Monument to HMS Brazen
| Browse information by: Location Makers General Information Classification Object Parts Object Condition History References Photographs |  Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright for Photograph: Creative Commons |
Location
| Street: | Meeching Rise/Church Hill |
| Town: | Newhaven |
| Parish: | Newhaven |
| Council: | Lewes District Council |
| County: | East Sussex |
| Postcode: | BN9 |
| Location on Google Map | |
| Object setting: | Outside building |
| and in: | Religious |
| Access is: | Public |
| Location note: | NE corner of the churchyard of St. Michael's Church |
| In the AZ book: | East Sussex |
| Page: | 149 |
| Grid reference: | J5 |
| The A-Z books used are A-Z East Sussex and A-Z West Sussex (Editions 1A 2005). Geographers' A-Z Map Company Ltd. Sevenoaks. | |
| OS Reference: | TQ4401 |
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Makers
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General Information
| Commissioned by: | The friends of Captain Hanson. |
| Work is: | Extant |
| Owner custodian: | Church of St. Michael. Newhaven. |
| Object listing: | Grade II: of special interest warranting every effort to preserve them |
| Description: | Obelisk with railings. Ashlar stone with slate panels and cast-iron railings. Obelisk on plinth, design of seaweed and shells above, with dolphins below the slate panels one each face of the plinth; these are inscribed with the details of the wreck of HMS Brazen |
| Inscription: | THE FRIENDS OF CAPTN. HANSON CAUSED THIS MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED AS A MARK OF THEIR ESTEEM FOR A DESERVING OFFICER AND A VALUABLE FRIEND. IT WAS THE WILL OF HEAVEN TO PRESERVE HIM DURING FOUR YEARS VOYAGE OF DANGER AND DIFFICULTY ROUND THE WORLD, ON DISCOVERIES, WITH CAPTN. VANCOUVER IN THE YEARS 1791. 1792. 1793. 1794. BUT TO TAKE HIM FROM US WHEN MOST HE THOUGHT HIMSELF SECURE. “The Voice of the Lord is upon the Waters” South west face, inscribed slate panel: NAMES OF THE OFFICERS LOST, JAMES HANSON ESQR. COMMANDER JAMES COOK LIEUTS JOHN DENBRY PATRICK VENABLES MIDSHIPMEN JAMES HANWELL JOHN BRAUGH PURSER ROBERT HILL SURGEON THOMAS WHITFIELD BOATSWAIN ROBERT AALDER YAWRLE GUNNER JOHN TEAGUE CAPENTER. North west face, inscribed slate panel: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTN. JAMES HANSON THE OFFICERS, AND COMPANY OF HIS MAJESTY’S SHIP BRAZEN; WHO WERE WRECKED IN A VIOLENT STORM UNDER THE CLIFF BEARING FROM THIS PLACE S.W. AT 5 O’CLOCK A.M. JANRY. 20TH. A.D.1800. ONE OF THE CREW ONLY SURVIVING TO TELL THE MELANCHOLY TALE, BY THIS FATAL EVENT, THE COUNTRY, ALAS! WAS DEPRIVED, OF 105 BRAVE DEFENDERS AT A TIME, WHEN IT, MOST REQUIRED THEIR ASSISTANCE. THE REMAINS OF MANY OF THEM WERE INTERRED NEAR TO THIS SPOT BY THE DIRECTION OF THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE ADMIRALTY. “The Waters saw thee O God”. North east face, inscribed slate panel: THE BRAZEN, HAD BEEN ORDERED TO PROTECT THIS PART OF THE COAST, FROM THE INSOLENT ATTACKS OF THE ENEMY; AND ON THE EVENING PRECEEDING THE SAD CATASTROPHE, HAD DETAINED A FOREIGN VESSEL, WHICH WAS PUT UNDER THE CARE OF THE MASTER’S MATE, A MIDSHIPMAN, 8 SEAMEN, AND 2 MARINES; WHO WERE THEREBY SAVED FROM THE FATE OF THEIR COMPANIONS. On the top step of the base, facing south east, inlaid lead letters: THIS MONUMENT WAS RESTORED BY LOUISA, WIDOW OF THE ABOVE CAPTN. JAMES HANSON. R.N. OCTOBER 1878 |
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Classification
| Categories: | Funerary, Free Standing, Commemorative, Religious |
| Object type1: | Shaft |
| Object subtype1: | Obelisk |
| Subject type1: | Non-figurative |
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Object Parts
| Part 1: | Perimeter railings |
| Material: | Cast iron |
| Height (cm): | 145 |
| Width (cm): | 300 |
| Depth (cm): | 300 |
| Part 2: | Top section of obelisk |
| Material: | Ashlar stone |
| Height (cm): | 500 |
| Width (cm): | 75 |
| Depth (cm): | 75 |
| Part 3: | Lower section of obelisk |
| Material: | Ashlar stone |
| Height (cm): | 250 |
| Width (cm): | 125 |
| Depth (cm): | 125 |
| Part 4: | Stepped (2) base |
| Material: | Ashlar stone |
| Height (cm): | 100 |
| Width (cm): | 310 |
| Depth (cm): | 310 |
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Object Condition
| Overall condition: | Good |
| Risk assessment: | No known risk |
| Condition 1 of type: | Surface |
| Condition 1: | Corrosion, deterioration |
| Condition 2: | Abrasions, cracks, splits |
| Condition 3: | Biological growth |
| More details: | Railings rusting through the paint. Base cracked and crumbling. Biological growth all over. Weather wearing to the detailed carving of the obelisk. Restored in 1878. Parts of the old inscription still faintly visible underneath the newer slate panels. |
| Date of on-site inspection: | 11/02/2008 |
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History
| History: | HMS Brazen foundered off the cliffs of Newhaven on the night of January 20th, 1800, with the loss of all lives save one. The bodies of Captain Hanson and 75 of the 104 men lost are interred in the graveyard. Hanson had served under Captain Vancouver on his celebrated voyage of 1791-4, when he curcumnavigated the world and charted part of North America.
The ship, an 18 gun sloop-of-war, foundered on rocks on 26 January 1800 a few hundred yards off the coast of Newhaven. Captain Andrew Sproule R.N. was the commander of the Sussex coastal defences during the French Revolutionary War. Sproule was called to the wreck. Civilians were already trying to save the crewmen using cliff-top cranes that had been given by the Royal Humane Society but they could not reach survivors unless they were at the foot of the cliff. The nightwatch reported that the ship had been proceeding eastwards towards Newhaven when just after 5am. it had hit rocks. The combination of the storm and the freezing water temperature made survivors unlikely and in the end only one man survived, Jeremiah Hill, who had been carried to the shore clinging to wreckage. The ship was originally the warship, ‘L’Invincible General Bonaparte’ that had been captured from the French in December 1798. Captain James Hanson had departed Portsmouth on 16 January with 117 men to protect the waters between St. helen’s on the Isle of Wight and Beachy Head. The dead were buried at various nearby churchyards but ten bodies were never recovered. The disaster prompted Newhaven to have a lifeboat built that was installed in the harbour in 1803. (Thornton, Nicholas. (1988). ‘Sussex Shipwrecks’. Countryside Books. Newbury.) |
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References
| Source 1 : | |
| Title: | 'Sussex Shipwrecks' |
| Type: | Book |
| Author: | Thornton, Nicholas. |
| Publisher: | Countryside Books. Newbury. |
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Photographs
Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons |  Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons |
 Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons |  Author: Anthony McIntosh Copyright: Creative Commons |
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