Henry Ince and Soldier-Artificers

Early life

The young Henry Ince is shrouded in mystery. Records suggest he was born at Penzance, Cornwall, in 1735 or 1736 and became a nail-maker and miner, but only his mining occupation is certain. For some reason he was in Ireland in 1755 and enlisted in the 2nd Regiment of Foot. He possibly became a Methodist in Ireland, where John Wesley was at that time preaching. The regiment next moved to the Isle of Man and in 1768 to Gibraltar. Ince, now a sergeant, wrote to Wesley lamenting the lack of religion among the soldiers, particularly Methodism. His involvement with Methodism is discussed, along with other details, in an article by Sue Jackson in Gibraltar Heritage Journal 16 (for 2009).

Soldier-artificers

Gibraltar’s defences were being strengthened under the direction of the Chief Engineer, William Green. As the army engineers were officers, the actual work was done by civilians, which Green felt was unsatisfactory. In 1772 he was given permission to form a soldier-artificer company of skilled military workmen, which was a great improvement, and Ince was recruited into the company as a sergeant. One of its first tasks was the construction of the massive King’s Bastion. During the subsequent Great Siege, the soldier-artificers proved invaluable, and decades later the engineers and soldier-artificers were amalgamated into a single unit that eventually became the Royal Engineers.

Tunnel vision

After the sortie, the Spaniards rebuilt their siegeworks, gradually moving closer to the sheer north front of Gibraltar. Because it was difficult to fire at these siegeworks, it was decided to mount guns on top of an outcrop called ‘the Notch’ or ‘the Hook’, about halfway up the cliff face. It would act like a bastion, giving a wide field of fire over the siegeworks. To gain access to this rock platform, they needed to drive a tunnel through the limestone rock.

North front of Gibraltar, facing Spain, with ‘the Notch’ far left (with two later gunports)

and three of Ince’s gunports centre and right

The legend

One story is that Ince, now a sergeant-major, proposed the idea after one bombardment: Continue reading →

The Prudential and the Rock

This is the strange story of not one, but two Prudential insurance companies, and why the American firm chose Gibraltar as its symbol and slogan.

The Prudential in England

In 1848 the Prudential or ‘the Pru’ was set up in London and came to concentrate on life insurance and a means of saving for professional people and, later on, for the poorer working classes who would pay weekly amounts to agents. It is now a multinational life insurance and financial services company.

The Prudential in America

In America John Fairfield Dryden lost his father when a young boy. As a result of his experiences, he set up an insurance company at Newark, New Jersey, in 1875, based on the principles and name of the Prudential in London. This new company was called the Prudential Friendly Society and sold industrial insurance to help American working families provide against sickness, accident and death. The company’s history is told in a fascinating book published in 1950 by Doubleday – The Prudential: a story of human security by Earl Chapin May and Will Oursler. Its jacket depicts the iconic northern part of the Rock of Gibraltar.

Cover of 1950 book called ‘The Prudential, a story of human security’

by Earl Chapin May and Will Oursler

The business struggled, and so in late 1876 Dryden went to London to seek advice on how Continue reading →

Gibraltar in America

This is the story of a famous painting by the American artist John Trumbull, which is used on the jacket of the American edition of our book Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History, published in hardback in the United States and Canada by Viking (ISBN 9780735221628), 449 pages long, plus prelims and prologue, maps and other illustrations. It is also available as an e-book and an audio download. It is almost the same as the UK edition, though with a few corrections and amendments and a very striking jacket.

The French connection

The publication coincides with the 240th anniversary of France becoming officially involved with the American Revolution (War of Independence). Never having recovered from the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), France was looking to ways of seeking revenge against Britain. From 1777 she had allowed arms and other equipment to be shipped to the rebels in America, while American privateers were permitted to shelter in French ports. In March 1778, France signed a treaty recognising American independence, and the first hostile act between Britain and France was a frigate action in June 1778, when the French Belle Poule fought the British Arethusa. The following month, Britain declared war on France. It took France almost another year to persuade Spain to join in, leading to the start of the Great Siege of Gibraltar in June 1779.

John Trumbull’s finest painting

The UK and American jackets of Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History are very different, but both are based on the work of contemporary American artists. The UK jacket features a painting by John Singleton Copley (see our newsletter 50), while this Viking jacket uses a magnificent painting by John Trumbull.

Born at Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756, Trumbull became a soldier at the beginning of the Continue reading →

San Roque in Spain

The traditional time for planning holidays was once the period after Christmas, when – in the northern hemisphere – the days are short, dark and cold. If one of the holiday destinations you are considering is Spain, bear in mind that there is much more to the country than ‘sea, sand and sangria’. You do not have to travel far from the coast to find small settlements steeped in history, and the delightful town of San Roque in Andalusia is a good example.

Gibraltar in exile

San Roque is situated on the main coastal highway between the surfing centre of Tarifa (Europe’s most southerly town) and Marbella and Malaga on the Costa del Sol. It is built on a hill a short distance inland from the Bay of Gibraltar, and its key historical significance lies in the relationship with the Rock of Gibraltar. After the British Admiral George Rooke took Gibraltar with an Anglo-Dutch squadron of ships in 1704, many of the existing inhabitants fled to San Roque, which King Philip V of Spain designated ‘Gibraltar in Exile’.

Picturesque San Felipe Street in San Roque

The old quarter of San Roque is an area of buildings dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries that was designated a collection of Listed Historic Buildings in 1975. Continue reading →

Chinese Classics

Two of our books on classical civilisations, Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome and Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece, are published in English, Chinese and Russian. In 2008, Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome was published in Chinese as a substantial paperback (739 pages) by The Commercial Press in Beijing (ISBN 9787100058285). The first Chinese edition of Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece was published in 2010, with 839 pages (ISBN 9787100067348). Recently, we were very pleased to receive hardback copies of both books that The Commercial Press recently published (in 2016), with striking covers (see below). The Rome one (ISBN 9787100114806) has 508 pages, while the Greece one (ISBN 9787100120371) has 594 pages. The publisher’s website is here.

For more about these two books, see our website page here.

Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival

For our final talk of 2017 on our new book Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege of British History, we were invited to the Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival, which took place from 16th to 19th November. Because our talk was the very first one, we had no idea in advance what to expect.

The venue for our talk was the beautiful historic Garrison Library, where we have spent many hours doing research. Full of atmosphere, it was the focal point for the festival and provided the ideal setting, because it was originally founded by John Drinkwater. He served as an ensign in the 72nd Manchester Regiment throughout the Great Siege Continue reading →

Jane Austen 200 years

This year, 2017, is the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death in July 1817. It is also the bicentenary of her novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, which were published posthumously in December 1817 – some 42 years after she was born.

Death at Winchester

Jane Austen was born in the Hampshire village of Steventon on 16th December 1775, and she lived in various places, such as Southampton and Steventon in Hampshire and Bath in Somerset. When she became seriously ill in April 1817, a physician from Winchester in Hampshire was consulted after the local doctor admitted defeat. Continue reading →