HMS Conway was a naval training school or "school ship", founded in 1859 and housed for most of her life aboard a 19th-century wooden ship of the line. The ship was originally stationed on the Mersey near Liverpool, then moved to the Menai Strait during World War II. While being towed back to Birkenhead for a refit in 1953, she ran aground and was wrecked, and later burned. The school moved to purpose-built premises on Anglesey where it continued for another twenty years.
Origins In the mid-19th century, the demand for a reliable standard of merchant navy officers had grown to the point where ship owners decided to set up an organisation to train, and indeed educate, them properly—the Mercantile Marine Service Association.
One of the first sites chosen for a school ship was Liverpool, in 1857. The ship they chose to accommodate the school, to be provided by the Admiralty and moored in the Sloyne, off Rock Ferry on the River Mersey, was the corvette HMS Conway. There were to be three Conways over the years, the name being transferred to the new ship each time it was replaced. In 1861 HMS Winchester took the name, but the one that housed the school for most of its life was lent by the Royal Navy to the Mercantile Marine Service Association in 1875. This was the two-decker , a 92-gun second-rate line-of-battle ship. She was 205 ft (62.5 m) long on the gundeck, 54 ft (16 m) in beam, and displaced 4,375 long tons. During her operational life she was equipped with ten 8-inch (200 mm) guns and eighty-two 30-pounders. Launched in June 1839,Winfield (2004) p.92 she was entirely built from West African hardwoods and copper fastened, with copper sheathing anti-fouling to her under parts. She had survived the Baltic Blockade during the Crimean War, later protecting British possessions in the Caribbean and 'showing the flag' along the eastern seaboard of North America 50 years after the British surrender at Yorktown. In 1876 she was renamed Conway and moored on the Mersey.
The ship, already a century old, was refitted in the dry dock at Birkenhead between 1936 and 1938. She was also fitted with a new figurehead representing Nelson, which was ceremonially unveiled by the then Poet Laureate John Masefield, an alumnus of the school (1891–1893).A short newsreel clip of the unveiling of the figurehead can be downloaded from the British Pathé website (search for "Conway").
By 1953 she had already outlived both her sisters, Rodney and London, by more than 70 years.
From Mersey to Menai In 1941, with air raids on the Liverpool docks taking place, Conway had already survived several near misses. It was decided to move the ship from the Mersey to Anglesey, where she remained moored for the duration of the war between the former Bishop's Palace at Glyn Garth and the Gazelle Hotel, in line with the Catalina flying boat moorings along the Anglesey shore. This being wartime there was no official announcement of the move and local residents were startled one evening to see a picturesque Nelson-era ship of the line, a "wooden wall", entering the Menai Strait. Subsequently, ship-to-shore traffic was across the Menai Strait to the pier-head at Bangor or to the Gazelle Hotel ferry terminal and she became something of a local tourist attraction.
At the end of the 1940s there was a surge in demand for merchant navy cadets. The ship did not have space for more cadets so the ship's superintendent, Captain Goddard, started looking for space ashore with playing fields and a shore establishment. He picked on Plas Newydd, the stately home of the Marquess of Anglesey, a large part of which had been vacated by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps at the end of the War. This site seemed ideal, except that the seabed provided very poor anchorage, so four five-ton anchors were sunk there. Only one problem remained: could the ship be moved there in one piece? She would need to be towed by tugs through a stretch of water between Anglesey and the mainland, known as the "Swellies". This area, bounded by the two Menai bridges (the Menai Suspension Bridge and Britannia Bridge), is notorious for underwater shoals and dangerous, complex tidal streams as well as a non-tidal current varied by the wind and atmospheric pressure. Captain Goddard was proud of his experience as a hydrographic surveyor, and having studied the problem, believed it was possible.
After a false start the day before, the ship was moved successfully on 13 April 1949, in spite of what was obviously a great risk. Conway remains by far the deepest ship ever to have passed through the Swellies. Her draft was aft and the underwater clearances were marginal. The overhead clearance under Menai Suspension Bridge, which is above high water, was estimated to be three feet, all depending upon the actual height of the tide at the time of passing through. "I was glad when it was accomplished," Captain Goddard wrote. "It created a great deal of interest amongst the North Wales seafaring fraternity who had declared the undertaking to be a foolish one."
Loss of the ship
By 1953 another refit was due. This could not be done locally so the ship had to be taken back to Birkenhead dry dock, passing back through the Swellies once more. The operation took place on 14 April 1953. There were the same two Liverpool tugs which had shifted her several times before, Dongarth forward and Minegarth aft. The new Captain Superintendent, Captain E Hewitt, was in command, with two Trinity House local pilots – Mr R D Jones (junior) aboard the head tug, and Mr R J Jones (senior) – advising Captain Hewitt, and the Blue Funnel Liverpool pilot Mr James Miller overseeing the towage.
High water at Liverpool that morning was 11:18, at a height of 32'10" and was the highest tide that year.Extract from Admiralty Tide Tables, Liverpool 1953, www.hmsconway.org. Retrieved 19 February 2014 Laver's Almanac quotes high water at Menai Bridge as 28 minutes before high water Liverpool.Extract from Laver's Almanac for Liverpool and the Irish Sea, www.hmsconway.org. Retrieved 19 February 2014 What is termed 'slack' in the Swellies is actually a brief period of uneasy equilibrium between two opposing flood streams which typically occurs 1 hour 42 minutes before local high water, or at 09:08 on the morning of the move. Owing to the strength of the southwest-going ebb, which runs at 8 knots during a spring tide,Admiralty chart 1461 there is a confused complex tidal flow among the numerous rocks and islets generating many powerful eddies.Extract from the Anglesey and North Wales Coast Pilot, UK Hydrographic Office, p.17, www.hmsconway.org. Retrieved 19 February 2014 On a big tide in particular it is vital for an outbound vessel to be through the Swellies before the tide turns against her. It is therefore the local practice to start an outward transit with the last of the northeast-going flood 20 minutes before the 'slack', or at 08:48 on the morning of the move. Captain Hewitt had worked with the Caernarfon harbour master, Captain Rees Thomas, in preparing his plan, and had several times made a passage of the Swellies in the Conways motor boat, checking his timings at . He also consulted Conways old log book for the timings of the previous transit, and had planned to arrive at the bridge at 09:20.Report of Sub-Committee appointed to ascertain the facts of the Stranding of H.M.S. Conway on 14 April 1953, www.hmsconway.org. Retrieved 19 February 2014
The streams in the Menai Strait are affected by winds outside in the Irish Sea. With a strong north or north-westerly wind both the rate and duration of the southwest-going ebb are increased, and the southwest-going ebb may begin quarter of an hour earlier.Extract from the Anglesey and North Wales Coast Pilot, UK Hydrographic Office, p.315, line 21, www.hmsconway.org. Retrieved 19 February 2014 The 0600 synoptic chart showed a stationary deep depression west of Norway with a secondary low in the North Sea, and a high steadily closing the west coast of Ireland,Synoptoic chart for 0600 Tuesday 14 April 1953 (issued at 1200 14 April) for the United Kingdom which could be expected to result in an increasingly strong northwesterly wind in the Irish Sea. But in the shelter of the Plas Newydd mooring, there was no indication of this. At 0800 as the wind was being recorded in Conway's logbook as northerly force 1–2 (2 to 5 knots),Deck log of HMS Conway for 14 April 1953 only 13 miles away on station off Point Lynas it was being recorded by the Liverpool pilot boat as northwesterly force 6 (22–27 knots) and her noon entry was NW force 7, (28–33 knots) while during the morning Bidston Observatory was recording gusts up to 49 knots (storm force 10).Bideston Observatory log, Liverpool Observatory and Tidal Institute, Tuesday 14 April 1953
The Investigating Subcommittee was later to express its surprise that Captain Hewitt had left the Plas Newydd mooring without a weather forecast, and "had no knowledge of the stormy conditions prevailing at sea at the time Conway was to make the passage" since it was local knowledge that in such weather "abnormal conditions might be encountered." In addition to the tide-generated streams in the Menai Strait there is also a non-tidal current, the Southwest Residual, a dynamic reaction which directly reflects wind stress in the Irish Sea.Harvey, J. G., 1967. The Flow of Water Through the Menai Straits, Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 15, 517–528. The north-westerly mean wind speed of 16 meters per second at sea that day would enhance the Residual by 15 cm per second, increasing the strength of the southwest-going ebb at Plas Newydd by as much as 3 knots.Simpson, J. H.; Forbes, A. M. G.; Gould, W. J., 1971. Electromagnetic Observations of Water Flow in the Menai Straits, Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 21, 245–523.
Conway's logbook shows she left the mooring at 0822 and arrived at Britannia Bridge at 0850, which was the locally recommended time for starting the outward transit and Jones the pilot naturally advised keeping her going with the last of the northeast-going flood tide behind her. Instead Captain Hewitt had the ship brought up for half an hour to wait until 0920. The severe wind in the Irish Sea caused the stream in the Strait to turn to the westward earlier which eliminated the brief slack water period. Captain F J Durrant, marine manager of the towing company, observed "The anticipated ten minute slack water did not materialise. The ebb set in immediately the flood ended at 0920."Preliminary report of Mr J J Durrant into the stranding of HMS Conway, dated 16 April 1953. With the ship far too late and sensitive to the adverse conditions the pilot advised going back. Captain Hewitt passed the ship under Britannia Bridge at 0923 even though the ebb tide was already setting against him.