greatest Naval Disaster in English History. Oxford: Bloomsbury. p. 247. ISBN 978-1350016996.
  5. 1 2 "The Original Golden Hind". Archived from the original on 14 October 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  6. ↑ "Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography by Hans P. Kraus". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 19 January 2011. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  7. ↑ Cummins, John, Francis Drake: The Lives of a Hero, 1996, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-16365-7
  8. ↑ To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World (2004) Herman, Arthur. Harper Collins, New York ISBN 0-06-053424-9 p.88
  9. 1 2 To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World (2004) Herman, Arthur. Harper Collins, New York ISBN 0-06-053424-9 p.94
  10. 1 2 "Golden Hind first English ship to sail around the world". Archived from the original on 3 January 2020. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
  11. ↑ Turner, Michael (2005), In Drake's Wake – The Early Voyages, Paul Mould Publishing, ISBN 1-904959-21-0
  12. ↑ John Sugden (1992), Sir Francis Drake, New York: Simon Schuster, ISBN 0-671-75863-2
  13. ↑ MacRay, William Dunn (1868). "Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A. D. 1598-A. D. 1867". Archived from the original on 10 January 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  14. ↑ "Buckland Abbey". National Trust. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  15. ↑ "The Drake Chair - Divinity Schools, Bodleian Library | cabinet". www.cabinet.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 30 December 2022. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
  16. ↑ Hind, Golden. "Southend Timeline". Archived from the original on 23 July 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  17. ↑ British Pathé. "Golden Hind". britishpathe.com. Archived from the original on 17 June 2013. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
  18. ↑ Dartmouth – The Wreck of the Golden Hind 1987. YouTube. 10 September 2010. Archived from the original on 5 November 2014. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
  19. ↑ "S.F. Hails Golden Hinde". Spokane Daily Chronicle. The Associated Press. 10 March 1975. Archived from the original on 23 November 2015. Retrieved 26 April 2015 – via Google News Archive Search.
  20. ↑ Jenkins, Philippa (4 April 2013). "Replica Golden Hinde Celebrates 40th Anniversary". North Devon Journal. Archived from the original on 20 February 2016.
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