Sirius
Wood Location
Bath, SOMERSET
Ship Information
Ship Commander - Capt William Prowse
Constructed - Deptford
Guns - 36
Wood Information
Size - 6 acres
Owner - Barrow Castle
To be planted - November 2005
Sirius Wood is the only Trafalgar wood planned for the Bristol/Bath/Somerset and Wiltshire areas. It joins long established (pre-15th century!) woodland of the Duchy of Cornwall and will be fully open to the public.
More information.
Events in Sirius Wood
There was a two day schools planting programme in November 2005, along with a community planting day.
Captain William Prowse
Captain Prowse was born in Devonshire and entered the Royal Navy as an Able Seaman before he was promoted to Midshipman in 1778, when he was already 25 years of age. He was given his first command, the brig Raven, in 1797 and became Captain of Sirius in 1802. In 1821 he attained the rank of Rear Admiral and died in 1826.
HMS Sirius
HMS Sirius was built at Dudman’s yard in Deptford on the river Thames and launched in 1797. She was a standard 36 gun frigate her lines based on the captured San Fiorenza, a French frigate taken in 1794, and in October 1805 formed part of the squadron close inshore outside the port of Cadiz. With Euryalus, Naiad and Phoebe, the other frigates in the squadron, she maintained a watch on the French and Spanish fleets, and observed their deployment outside the port as they prepared to make sail. Sirius was fired on when she came a little too close to the French Heros as she inspected an approaching merchant ship, but this proved to be American and she was allowed to proceed on her way. During the battle she lay to windward of the fleet and was not otherwise involved.
Sirius fought several actions with ships of her own calibre, the first in 1798 under Captain Richard King off Texel on the 24th October when she fell in with two Dutch ships, the Waakgamheid (24 guns) and the Furie (36 guns) which she pursued and captured. Sirius fought a notable action with a numerically superior number of smaller French ships off Civita Vecchia, Italy, forcing them to withdraw and capturing the largest, Bergere (18 guns). Sirius was stationed in the West Indies in 1809 and supported the capture of Martinique, capturing the French brig Edward, which fled as British forces seized the island. An East Indiaman the Windham was captured after the pursuit by Lieutenant Watling in the ship’s launch with six men, supported by the jolly boat with a midshipman and four men. In their haste they took no weapons but caught up with the Windham, and armed only with the boat’s stretchers as cudgels, overcame a crew of 30 and brought her out.
Many thanks to Alan Aberg at the Society for Nautical Research for providing us with information on the ships and their commanders.
