Admiral Anson of Charleston and Carshalton

Admiral George Anson is best known for commanding a British naval squadron on an epic circumnavigation of the world between 1740 and 1744. Britain was at war with Spain, the War of Jenkins' Ear, and his goal was to raid Spanish possessions. 

The voyage was in some ways a disaster. Of his six ships, only one completed the journey. Most of his men died of scurvy, then the scourge of long voyages. But he did capture a Spanish ship loaded with treasure near the Philippines. [Image: George Anson, by Thomas Hudson]

By the time he returned to Britain, the country was also at war with France. In 1747, Anson captured an entire French squadron at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre, which netted him an enormous treasure. The government rewarded him with a peerage, as First Baron Anson. In 1751 the government elevated him to the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. In that capacity, he was responsible for reforms that greatly improved the efficiency of the Royal Navy during the Seven Years War (1756-63). He also commissioned an investigation into the causes and cure for scurvy. Anson died near the end of the war, in 1762, aged 65.

I have a "special connection" to Anson. No, we are not related, except maybe through Adam and Eve. It is this: he lived in two places I have lived in, in Charleston, South Carolina in America and Carshalton, Surrey, in England.

I first learned about Anson's Charleston connection while working as a history professor at the College of Charleston. One of the neighborhoods of the city is named after him, Ansonborough. So are Anson Street, the Anson Restaurant, Ansonborough House, and the Ansonborough Inn. George Street was also named for him. Several other streets were named for ships he commanded, but they have other names now.

In 1724, when he was only 26 but already a captain, the Royal Navy sent Anson to Charleston in command of a small squadron to defend the city and its region from pirate attacks. He remained in that capacity until 1735, long after pirates had ceased to be a major threat. 

In 1726, he purchased 64 acres of land on the Charleston peninsula. That land later became the town's first "suburb," Ansonborough. According to one story, perhaps apocryphal, Anson won the money he used to buy the land in a card game. True or not, gambling was a common pastime of the elite. 

Now for Carshalton. In 1749 Anson leased Carshalton House, a country house originally built around 1700 for a tobacco merchant, Edward Carlton. He went bankrupt and the house passed to several other owners before Anson leased it. Anson lived there until 1752, when he moved to a house he had built in Hertfordshire, Moor Park. [Two Images of Carshalton House, a mid-19th century lithograph and a modern photo.]

At the time of the lithograph Carshalton House was being used by the government as a preparatory school for cadets of the Royal Artillery and Engineers. In the late 19th century, an order of Catholic nuns purchased Carshalton House and grounds. They established a primary and high school for girls there, St. Philomena's. It is still in operation and is only a short walk from my house. 

Most people in Carshalton have probably never heard of Anson. Lots of Charlestonians will be familiar with his name because it is everywhere. How many know why is another matter. But be ye from Charleston or Carshalton, raise a glass for Admiral Anson! I'll raise two! We’ll meet at the Anson Arms pub, as soon as it’s built!

Interestingly, online articles about Anson do not mention his connections to Charleston or Carshalton. If I hadn't lived in both places, I would never have known about them. 

 

  

  

The Tower of London's Only American Prisoner: Henry Laurens

The Tower of London, originally a royal castle-palace, later a royal prison, has housed many famous prisoners in its thousand year history, including the Little Princes, Anne Boleyn and Sir Thomas More. But only one was an American: Henry Laurens, during the American War for Independence. [Image: Henry Laurens, Boston Magazine, 1784]

Laurens, who had made a fortune in the slave trade in his native Charleston, South Carolina, and owned several plantations, became a leading Patriot during the conflict between colonists and mother country. He served as President of the Continental Congress in 1777-78. Congress then named him minister to the Netherlands. He made a successful voyage there in the spring of 1780, gaining some financial assistance from the Dutch. On a second voyage that autumn, a Royal Navy frigate captured his ship at sea, along with a draft of a treaty with the Netherlands, a document that led the British government to declare war on that country. 

The British government lodged Laurens in the Tower on suspicion of treason. Laurens recorded that the guards of the Tower serenaded him with a rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" when he arrived to take up residence, passing through Traitors Gate on the Thames. (below)

Laurens remained in the Tower for more than a year. During that time two artists painted his portrait, an indication that his treatment was not especially harsh. The portraits are by Lemuel Francis Abbott and John Singleton Copley.

The mildness of Laurens' treatment owed something to important British friends, notably the enormously rich Richard Oswald, a former slave trading partner. Laurens had been Charleston agent for the slave factory at Bunce (AKA, Bance) Island, Sierra Leone, in which Oswald was heavily invested. [Image: 18th century drawing of Bunce Island]

Oswald secured Laurens' release from the Tower on bail in December 1781. Not long after, the British government exchanged Laurens for Lord Cornwallis, the British general who surrendered to Washington at Yorktown in October 1781. Oswald later became chief British negotiator at the peace talks in Paris. 

After Laurens' release, the US government ordered him to join the American peace delegation of John Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin. [Image: Benjamin West, American Peace Delegation, Paris, 1782, unfinished. Laurens is in the red coat, Franklin, Adams, and Jay to his right.]

Laurens put off going to Paris for months, pleading ill health. He did not arrive until late November, the day before the preliminary treaty was to be signed. He insisted on an addition to the treaty: that the British government return all runaway slaves to their American masters. Thousands had run away to British lines. Despite the fact that the British government had promised the runaways freedom, Oswald agreed to Laurens' addition, and the clause went into the final document. 

The runaway clause proved largely unenforceable. Sir Guy Carleton, the new British Commander in America, refused to hand over thousands of them under his protection in New York. Before evacuating the city, Carleton shipped them to Nova Scotia. Some of them later went to Sierra Leone, where they established a freedmen's colony and the current capital, Freetown. [Image: Early Freetown]

After the preliminary treaty was signed, Laurens returned to Britain and served briefly as US minster to the former mother country. In 1784, he returned to South Carolina. He spent his remaining years restoring his fortune and estates. He avoided politics, dying at his favorite plantation, Mepkin in 1792, surrounded by his slaves. His body was cremated, allegedly one of the first cremations in the United States. Today, Mepkin is a Trappist monastery, Mepkin Abbey.

[Images of Mepkin, by Charles A. Fraser, early 19th century]