EARLY HISTORY OF SHAFTESBURY HOMES & ARETHUSA
It all began in 1843 when William Williams, a young Solicitor's clerk who had been badly crippled in his youth, was travelling by train to the West Country. During the journey he heard a rowdy commotion in the compartment next to his and, when he went in to investigate, he was horrified to see about a dozen ragged young boys handcuffed and manacled together on their way to Plymouth to be shipped to Australia having committed various minor misdemeanours in the slums of London.So appalled was he by the treatment meted out to these unfortunate ragamuffins who had been brought up in parts of London where vice and crime abounded, where there was no proper education and where young children survived on their wits and their scavenging amongst the filth on the streets that, on his return to London he gathered together a group of friends and, in a hay loft over a cowshed in the notorious seven Dials District around St Giles he set up one of the very first Ragged Schools.
It was not long before the work of William Williams and his friends came to the attention of Lord Shaftesbury, the Great Seventh Earl, a renowned philanthropist and campaigner for the rights of children. Shaftesbury himself had an unhappy childhood with a cold and austere father who devoted himself to public life and neglected his children and a mother whose only interests were amongst fashionable society. As a boy Lord Shaftesbury's only friend and companion was his nurse Maria Milles whom he loved dearly and who taught him the values of human friendship, compassion and instilled in him a strong religious belief. When Maria Milles died she left him a gold watch which he kept with him always and it is said that every time he took it from his pocket he would show it and say, "This was given to me by the only friend I ever had".
Probably the most significant date in the history of what was then "the National Refuges for Homeless and Destitute children" was St Valentine's Day in 1866. Lord shaftesbury provided a supper for the homeless boys in London at the Parker Street Refuge near Covent Garden. Invitations were sent to all the casual wards of workhouses for waifs and strays who cared to attend. some four hundred were invited but there seemed to be a good deal of suspicion about the purpose of the supper and anxiety that a trap might be being laid for them but, in the event, about three hundred turned up and enjoyed a meal of roast beef and plum pudding for probably the first time in their lives. As the last plate was licked clean Lord shaftesbury addressed the boys saying, "Supposing that there were in the Thames a big ship large enough to contain a thousand boys, would you like to be placed onboard to be taught a trade or trained for the Navy and Merchant Service?'. The morning Herald of 15th February 1866 reports that "A forest of upraised hands settled these alternatives in the affirmative" and to Lord shaftesbury's second question, "Do you think another 200 boys out of the streets would say the same?" there was the emphatic answer "we do".
So with this simple market research exercise behind him Lord Shaftesbury approached his friends in the Admiralty and persuaded them to lend him the redundant 50 gun frigate Chichester which he arranged to be berthed at Greenhithe and she was inaugurated on 18th December 1866 with 50 boys sent to join from the 360 who were at that time living in the Parker Street Refuge.
During 1867 the number onboard increased to 134 and our Annual Report for that year states that the value of the Training Ship cannot be overstated because, as it says, the eagerness which is manifested by the volunteers for the ship is not surprising: for anyone at all familiar with the tastes and habits of these boys knows how very strongly they are influenced by the spirit of adventure and where can such spirits find better scope and a more congenial atmosphere than in a seafaring life, thus proving beyond controversy, that this is the very class out of which some good, useful, true British Jack Tars can be manufactured. It was not surprising, therefore, to read later in the report that no pressure or persuasion of any kind is resorted to, to induce the lads to adopt a seafaring life.
But in bringing the ship into service a great deal had to be arranged and the logistics problems must have been enormous even in those days when standards of living and comfort, especially amongst these young street arabs, were pretty austere.A ship's committee was formed under the chairmanship of a Mr. W.S. Fitzwilliam and William Williams himself acted as Secretary at its meetings which, at the outset, were held weekly.The Committee's first task was to appoint a Commanding Officer, who was to be known as the Captain Superintendent, and they selected Captain A.H. Alston who had recently retired from the Royal Navy. Alston was a devout Christian and, by all accounts, a most efficient man although, as we will hear later, he was stern and unyielding in his approach to discipline and somewhat inflexible in his relations with the committee.
Captain Alston, who was paid the princely sum of £29.3.4 per month, gathered together his own staff and in the beginning it amounted to - Mr William McCarthy as chief officer (£8.6.8) Mr Phillips a schoolmaster (£4.11.8) Messrs Wm Saumels and J Marsh, Instructors (£5.16.8) Mr T Wyer the Cook (£4.0.0) and Mr C Goodman the Carpenter (£7.12.8)All the staff lived onboard and worked seven days a week although in later years cottages were bought or rented ashore to accommodate staff and their long suffering wives.Alston's first task was to arrange for the building of a Landing stage on the banks of the Thames and a supply of water. For the Landing Stage he commissioned a Mr Lockyer of a local building firm who, with the help of a work force made up of the boys onboard, completed the task in a matter of weeks for the sum of £50. Water was a little more of a problem because it was already evident that some local residents viewed the arrival of the Chichester in their peaceful part of the world with some dismay. But eventually he persuaded a Mr Colyer, the owner of a fairly sizeable estate, to provide a supply of water from one of the estate wells for a fee of £5 per year; and he was also able to obtain discarded hoses from the London Fire Brigade to bring the water onboard.
Another high priority task was to teach the boys to swim and sadly the minutes of meetings are littered with incidents where boys had fallen overboard and drowned. Captain Alaton procured a barge which was moored to the head of the ship, filled with water and kept afloat with empty water barrels. This temporary pool remained in service until 1904 when part of the foreshore was bought from the Marine Society, whose Training ship Warspite had been moored nearby since 1786, and a more permanent swimming pool was built.
A local doctor, Mr Cook, was employed as a visiting surgeon and Mrs McCarthy,the Chief Officers wife, was encouraged to teach the boys how to cut out and make their clothes from material supplied by the Naval Yard at Deptford. For this she was awarded £20 per year but it may have been this extra money which led to both her and her husband, the chief officer, being dismissed for drunkenness in January 1868.
By the end of the first year nearly two hundred boys had undergone training onboard and they had also played a large part in establishing the Ship as a going concern. 42 boys left one way or another and our records show their disposal as follows:
We know from our records that it was William Hooper who, on 1st June 1867, was removed to the "Dreadnought" and died of fever; and the boy Alfred Pillbean who, on 17th May in the same year, missed his footing when jumping from the Starboard Gangway to the Chains where the boys James Duggan, William Hall and William Murray were exercising with lead lines. Pillbean fell into the water and, even though life buoys were hurled after him, and a lad named Wilcox dived to the rescue, by the time a boat had been lowered poor Pillbean had sunk.
The other casualty by drowning was Frederick Garrett who slipped from the Jacob's ladder whilst trying to board a boat to go ashore and, despite Alston himself jumping overboard to save the boy, Garrett was swept away by the tide, sank and drowned. His body was found at Erith a week later.
Judging by the records of the Chichester and Arethusa Training Ships the cry of "Boy overboard" must have echoed frequently along this stretch of the Thames where Worcester, Cornwall, Goliath, Exmouth and Warspite were also berthed in the latter part of the 19th Century. The Worcester was an officer cadet ship for the Merchant Navy and the Cornwall a boys Reformatory ship whilst all the others catered for destitute boys who had volunteered for a seagoing life.
One of the greatest problems which all these ships suffered was the difficulty of finding berths in Merchant Ships and places in the Navy for trained boys. Boys would join at about 14 years of age and usually remain for just over a year. During this time they became proficient in seamanship as well as being given a basic education in reading, writing and arithmetic. Seamanship training in those days involved
Alston was determined to provide the best possible training for the boys under his command and, envious perhaps of the "Ernest" which was a sailing tender to the Warspite, he urged the Committee to purchase a similar sailing vessel. But like all committees the thought of actually spending money was abhorrent and Alston's request was turned down. Undeterred he wrote a letter to the Times asking for the donation of a suitable vessel and his call was answered by the Rev. Charles Harrington of Stoke Bay, Bromyard who offered his small yacht the Dolphin. The boat was ideal and a most valuable asset but the Committee admonished Alston for writing to a newspaper without their permission. Nevertheless they accepted the Rev. Harrington's gift and the Dolphin remained in service until she was replaced by a Pinnace at a cost of £12 in 1870. This Pinnace, incidently, was run down off Woolwich by the steamship Cormorant of the Cork Steam Packet Company in October 1870 and four boys perished. Although a claim was made the Company denied liability and the Board of Trade declined to carry out an inquiry.
I mentioned earlier the difficulties of finding places for trained boys. Times then were not without their bureaucratic problems because the Royal Navy refused to accept a boy for the Queens Service who was not in possession of a Birth Certificate and many of the boys had no idea of their parentage let alone being in possession of Certificates of Birth. But Lord Shaftesbury used his influence here to persuade the First Lord of the Admiralty to rescind that rule for Chichester boys and, provided they declared their age and agreed to serve for a specified period, they were allowed to apply.
As far as the merchant service was concerned it was soon realised that the best way to obtain berths was to have boys available and ready as soon as a vacancy occurred in a particular ship. To enable these opportunities to be seized the Society employed a Shipping Agent on 4th March 1868, by name of Scouler, and housed him in the Society's property at 100 East India Dock Road. He was paid £60 per year and expected to have up to a dozen boys lodging with him until they could be found a berth. Each day he would tour the docks with two or three lads in tow and visit every ship in an effort to place them. But Scouler was a conscientious man and, paid an annual salary rather than a bounty for each boy placed which was often the case for Shipping Agents, he invariably tried to find berths with reliable Companies and trusty masters. many of the boys spoke highly of Scouler in their letters to the Captain Superintendent and he became a trusted friend to whom they would return at the end of each voyage or when seeking another berth. Indeed as the years went by, (and he remained in East India Dock Road until he was relieved by a Mr Shackleton in 1906), he found berths for well over a hundred boys a year. An extract from one of his later daily Logs reads as follows:
Meanwhile back in the Chichester the friction between Captain Alston and his committee was growing and, in June 1868, he moved to lodgings ashore because of his cramped and unsatisfactory quarters onboard which the Committee had refused o improve. Even when a Mr Green made a donation of £529 specifically to provide suitable quarters Alston refused to move onboard until he was given a storeroom, a dressing room and a wine cellar in addition to his sleeping cabin and state room. The Committee enraged him further by rescinding one of his 99 Rules and Regulations which instituted daily morning and evening prayer as well as private prayers for the boys three times a day. And when they reversed his decision to dismiss his schoolmaster, Mr Phillips, he accused Mr William Williams of "deliberately inciting a subordinate to an act of the grossest insubordination".
Despite Alston's excellent work in bringing the Chichester into service and producing first class training results it was clear that by April 1869 there could be no meeting of minds between him and the Committee and he was called upon to resign.
But Alston did not go without a final parting shot having induced all the Instructors to resign with him by promising them an increase in salary if they joined him in the Cumberland, an Industrial Training ship, based at Greenock on the Clyde where he had been appointed in command. He also drafted six of his better boys to the Cumberland and the Committee tried in vain to claim expenses for the kit they had taken with them. Alston made a counter claim for £26 for the bath he had left onboard Chichester but the committee declined to answer his letter.
There was, however, no shortage of applicants for the Captain Superintendent's post and, of the 74 who applied, the committee interviewed captains Cockcroft, Poulden, Wake, Thurburn and Bird before appointing Captain Thurburn who remained in post until October 1875 when he resigned on grounds of ill health brought about he said by being confined to live on board. Clearly the addition of a Wine Cellar to the captains quarters had still not been approved.
The health and welfare of the boys onboard was a constant source of anxiety to the Committee. Strict rules were laid down regarding punishments which, in the main, amounted to varying numbers of cuts with the birch: but these could only be administered by the Captain and only up to a maximum of 24. He was also required to list his punishments in each monthly report. The scale of punishment ranged from 24 cuts and dismissal with disgrace for any act of gross indecency or immoral behaviour, 12 cuts and dismissal for stealing to 6 cuts for being in an improper place; and these scales were still in force as late as 1937 when the only amendments made were that no boy under 14 should have more than 6 cuts of the cane and all corporal punishments should be witnessed by the Chief Officer, two other Officers and the sick Berth steward.
It was not surprising, therefore, that a number of boys absconded during the years. Usually they made a break when allowed ashore to play football in the grounds of Ingress Abbey only to be tracked down by the Police and returned in due course. Absconding seemed to be an understandable crime and warranted only 12 cuts but a second offence brought dismissal from the ship as undesirable. one of the earliest absconders, the boy Morgan, slipped away in one of the Ships boats at night only to find there were no oars. The tide took him downstream and returned him precisely alongside the Chichester the following morning. 12 cuts.
Scarlet Fever and Influenza were serious problems and, despite there being a number of hospital ships on the Thames and a bungalow hospital ashore run by the Society, an epidemic invariably spread quickly and took a number of young lives. Many of the problems of health were undoubtedly caused by the appallingly bad conditions the boys had suffered in their early lives and it is noticeable in the records that their sizes and stature for their age was well below average. Quite a number of rejections for the Royal Navy were on the grounds of height and boys who continued to be too puny for a seagoing life were recommended for emigration to the colonies where the society had a number of agents who would find employment for them.
Food on board was scarce and somewhat unimaginative and the Daily Dietary Scale for many years remained as:
When it was discovered that the boys onboard the Warspite were receiving white bread the Committee generously allowed this instead of the brown which had been issued in Chichester. One wonders whether the reverse might be the case today. By 1871 the number of boys who had died onboard through accident or illness was fairly significant and the Committee report reads "there being several boys now buried in Swanscombe Church Yard it was resolved that some kind of tombstone be put up to mark where they were interned".
In the following year (1872) Captain Thurburn reports that we should "congratulate ourselves on having attained the maximum disposal of boys under the present complement of 200 which is as many as the Ship can accommodate. At times there has been some difficulty getting off our boys through the Shipping Trade being almost at a standstill". He goes on to say that 455 boys passed through the ship and he had occasion to whip only four of them. The indications were that the standards of training and discipline were good and there was no shortage of applicants for positions onboard the Chichester. But the ship was old and cramped and the size of the staff had further increased so the Committee had to think seriously about a larger replacement ship. Coincidentally, on 6th August 1873, a letter was received from Lady Burdett-Coutts offering the sum of £5000 for establishing and fitting out a second Training Ship if the committee would undertake to raise the funds to support the boys onboard. This magnificent gesture encouraged the Committee to approach their Lordships of the Admiralty and solicit the loan of another ship.
Clearly the work of these training ships was appreciated by the Admiralty and before long the society was offered the loan of the Phaeton, the Severn or the Arethusa. All of these ships being wooden walled frigates of about 50 guns and some 2000 tons and all of them surplus to the Navy's requirements. The Committee inspected each of these three ships and the Arethusa was chosen on the grounds of size and space onboard as she could accommodate some 250 boys together with staff and their wives.
HMS Arethusa was the fourth Naval ship of this name which derives from the water nymph Arethusa of Greek mythology who, when she was being pursued by Alpheus the River God, turned herself into a fountain to escape his advances. The ship was built at Pembroke and launched on 20th June 1849.
In 1854 she took part in the bombardment of Odessa during the Crimean War and in an attack on Sebastopol. In this latter action she had 23 men killed and wounded and her rigging cut to pieces. Her main and lower decks were burnt, many of her planks started and she was in danger of sinking. She was eventually towed out of range and sent to Malta for repairs. She was the last British ship to go into action under sail.
In 1860 the Ship was lengthened and fitted with screw propulsion at Chatham where she remained without going to sea until she was handed over to the Society on 15th May 1874 and brought up to Greenhithe from Chatham by Mr Blakey, a Queens Pilot. She was securely moored in her permanent position 50 yards astern of the Chichester on 22nd June and officially opened on 3rd August by the Earl of Shaftesbury and Baroness Burdett-Coutts.
But all this was not without a certain amount of difficulty from the neighbours. It is not generally realised that in Victorian times Greenhithe was a social centre. It marked the limit of a days travel from London and contained residences of merchant princes and wealthy industrialists. The Royal Thames Yacht Club had its Headquarters at the White Hart Inn and Everard's Boat Yard was an interesting feature of the village. Mr Colyer, of the Colyer Estate, complained bitterly that the ship's position was seriously detrimental to him being able to let his house but the weight and influence of Lord Shaftesbury prevailed and the Arethusa remained at her moorings for the next fifty-nine years. Mr Colyer, however, promptly withdrew permission to use his well and other arrangement for water had to be made. But not all our neighbours were hostile and I note that, in October 1878, the Stone Castle Estate agreed to lease land for the purpose of building cottages for the Ships, staff and, although houses were built, there was some reluctance by the staff to move ashore where they found that they would be required to pay rent of 4/6d per week.
The arrival of Steamships in the late Nineteenth Century meant that crews in the Merchant Service were becoming much smaller and an extract from the Society's Annual Report of 1880 reads as follows:
There has, however, been a great change since the flags of the "Chichester" and "Arethusa" first floated on the Thames. Instead of the Committee being able easily to get the lads shipped on board an outward bound vessel, after ten or twelve months, training, they have lately been compelled to retain them for nearly two years in consequence of the very limited demand for the services of young seamen on our outward bound ships. It may be asked, "What is the prospect for the future?". The answer is anything but bright, and the cause in not far to seek. Speed in communicating with all parts of the world has become the one thing needful in the eyes of ship owners. Sailing vessels to India, China, Australia and other distant lands are becoming rapidly things of the past, and almost things unknown. It is steam, steam everywhere, and always steam, steam. And so, all who are acquainted with the commercial and colonial pursuits of the country tell us that, it is absolutely essential if England is successfully to compete with foreign nations, she must be in a position to convey her goods to the markets abroad with the least possible delay. Hence, the committee have been led to expect the time when sailing ships, except for short voyages, will be entirely swept out of the way by magnificent, fast-going steamers, one of which it is estimated even now is equal to the work of two sailing vessels.
When one large steamer can thus do the work of two sailing ships, she must necessarily displace a great number of men, and in fact we are told now that there is not so much need for seamen as formerly, because very little seamanship is necessary.
At this time there were some 200 boys onboard Arethusa and 105 onboard Chichester. The average time spent onboard was 23 months and the average age on leaving about 16 and a half. The difficulty of finding berths meant that boys would have to linger on in the training ship and this had a devastating effect on their morale and was damaging to their enthusiasm for a seagoing life.The Committee therefore resolved to reduce the numbers under training and dispose of the Chichester. In 1889 the Admiralty agreed to give the ship, which had previously been on loan, to the society. The society promptly sold her for £1250 and she was removed and broken up in May of that year.
With some of the proceeds of that sale the society bought the two masted, gaff rigged schooner "Ballerina" from a gentleman in Cowes for £500 and renamed her "Chichester". She was 83ft long and 19ft in beam. By altering her forward mast to square rig she became a Brigantine and was used as a sailing tender for training boys in seamanship and handling sails. With the decline in merchant sailing vessels this might be supposed to have been a strange decision but anyone who has experienced sail training will understand the enormously beneficial character building effects which such an activity can provide and the Chichester carried on this good work until she was eventually sold to Messrs Richard and William Massey of County Wexford for 500 guineas in February 1917.
By the turn of the Century Captain Thurburn had resigned on grounds of ill health and his successor, Captain Frederick Walter, had been relieved by Captain L.P. Willan who, in turn, was relieved by Commander G.O. Moore in 1888.
The Society continued to place emphasis on receiving "poor boys of good character who desired to go to sea" and made strenuous efforts to find them berths. But despite employing two further shipping Agents, Mr Harris at Newport Monmouthshire and Mr Kloer, an old Chichester boy and ex master of the "J.S. Wood", at Cardiff, as well as having the occasional services of Mr Scoular who later retired to Southampton and was allowed 10/- for each boy he placed, there was still great difficulty in finding suitable sea appointments for trained boys.
Even the Royal Navy, (which by this time was paying a grant of £3 for each boy enroling in the Naval Reserve and £25 for each boy actually joining the Royal Navy), was cutting back on recruiting so severely that many boys were unsuccessful in finding a seagoing career.
Gradually, however, the Society was altering the balance of boys entering the Royal and Merchant Navies. In 1895, for example, 115 boys went to Merchant ships whilst 51 went into the Royal Navy and by 1912 those figures were practically reversed with only 42 Merchant Service entries and 160 into the Royal Navy.
The introduction of an Advanced Navy class onboard to meet the higher standards of training required by the Royal Navy further increased this trend and, in the following years, the Arethusa concentrated her main efforts on Royal Navy Candidates and gained a very good reputation for the high quality of spirited and professional lads provided.
One such boy was the Southwark born Albert Edward McKenzie who in 1918 with four other Arethusa boys serving in HMS Vindictive joined the volunteer storming party at the Mole at Zeebrugge. He advanced down the Mole with his machine gun under the command of Lieutenant Commander Harrison who, with most of the party, was killed in the early stages of the action under intense enemy fire. McKenzie continued to press home his attack and, though severely wounded, he survived the action. He was selected by the men of the Vindictive, Iris II and Daffodil to receive the Victoria Cross. Of the other Arethusa boys, West was killed and Stapleton, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, was severely wounded whilst Beare and Thompson survived the action relatively unscathed.
Sadly, although McKenzie was recovering from his wounds satisfactorily in the Dreadnought Seaman's Hospital, he succumbed to influenza and died in November 1918. Stapleton was invalided but quoted as saying that he intended "to have another shot at it a little later on and hopes to be able to get a bit of his own back from the Huns before the War is over"!
But the Arethusa was not the only way in which the society tried to prepare disadvantaged children for a worthwhile life and in the early nineteen hundreds over a thousand children were in the society's care in the following various establishments:
The total number of children received since 1843 by the end of 1900 was 13160 boys and 2541 girls.
Many of these children found satisfactory employment in Britain but there was often a greater chance of success in the emerging Colonies and, together with Dr Bernardos and the Church Emigration Society, a good number were shipped to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Indeed the attraction of emigration to Canada was so great that the Society employed an agent in Ontario whose job it was to find suitable places on farms with devout Christian families and about fifteen boys were despatched each year. By the end of 1906 over eight hundred boys had been sent by the Society to settle in colonies abroad and many more from the Merchant Navy had at some stage decided to leave their ships and start a new life particularly in Australia. One such man, who is still in touch with the society, is a Mr Bob Honey who served in the Arethusa between 1914 and 1916 and now lives in Bateau Bay, New South Wales. On failing to gain entry into the Royal Navy he was shipped in the Merchant Navy to New York where he jumped ship and worked his passage to Australia. There he joined the Australian Army, served at Gallipoli and retired at the end of the War as a Sergeant Major. In a recent letter he says, "I actually was more suited to be a soldier rather than a sailor but the skills I learnt on the Arethusa have been a great help to me all my life and have made it possible for me to do things that I would have found to be impossible otherwise".
Bob Honey is now over ninety and suffering severely from arthritis but I am fortunate that he has sent me a copy of his handwritten account of his early years and his son in Australia hopes to publish a book of his father's life at some time in the future.
Boys who joined the Navy and received a Commission were awarded an Officer's Sword by the Society and the first success of this kind was E.V. Pennington who was promoted Sub-Lieutenant RNR in July 1913. During the society's history over a hundred swords have been awarded and a similar number of Sextants to boys who became officers in the Merchant Service.
On 20th January 1918 the Warspite Training ship was destroyed by fire and Warspite lads transferred to the Worcester. The Marine Society made approaches at this stage to amalgamate Warspite with Arethusa but the committee objected to such a move and wished to remain separate. It also rejected a proposal that the Cornwall, which was still a boys' Reformatory ship - a Prison ship, - should move to Greenhithe. In the event the old Warspite was replaced by the cruiser Hermione and carried on in competition with the Arethusa.
But the Admiralty Hulks committee was not happy with the number of Boys' Training Ships competing against each other for the few places available in seagoing careers and this committee, backed by the secretary to the Navy League, tried to put pressure on the various Committees of Management to join forces and operate within a national scheme of sea training. By the late 1920's the Arethusa, the Warspite and the Exmouth were the only Ships remaining at Greenhithe with Worcester downstream at Gravesend. None of the Committees saw any useful purpose in amalgamating and here began a running battle with the Authorities which culminated, as far as Arethusa was concerned, with the Port of London Authority eventually giving notice to quit in 1931.
But before reaching that stage there had been a number of changes in command up to the late nineteen twenties. Commanders Moore, Target and Martin had all been successful Captains Superintendent and all had resigned through ill health: Martin particularly suffered from the strain of his command and had to give up in April 1917. There being a shortage of candidates during the First World War the Committee took the unusual step of appointing the Reverend Alleyne Lash as Chaplain, rather than Captain, Superintendent. Lash was employed by the missions to seaman and had been a regular officiating visitor to the ship for many years. After his tour of duty, in February 1919, he was unanimously elected to join the Committee of Management where he continued to serve until he was offered a living at Lemsford in Herts in 1935.
In 1919 Commander William Edward Prowse RN became available and was appointed Captain Superintendent but his wife became seriously ill and he had to be relieved by Commander Francis G C Coates DSO RN in 1921. Coates was something of a disaster and by April 1924 the Committee considered him to be so slack and disinterested that they called for his resignation. Luckily Mrs Prowse had recovered by this time and Commander Prowse resumed command and remained until 1932 when, despite his excellent work for many years, he was sacked by the Committee. Unfortunately he had a clash with Mr Howson Devitt, the Chairman, a distinguished insurance broker who had been on the Committee since making a massive donation of £5034 in 1907. Devitt instructed Prowse to cancel the Annual sports Day on account of yet another outbreak of Scarlet Fever. With all the arrangements made and guests and parents invited this must have been too much for the poor Captain. As Devitt reports, "Prowse started talking in a very improper way and I had to remind him that he was employed by the Committee and was expected to carry out the instructions of the Committee".
Prowse had commanded the ship during a difficult period when money was short and once again Naval Recruiting was very slack. The Ship herself was leaking and cracking and suffered the same of hogging as were found in the Worcester at that time. Indeed Admiral Duff's inspection report in 1929 read as follows:
"I regret to report that, in my opinion, the ship is approaching the end of her life as a Training Ship. It is noticeable that the decks are leaking in many places and have become so thin that they cannot be caulked. Rot has set in in many of the transverse beams and serious looking cracks are appearing in some of them. There is a serious leak by the stern post and the old ship makes a considerable amount of water. This leak should be stopped as soon as practicable. The time has arrived when it must seriously be considered whether the ship is safe for further service".
Prowse had also had to cope with low morale caused by boys having to remain onboard with few prospects of seagoing employment and, despite strenuous efforts to seek entry into the Australian and New Zealand Navies, only 12 lads were offered places in Australia and none in New Zealand. Even approaches to the Royal Yacht Squadron for berths in Yachts bore no fruit as the work for boys was entirely seasonal. An indication of what happens when boys morale is low is shown in this brief entry in the captain's Report for 1928:
One of Commander Prowse's more enlightened improvements was to change the custom whereby boys were known onboard by their numbers alone. It had become apparent that, as they grew up and met each other all over the world (and there remains today a great spirit of comradeship amongst Arethusa boys), none of them knew each others' names. In 1927 boys became known by their surnames onboard but, even today, ex Arethusa's of any era have their number indelibly engraved in their minds.
Towards the end of Prowse's Captaincy he had great difficulties with the Port of London Authority which advised the Committee that the demands of trade at Greenhithe and a proposal by the British Portland Cement Company to build a jetty necessitated the removal of the Training Ship which lay in the way of visiting steamers. The only alternative was to move the ship further downstream to an exposed anchorage where, in her somewhat fragile condition, it was unlikely that she could withstand the rigours of the wind and tide.
Although our lease did not expire until 25th March 1934 the PLA adopted an unhelpful attitude stating that if the Cement Works requested the removal of the ship they would agree to giving 7 days notice. Despite the Committee's approaches to Mr Davis of the British Portland Cement Works they found him uncooperative and taking the view that Trade was as important as Training Ships. He demanded the removal of the Training Ship as soon as possible.
So began the search for another ship to replace the old Arethusa and another berth in which to moor her. The Committee even considered a shore establishment and great interest was taken in the old college at Osborne on the Isle of Wight. But this had been empty for 11 years and was in an appalling condition. It was thought that at least £30,000 would be needed to make it habitable and such a figure was way beyond the means of the Society. Both the estates at Fawley Court on the Thames and Howbery Park at Wallingford were also considered but these were small and, even though the Committee suggested that "if boys slept in hammocks instead of beds more could be accommodated", the Committee still really wanted a ship.
The Committee and the new Captain Superintendent, Commander Cyril W. Bower DSC, who had been appointed on 1st September 1932 viewed a number of ships on the market including the sailing vessel Parma, (which had been built as the Arrow in Glasgow in 1902 and was a four masted ship, 325 feet in length), and the Bremen a ship of similar size. The owners of Parma would accept the offer made by the Committee of £1750 but refused to have her dry docked for inspection and so the offer was withdrawn.
No offer was made for the Bremen which had been built in Hamburg because the Committee was frightened that the Society's President, the Prince of Wales, would object strongly to the suggestion of a German built ship.
The only other suitable vessels available at that time, and the requirement was by now becoming extremely urgent, were the Beatrice built in 1881 and 289ft long and the Peking built in 1911 and 322ft long. The Committee favoured the larger ship but she had been built in Hamburg and, once again, they were fearful that the Prince of Wales might not approve. However an approach was made to the Prince who accepted that, if no British ship were available, the Peking could become the new Arethusa.
The Peking was steel hulled and in excellent condition. At the outbreak of the First World War she had been in Valparaiso and, in the distribution of the spoils of war, she was awarded to Italy who resold her to her original German owners, Ferdinand and Carl Laeisz, in 1923. She was one of the successful Flying P,s (Parina, Privall, Padua, Pamir, Pluto and Passat were others) and had been employed on the nitrate trade with South America until the slump in commerce dealt a death blow to this famous sailing fleet.
Mr Howson Devitt and Commander Bower visited Hamburg, inspected the ship and agreed a price of £6250 as lying. She was towed to Greenhithe by the firm Bugsiers of Hamburg arriving on 19th October 1932 and permitted by the PLA to berth near Arethusa for a fortnight. There she was named Arethusa II and preparations were made to convert her for use as a training ship. For this purpose Mr G.W. Roger, an Engineer and Naval Architect was appointed to prepare the plans and advise on contracts which were expected to amount to about £15,000.
Mr Roger recommended that the work should be carried out at Rochester and the ship was towed there within the fortnight and entered a dry dock in early December 1932. Almost as soon as the ship reached Rochester the Committee began to receive letters from the Town Clerk urging them, on behalf of his Corporation, to berth the ship permanently in the Medway. In view of the difficulties which the Committee had been having with the PLA this seemed an excellent solution to the berthing problem and they at once began discussions with the Medway Conservancy Board whose sympathetic Chairman turned out to be none other than the uncooperative Mr Davis of the British Portland Cement Company who was only too delighted to see the departure of the Training Ship from his cement Works in Greenhithe and immediately gave his Board's permission to moor the ship at Upnor.
The new Arethusa, her conversion completed, was moored at Upnor on 4th July 1933 for a fee of £25 per year and she was officially opened by HRH Prince George on 25th July. The old Arethusa was towed away from Greenhithe on 18th July 1933 and thus ended an era of training Shaftesbury boys at Greenhithe which had been going on since the inauguration of the Chichester on 18th December 1866.