HMS Minotaur (1793)

HMS "Minotaur" was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 6 November 1793 at Woolwich. She was named after the mythological bull-headed monster of Crete.

The ship fought at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, engaging the "Aquilon" with HMS "Theseus" and forcing her surrender, an operation which cost "Minotaur" 23 sailors dead and 64 wounded. She was present at the landings in Aboukir Bay during the invasion of Egypt in 1801 where she lost four men, and was finally present at the Battle of Trafalgar under Captain Charles John Moore Mansfield, where she was instrumental in capturing the Spanish ship "Neptuno". During her career, she also managed to capture the French frigate "Franchise", as well as attack shipping outside Genoa, Algeciras and Fredricksham in Russia.

Whilst sailing from Gothenburg to Britain, she struck the Haak Bank on the Texel off the Netherlands in the evening of 22 December 1810, after becoming separated from her consorts, HMS "Plantagenet" and HMS "Loire". She rolled on her side rapidly, where waves dismasted her and pounded her hull which began to split. Prior to the roll, 110 of her crew had taken to her boats and soon reached shore, where they informed the Dutch authorities of the disaster. The authorities however placed the survivors under custody and refused to dispatch any rescue vessels until the following morning. The rescue party found however that apart from four men who reached shore by clinging to wreckage, no survivors remained on the vessel or in the surrounding water, with the death toll being between 370 and 500. [ [http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/M2.HTM] ]

Three and a half years later, when the prisoners were released, the customary court martial decided that the deceased pilots were to blame for steering the ship into an unsafe position, having misjudged their location by over 60 miles because of the weather. The Dutch authorities were highly criticised for their failure to despatch rescue boats sooner.

The sinking was depicted by the famed landscape painter J. M. W. Turner, though the subject was not originally the "Minotaur", but a generic "transport ship". Turner had been producing sketches in preparation for the painting as early as 1805, but by the time he had completed the painting in 1810, the recent wreck of the "Minotaur" was a subject of much discussion, and the painting was named to capitalise on this public interest. [ [http://www.minotaur.org/minotaur-turner.htm | "The Wreck of the Minotaur" by J.M.W. Turner] ]

Essex grindcore band Wreck of the Minotaur take their name from this ship.

References

* Grocott, Terence, "Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras", Caxton Editions, Great Britain: 2002. ISBN 1-84067-164-5.
* [http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/M2.HTM Ships of the Old Navy entry]
* http://www.treeforall.org.uk/trafalgar/TrafalgarWoods/Otherwoods/Minotaur/
* http://www.minotaur.org/
*Lavery, Brian (2003) "The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850." Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.