The Training Ship Mercury, or TS Mercury, was a naval training establishment founded as a ship in 1885 and then a shore-based school at Hamble in Hampshire from 1892 until its closure in July 1968. Although one of over thirty pre-sea training schools founded during the Victorian period, it was the only privately owned establishment training boys for both the Royal and Merchant Navies. [1]
The Training Ship Mercury was one of a number of similar, mostly static training ships located round the coasts of Britain and founded during the Victorian period to provide boy recruits for the Royal Navy and mercantile marine. [2] It was founded in 1885 as a charitable venture by Charles Arthur Richard Hoare, a partner in the banking firm of C. Hoare & Co, with the objective of rescuing poor boys of good character and training them for naval service. [3] Initially the facility was based at Binstead on the Isle of Wight where the boys lived in the barque Illovo, [4] which was renamed Mercury. [1] Over the years the establishment was increasingly managed by Charles Hoare's mistress Beatrice Holme Sumner, with whom he was to have a son (Robin Hoare) and a daughter. [5] The entire establishment was moved from Binstead to Hamble near Southampton in 1892. [6]
In June 1898, Beatrice Holme-Sumner married C. B. Fry, the great England cricketer and all-round sportsman, and in 1908, after the death of Hoare, Fry became the Mercury's Captain-Superintendent. [7] In 1914, the former Royal Navy sloop HMS Gannet was loaned from the Admiralty for use mainly as a floating dormitory and the old Illovo was sold in 1916. [8] [9] In 1950 C.B. Fry retired and handed over command of TS Mercury to Commander Matthew Bradby RN Rtd. [10]
Its last Captain Superintendent was Commander R. F. Hoyle RNR who took charge in 1960 and operated it for eight years before TS Mercury was closed in 1968. [11] The 45-acre (180,000 m2) shore establishment was later cleared for a housing development. [12] Memorials to TS Mercury and the 5,000 boys it trained for service at sea in both the Royal and Merchant Navies are located at Hamble Parish Church and near the former TS Mercury slipway. HMS Gannet was towed out of the Hamble River in 1970 and is now restored and preserved at the Chatham Historic Dockyard. [1]
Charles Burgess Fry was an English sportsman, teacher, writer, editor and publisher, who is best remembered for his career as a cricketer. John Arlott described him with the words: "Charles Fry could be autocratic, angry and self-willed: he was also magnanimous, extravagant, generous, elegant, brilliant – and fun ... he was probably the most variously gifted Englishman of any age."
A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house classrooms.
Bursledon is a village on the River Hamble in Hampshire, England. It is located within the borough of Eastleigh. Close to the city of Southampton, Bursledon has a railway station, a marina, dockyards and the Bursledon Windmill. Nearby villages include Swanwick, Hamble-le-Rice, Netley and Sarisbury Green.
Nine ships and two shore establishments of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Gannet, after the seabird the Gannet:
HMSGannet is a Royal Navy Doterel-class screw sloop-of-war launched on 31 August 1878. It became a training ship in the Thames in 1903, and was then loaned as a training ship for boys in the Hamble from 1913. It was restored in 1987 and is now part of the UK's National Historic Fleet.
The Marine Society is a British charity, the world's first established for seafarers. In 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Years' War against France, Austria, and Saxony Britain urgently needed to recruit men for the navy. Jonas Hanway (1712–1786), who had already made his mark as a traveller, Russia Company merchant, writer and philanthropist, must take the chief credit for founding the society which both contributed to the solution of that particular problem, and has continued for the next two and a half centuries to assist many thousands of young people in preparing for a career at sea.
The Scout Association's Sea Scouts are a branch of the association dedicated to boating and water-based activities such as sailing, canoeing, motorboating and water navigation. The association approved a special uniform for Sea Scouts in 1910 and, in 1912, the association formally adopted use of the name "Sea Scouts". Specialist Sea Scout troops have existed ever since. They are usually based by the side of water, either the sea, lake, river or canal.
Claude Stanley Choules was an English-born military serviceman from Pershore, Worcestershire, who at the time of his death was the oldest combat veteran of the First World War from England, having served with the Royal Navy from 1915 until 1926. After having emigrated to Australia he served with the Royal Australian Navy, from 1926 until 1956, as a Chief Petty Officer and was a naturalised Australian citizen. He was the last surviving military witness to the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow in 1919 and the last surviving veteran to have served in both world wars. At the time of his death, he was the third-oldest verified military veteran in the world and the oldest known living man in Australia. He was the seventh-oldest living man in the world. Choules became the oldest man born in the United Kingdom following the death of Stanley Lucas on 21 June 2010. Choules died at the age of 110 years and 63 days. He had been the oldest British-born man; following his death, that honour went to Reverend Reginald Dean. In December 2011, the landing ship HMAS Choules was named after him, only the second Royal Australian Navy vessel named after a sailor.
Eighteen ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Mercury, or HMS Mercure, after the God Mercury, of Roman mythology:
HMS President is a "stone frigate", or shore establishment of the Royal Naval Reserve, based on the northern bank of the River Thames near Tower Bridge in Wapping and is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
HMS Cricket was the name given to a Royal Navy shore establishment on the River Hamble from 1943 to 1946. This name was previously used by the Insect-class gunboat Cricket (1915) that was scrapped in 1942.
Charles Arthur Richard Hoare was an English banker who became a senior partner in the private bank C. Hoare & Co. He was a keen amateur cricketer who played one first-class cricket match for Kent County Cricket Club.
Lieutenant Commander Keith Robin Hoare, was a Royal Navy officer and a recipient of the Albert Medal, a high level decoration of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth awarded for gallantry in saving life. Hoare was awarded the Albert Medal in 1918 for his actions in removing depth charges from HM Motor Launch 356 after its engine room exploded, despite the flames, thus preventing a further explosion. With the establishment of the George Cross in 1940, the Albert Medal was discontinued.
Training Ship Indefatigable was a British training school opened in 1865 for boys intending to join the Royal Navy or the British Merchant Navy.
HMS Caroline was a Satellite-class composite screw sloop of the Royal Navy, built at Sheerness Dockyard, fitted with Maudslay, Sons and Field machinery and launched on 25 November 1882. She was later reclassified as a corvette.
The South African Naval College provides naval officer training to the South African Navy and is one of three officer training institutions within the South African National Defence Force, the equivalent of the Air Force Gymnasium and the Army Gymnasium
HMS Nymphe was a Nymphe-class composite screw sloop and the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. She was renamed HMS Wildfire in 1906, HMS Gannet in 1916, and finally HMS Pembroke in 1917, before she was sold in 1920.
HMS Tormentor was a shore establishment of the British Royal Navy during World War II, based near Warsash, on the River Hamble.
Beatrice Holme Sumner was an English eccentric, for some sixty years the manager of a training ship for boys, TS Mercury. As the lover of Charles Hoare, she was a controversial figure in Victorian society of the 1880s and 1890s and was later the wife of C. B. Fry.