In 2015, Fjordr was commissioned by Historic England to examine the significance of the wreck of HMS Falmouth, off the Holderness coast of Yorkshire about eight miles south east of Bridlington. I had first been drawn to HMS Falmouth during work on the East Coast War Channels, as although there are many hundreds of wartime wrecks on England’s east coast, the wrecks of larger twentieth century warships – cruisers and above – are quite rare. This is true of much of England’s coastal waters: most larger warships end their careers in the scrapyard not on the seabed, and even their operational losses mostly occurred well beyond our Territorial Sea. In contrast, smaller warships including destroyers and submarines but especially the many vessels requisitioned as minesweepers and escorts are – tragically – well represented in coastal waters. Hence my first reaction to HMS Falmouth – a well-known, charted, wreck – was ‘why are the remains of a cruiser so near to the War Channels?’. Although the wreck and its basic details were known, its significance had been overlooked. The project for Historic England was intended to bring the significance of HMS Falmouth’s back to the fore in time for the centenary of its loss, which resulted from multiple torpedo hits from U-boats on 19th-20th August 1916. A rich, fascinating and many-layered story started to unfurl: a reminder that the importance of a wreck is not intrinsic to its twisted metal, but arises by combining the material remains with narratives old and new. Finding a wreck means little without discovering its significance.
Such projects can take on a life of their own and so in this article I want to draw together the results of the Historic England project and some of the connections made subsequent to its main phases.
Such projects can take on a life of their own and so in this article I want to draw together the results of the Historic England project and some of the connections made subsequent to its main phases.
One of the primary deliverables of the HMS Falmouth project was a formal ‘Statement of Significance’ for the wreck, which can be downloaded here (also see Fjordr Downloads for many of these links). The Statement of Significance is based on a previously-developed biographical approach to the vessel structured around its Build, Use, Loss, Survival and Investigation (‘BULSI’).
The intention of the project was not just to provide a technical account, however, and the Statement of Significance was developed in tandem with a leaflet setting out Falmouth’s story that was distributed to the public via local Tourist Information Centres and other venues. The leaflet was prepared as a large fold-out broadsheet like those prepared by English Heritage for historic towns: there is a pdf version here and an online flip-book here. Historic England's own pages on HMS Falmouth can be found here.
There were several particularly striking aspects of the work to unravel the significance of HMS Falmouth. First, the degree to which surviving documentary material was dispersed across official archives. The historical records – documents, drawings, photographs – have a symbiotic relationship to the physical remains of the ship; they complement rather than compete with each other. But, like the wreck, it is not enough that the historical documents simply exist; their contribution to the narrative needs active engagement. In the case of HMS Falmouth it is fantastic that so much documentation has survived, but even better that online catalogues enable the documents be reconnected to the ship from which they were severed.
Although there appear to be no detailed drawing of HMS Falmouth, those of one of its sisters – HMS Weymouth – survive in the collections of the Royal Museums Greenwich. There are ships logs and records of HMS Falmouth’s loss, casualties and salvage in the National Archives; photographs and personal accounts – including the papers of Vice Admiral Napier – in the Imperial War Museum (IWM); further personal accounts in the Liddle Collection, University of Leeds library; and further images and documents were made available through the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN).
The intention of the project was not just to provide a technical account, however, and the Statement of Significance was developed in tandem with a leaflet setting out Falmouth’s story that was distributed to the public via local Tourist Information Centres and other venues. The leaflet was prepared as a large fold-out broadsheet like those prepared by English Heritage for historic towns: there is a pdf version here and an online flip-book here. Historic England's own pages on HMS Falmouth can be found here.
There were several particularly striking aspects of the work to unravel the significance of HMS Falmouth. First, the degree to which surviving documentary material was dispersed across official archives. The historical records – documents, drawings, photographs – have a symbiotic relationship to the physical remains of the ship; they complement rather than compete with each other. But, like the wreck, it is not enough that the historical documents simply exist; their contribution to the narrative needs active engagement. In the case of HMS Falmouth it is fantastic that so much documentation has survived, but even better that online catalogues enable the documents be reconnected to the ship from which they were severed.
Although there appear to be no detailed drawing of HMS Falmouth, those of one of its sisters – HMS Weymouth – survive in the collections of the Royal Museums Greenwich. There are ships logs and records of HMS Falmouth’s loss, casualties and salvage in the National Archives; photographs and personal accounts – including the papers of Vice Admiral Napier – in the Imperial War Museum (IWM); further personal accounts in the Liddle Collection, University of Leeds library; and further images and documents were made available through the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN).
The second striking aspect of the project was the value of social media in gaining access to documentary material in private hands. Although insightful, many of the records in public archives are fairly bureaucratic in origin: official and quite sparse documents providing the minimum of information necessary to deliver the job in hand. More texture arises from personal accounts and photographs; and although some of these can be found in public archives, there is plainly a big resource still held in private hands. Email networks, Twitter and Facebook brought material about HMS Falmouth to light that would have remained disconnected had this project been carried out just a few years ago. As well as providing more texture, this privately-held material covers subjects that were not addressed, or were discarded, in official records. Amongst a variety of material, social media has enriched the project with the diary of Stoker Victor Rayson; the informal photographs of officers in the album of George Watson; and photographs of crew on deck watching the demise of SMS Mainz at the Battle of Heligoland Bight. Rather more randomly, ebay and other online auction sites have been a source of historic photographs of HMS Falmouth, including details of artefacts raised from the wreck in the past.
One facet of Falmouth’s significance is its role at the Battle of Jutland, as the flagship of the Third Light Cruiser squadron. Falmouth was heavily engaged at several points during the engagement, and indeed Falmouth is the only substantial wreck of a Jutland veteran within English territorial waters. Falmouth’s Jutland connection brought the project into contact with further initiatives with a social media dimension. During the development of its 36 Hours: Jutland 1916 exhibition, the NMRN launched an interactive map to enable the public to record details of all RN crew who took part in the battle. The interactive map links the crew of HMS Falmouth together and – through the enormous efforts of the Jutland Crew List project -- to a specific community in IWM Lives of the First World War digital archive. The 36 Hours: Jutland 1916 exhibition also provided an opportunity to discuss HMS Falmouth in an archaeological perspective on Jutland in the exhibition catalogue.
A third striking aspect of the project, again reflecting the influence of new technologies, has been the availability of photographs and video of the wreck from divers. I still have not dived HMS Falmouth myself, but even before the project started it was possible to gain a sense of the wreck from diver videos on YouTube (especially here), and this has been considerably augmented by photographs, video and observations made by local divers and shared with this project. The relative ease of obtaining and sharing increasingly high-quality imagery of shipwrecks in often murky UK waters is revolutionary compared to underwater photography a decade or so ago. Not only does it make it easier to ‘see’ conditions on site from a distance office, it makes it much easier to convey to non-divers – the public onshore – what lies on the seabed and how it is significant.
The expanding capacity to visualise wrecks on the seabed, and to use such visualisations in engaging with the public onshore, became a much larger element of the Historic England project than had been anticipated. Two sets of fortuitous circumstances came into alignment. First, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) had commissioned a survey of an area not far from the wreck of HMS Falmouth for navigational purposes through their Civil Hydrography Programme. Through collaboration with Historic England, they were able to task their survey contractor to carry out a wreck investigation survey of HMS Falmouth using a multibeam echosounder, resulting in a high-resolution 3D bathymetric dataset of the wreck. Second, collaboration with the NMRN over the 36 Hours: Jutland 1916 exhibition helped in tracking down a builder’s model of HMS Falmouth in the IWM collections (MOD 22). Although probably built at the same time as the ship itself, the IWM model had been badly damaged when the IWM was bombed in WWII. Fortunately, the model was fully restored in 1979 by John R. Haynes but remained in store thereafter. Further collaboration led to Historic England’s Geospatial Imaging Team carrying out a laser scan and photogrammetric survey of the ship model whilst still in store, and the resulting 3D data was combined with the 3D data from the wreck to present a combined visualisation, juxtaposing the wreck with the original ship.
The visualisation of the wreck and ship provided an eye-catching image for a media release by Historic England to coincide with the centenary of Falmouth’s loss, accompanied by an interactive 3D model on Sketchfab. The media release prompted stories in many major national and regional newspapers, including the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Mirror and the Yorkshire Post. The Sketchfab model has received over 21,700 views. The process of developing the visualisation of HMS Falmouth has been outlined in an article for Historic England Research and its implications for public access and research are discussed in more detail in a chapter of a book on 3D recording and interpretation.
Another fascinating dimension of HMS Falmouth’s story is the survival of its Steam Cutter, SC26. The Steam Cutter was HMS Falmouth’s principal boat, of lightweight construction and powered by a small steam engine. The Steam Cutter is understood to have been armed and would have been used when boarding and examining suspect vessels, which was part of Falmouth’s wartime role in the North Sea. In fact, it was probably the steam cutter that is referred to in Falmouth’s log while examining vessels on 5th August 1914, the first day after war was declared: ‘the after fall of seaboat carried away … 3 men overboard, one picked up’ (ADM 53/41442). The two men who were so sadly lost, Leading Seaman Wilson and Able Seaman Green, are probably the UK’s first operational casualties of the First World War.
After HMS Falmouth was abandoned in August 1916, the Steam Cutter is understood to have been amongst the boats salved by the trawler Buckingham some 20 miles off Flamborough Head and towed to Immingham (ADM 116/1508). After being issued to other RN ships, SC26 was sold into private hands but survived until bought by a charity for restoration in 2013. SC26 – which is on the National Register of Historic Vessels – was transferred to the International Boatbuilding Training College (ITBC) in Boathouse 4, Portsmouth on 16th August 2016, just four days before the centenary of Falmouth sinking. SC26 is being restored as part of the Memorial Fleet of Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust; in due course, perhaps SC26 might even steam over the remains of the ship from which it was saved?
After HMS Falmouth was abandoned in August 1916, the Steam Cutter is understood to have been amongst the boats salved by the trawler Buckingham some 20 miles off Flamborough Head and towed to Immingham (ADM 116/1508). After being issued to other RN ships, SC26 was sold into private hands but survived until bought by a charity for restoration in 2013. SC26 – which is on the National Register of Historic Vessels – was transferred to the International Boatbuilding Training College (ITBC) in Boathouse 4, Portsmouth on 16th August 2016, just four days before the centenary of Falmouth sinking. SC26 is being restored as part of the Memorial Fleet of Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust; in due course, perhaps SC26 might even steam over the remains of the ship from which it was saved?
he Historic England project on the significance of HMS Falmouth sought to address the future management of the wreck by creating a cycle of understanding, valuing, caring and enjoying, referred to as the ‘heritage cycle’. Understanding the significance of HMS Falmouth would encourage people to value the site, to care for it, to enjoy it, and then to want to understand more. This cycle does not depend on designation under, for example, the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973; so although the project demonstrated the wreck was of sufficient archaeological and historic significance to warrant designation, this was not the anticipated outcome. However, in a separate initiative, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) chose to include the wreck of HMS Falmouth amongst a tranche of vessels to be designated under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, which is administered by MOD. Consequently, the wreck of HMS Falmouth became a ‘Protected Place’ on 3rd March 2017. Twelve men were killed in the course of Falmouth's loss, including eight men in No. 3 stokehold when a torpedo struck and were not recovered. It is still entirely legal to visit the site by diving, for example, but it is an offence to tamper, damage, remove, unearth etc. the remains of the wreck.
My own work on HMS Falmouth is coming to an end, at least for the time being. There is still much that could be done, particularly in assessing the condition of the wreck, in researching documentary records, and in increasing access to Falmouth's story. In the meantime, I was very pleased that the project received a Certificate of Recognition in the Historic England Angel Awards in November 2017. An article on HMS Falmouth and its significance has been published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. I will also continue to welcome enquiries about HMS Falmouth, especially relating to privately-held material such as documents and photographs that add such richness to Falmouth’s story. Please feel free to get in touch via info@fjordr.com. My profound gratitude goes out to the many people who have helped bring the forgotten story of HMS Falmouth back to life.
A webinar about HMS Falmouth, presented in April 2020 as part of the Nautical Archaeology Society's CovED talks, is available on YouTube.
My own work on HMS Falmouth is coming to an end, at least for the time being. There is still much that could be done, particularly in assessing the condition of the wreck, in researching documentary records, and in increasing access to Falmouth's story. In the meantime, I was very pleased that the project received a Certificate of Recognition in the Historic England Angel Awards in November 2017. An article on HMS Falmouth and its significance has been published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. I will also continue to welcome enquiries about HMS Falmouth, especially relating to privately-held material such as documents and photographs that add such richness to Falmouth’s story. Please feel free to get in touch via info@fjordr.com. My profound gratitude goes out to the many people who have helped bring the forgotten story of HMS Falmouth back to life.
A webinar about HMS Falmouth, presented in April 2020 as part of the Nautical Archaeology Society's CovED talks, is available on YouTube.