The Good Intent: a remarkably long-lived West Country vessel. Gary Hicks

6. He worked a nice scam. He said he would transport convicts to Australia but in fact unloaded much nearer home. a. Who? b. Where did he land the convicts? Hint: Where might one safely land convicts without going too far?

7. Dai and I were having a pint on the quay when smoke started coming out of a chimney. Really acrid smell. “Contraband”, said Dai. a. which quay? b. name of chimney? Hint: Surely easy. Contraband and acrid smell - burning of smuggled tobacco . 8. Name the village where smuggling or free trading was so rife it had its own banker and insurer. a. the village? b. the banker? Hint: Smuggling could be from Ireland, but more likely from France and the Channel Islands, so on the south coast.

9. We were moored up in the harbour and I was getting ready to join the natives in their festival when a Race Relations Officer came aboard and advised me against it. a. the town? b. the festival? Hint: So something to do with possible racism and a festival. Links with slavery?

10. They built it far too high so half the time the ships couldn’t see the light. a. where? b. and c. - what two lights replace it? Hint: If further east, could be Belle Tout, which had to be replaced by Beachy Head, but in this region, only one answer.

The answers are on page 15.

Mike Bender and Kay Harding

The Good Intent: a remarkably long-lived West Country vessel

In 1789, George Washington became the first President of the United States, the French Revolution began and King George III and Queen Charlotte paid a visit to Plymouth, based at Saltram House. In the same year, a few men worked anonymously under the direction of a master craftsman somewhere on the shores of the four rivers emptying into Plymouth Sound to create a remarkably long-lived little ship. On the 14th March of the following year William Bligh returned to England with the first news of the Bounty mutiny and within weeks of the breaking of that astonishing story, our little vessel was launched.

She may have been launched ‘all a-tanto’ and ready to sail away, or perhaps her single mast had still to be stepped and rigging completed, but the men who built her and her new owners were justifiably proud of their creation. While they left her head unadorned, without figurehead or scrollwork, they carved below her taffrail the first phrase of verse 5 of Psalm 95: “The Sea is His and He Made it”, which she carried throughout her long life.

Whatever her state of completion when she entered the water, before she could begin to earn her keep, the new formality of registration (introduced in 1786) would have to be completed, as her owner intended that she should be able to trade outside the ‘inland navigation’ of the four rivers.

On 28 May 1790, her first owner visited the Custom House in Plymouth to register her under the name Good Intent. There were, of course, fees to pay and he took with him her builder’s certificate, indispensable under section 20 of the 1786 Registration Act, certifying: the time when, and the Place where, fuch Ship or Veffel was built; and alfo an exact Account of the Tonnage of fuch Ship or Veffel, together with the Name of the firft Purchafer or Purchafers thereof” (the substitution of ‘f’ for ‘s’ here reproduces the archaic language of the then new Act of Parliament).

In addition the owner would have come prepared to swear an oath naming all the owners, confirming that they were the sole owners and that none had ever sworn any Oath of Allegiance to any foreign state and that no foreigner had any interest whatsoever in the vessel 1. The Tide Surveyor of the Customs would have surveyed the vessel, verified that she was British built and, measuring her maximum dimensions, finding her volume as if she were a rectangular box and then dividing the volume by 94, in order to calculate her Register Tonnage, in accordance with the 1786 Act. This required a certain skill in mathematics; after a later alteration, the calculation for the Good Intent was as follows: length 49 ft 10 ins x breadth 18 ft 2 ins x depth in hold 5 ft 8¾ ins ÷ 94 which gave her a Register Tonnage of 6471/94 tons. One surveyor at Plymouth frequently included fractions of an inch, perhaps as a demonstration of his arithmetical virtuosity. During her long life Good Intent experienced several changes of tonnage arising from changes to where measurements were taken and the divisor, altered in 1836 from 94 to 3,500 and then to a more sensible 100 in 1854.

Her builder, original owners and even her measurements are unknown, because no Register Books for the Port of Plymouth survive prior to the post-1824 registers held by Plymouth and West Devon Record Office 2 .

The paintwork of the Good Intent had barely lost its first shine when the French Convention declared war on Great Britain on 1 February 1793, but she avoided being taken as a prize or any other mishap. Her recorded history begins with a copy of a re-registration on 3 June 1819, following unspecified alterations. These may have been quite minor alterations in her description, but could have been lengthening, by the simple sounding but technically exacting expedient of cutting her in half, drawing the severed sections apart and inserting a new mid-ships section.

Her registered owners in the post-Napoleonic War boom were James Ayres of Calstock, William Gill and John Rundle of Tavistock (who, to re-register her, attended the Customs House in Plymouth together and subscribed the oath referred to above). The other owners were John Hornbrook Gill and Nicholas Rundle, both Tavistock merchants and James Lamerton of Calstock, mariner; James Ayres was also her master. Benjamin Hooper, Tide Surveyor, took the measurements and made the tonnage calculation referred to above. The names of her masters are recorded on the register until 1854 - John Pearne was appointed to follow Ayres in 1822, William Adams took command in October 1824, Thomas Petherick, June 1840 and Thomas Adams in June 1850, with only five masters in 35 years she seems to have been a well-liked, kindly vessel.

In order to envisage Good Intent more clearly it is worthwhile to compare her to the Tamar barge Shamrock - both were ketch-rigged and square-sterned, their respective measurements being:

It would be easy to assume that the Good Intent was simply a barge, confined to the quiet waters of the four rivers, but this was not the case. This was a different age and vessels of small tonnage frequently made lengthy open sea voyages.

On 1 May 1820 Ayres and Lamerton sold their 4/16 to their co-owners and on 26 November 1823 William Gill sold 1/6 to John Rundle and Nicholas Rundle. On 29th December 1825 the Good Intent was re-registered, as required by the 1825 Registration Act; that Act required all shares in vessels to be held only in multiples of 64ths. Her owners and their shares were John Rundle of Tavistock 22/64 and Nicholas Rundle of Beer Ferris (sic) 21/64, merchants, and John Hornbrook Gill of Whitchurch in the County of Devon, merchant 21/64.

On 10 April 1843 Nicholas Rundle transferred the whole of his shares to John Rundle and John Hornbrook Gill, co-partners trading under the firm of ‘Gill and Rundle’ and on 20 November 1854 John Rundle transferred his share in Good Intent to John Hornbrook Gill of Bickham in the parish of Buckland Monachorum, merchant. J.H. Gill continued to own her until he sold on 12 June 1861 to Alexander and George Hubbard of Stonehouse, merchants and contractors. The Hubbards were her last local owners, and they sold her eleven years later to William Hiscock of Bridgwater, who somewhat surprisingly was a gamekeeper; he died on 19 December 1879 and Good Intent passed under his will to his widow, Mary. Mary’s ownership continued until a sale was made on 22 December 1891 to Martha Jane Smart, the wife of William Smart of Bridgwater, master mariner.

Fig 1. Good Intent was by then 101 years old and had been on the Plymouth Register for all that time, but her new owners decided to register her at Bridgwater on 16 June 1902.

When launched Good Intent would have been very much part of the everyday scene, one of tens of thousands of vessels trading under sail, but gradually the others died away and Good Intent became a curiosity - an object to excite nostalgia, remarkable because of her age and survival and something to attract the photographer. This image, from a photograph in the author’s collection, shows her during this later period of her life, for when acquired it was found to be endorsed “Good Intent 1790 Bridgwater Dock 17/4/11”. One hundred and twenty years old when pictured, she is clearly being well cared for, her paint looks new, her wheel is covered and she has the refinement of a WC on deck, a luxury which would have been missing in her early years.

There was one more move - to Bristol - where she was registered on 20 February 1920, with her owner thereafter Alfred J. Smith. In her Plymouth register she is described only as a barge, but she is shown as a sloop in both her Bridgwater and Bristol registers. However, the photograph above shows her rigged as a ketch.