Читать книгу Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815. A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings онлайн

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I have to thank Mr. Neves, editor of the Chatham News, for the following particulars relative to Chatham.

‘The exact number of prisoners accommodated in these floating prisons cannot be ascertained, but it appears they were moored near the old Gillingham Fort (long since demolished) which occupied a site in the middle of what is now Chatham Dockyard Extension. St. Mary’s Barracks, Gillingham, were built during the Peninsular War for the accommodation of French prisoners. There is no doubt that the rate of mortality among the prisoners confined in the hulks was very high, and the bodies were buried on St. Mary’s Island on ground which is now the Dockyard Wharf.

Prison Ships.

(From a sketch by the author.)

‘In the course of the excavations in connexion with the extension of the Dockyard—a work of great magnitude which was commenced in 1864 and not finished until 1884, and which cost £3,000,000, the remains of many of the French prisoners were disinterred. The bones were collected and brought round to a site within the extension works, opposite Cookham Woods. A small cemetery of about 200 feet square was formed, railed in, and laid out in flower-beds and gravelled pathways. A handsome monument, designed by the late Sir Andrew Clarke, was erected in the centre—the plinth and steps of granite, with a finely carved figure in armour and cloaked, and holding an inverted torch in the centre, under a canopied and groined spire terminating in crockets and gilt finials. In addition to erecting this monument the Admiralty allotted a small sum annually for keeping it in order.