This article is about a British warship in service from 1746 to 1761. For other vessels of the same name, see HMS Salisbury. For other uses of the word, see Salisbury (disambiguation).
HMS Salisbury was a warship in the British Royal Navy, in service from 1746 to 1761. It was on this ship that James Lind conducted his experiments into cures for scurvy, demonstrating the effectiveness of citrus fruit. His experiments are only described very briefly in his Treatise, but the ship’s original documents survive and allow its circumstances to be re-constructed.
This was the Royal Navy’s fourth ship to be named Salisbury. She was a fourth-rate ship-of-war with 50 guns, built at East Cowes, Isle of Wight, and launched on 29 Jan 1746 (by the Julian calendar). The ship had a crew of 300.
The first captain was Sir George Edgcumbe (1721-1795), later to become Admiral Viscount Mount-Edgcumbe. He was painted circa 1748 by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Salisbury appears in the background. This portrait is on display at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.
From 1740 to 1748 Britain was engaged in the War of Austrian Succession, siding with Austria, Holland and Scandinavia against France and Spain. Salisbury was part of the Western Fleet, controlling the sea areas around the Bay of Biscay and western approaches of the English Channel. Her role was to intercept shipping, allowing only friendly and neutral vessels to pass; enemy vessels would be captured as prizes of war. Her patrols typically lasted 2 or 3 months, so scurvy (which usually manifested after a month at sea) was common, even though the ship was seldom far from home.
It was on the sixth such patrol that Lind, the ship’s surgeon, conducted his experiment. Salisbury left Portsmouth, England, on 29 March 1747, and on 31 March she captured a French privateer. She brought this prize into Plymouth, off-loaded the prisoners and topped up her provisions, then returned to sea on 2 April. On 11 April she captured a small French fishing vessel and sent her to Plymouth as a prize.
Over the following weeks Salisbury patrolled the Bay of Biscay near the Loire estuary. Lind’s experiment began on 20 May, after eight weeks at sea. He picked a dozen men with scurvy, and assigned two each to cider, elixir of vitriol, vinegar, sea water, oranges and lemons, and a purgative mixture. By the end of May, the two assigned to citrus fruit had recovered.
Salisbury returned to port at Plymouth on 17 June. Lind left the navy at this point and did not conduct further experiments on scurvy, but in 1753 published his Treatise on the subject.
Salisbury continued to make similar patrols, her greatest prize being the capture of Jason on 30 January 1748. (The “wydah bird” in Edgcumbe’s portrait may commemorate this event.) In that year the war ended. In 1753 T Knowler replaced Edgcumbe as captain, and Salisbury lay as a guard ship at Plymouth.
On 24 March 1754 (now by the Gregorian calendar) she sailed for the East Indies, protecting an East India Company expedition. The rest of the ship’s career was spent in India, and she was in action there during the Seven Years War. The last captain, Sir William Baird, took up command in 1760. Salisbury’s final year was spent patrolling the coast of India, but she was becoming worn out and leaky. She was de-commissioned at Bombay (now Mumbai) on 28 Aug 1761.
References edit
Lind, James (1753). A Treatise of the scurvy. Edinburgh; available online at www.jameslindlibrary.org
The original documents of Salisbury are held in the National Archives, Kew, England: Captains' log books 1746-49 held as ADM 51 / 936 (Part 10 onward); gap from 1749 to 1753; 1753-56 and 1758-61 as ADM 51 / 843; 1756-58 as ADM 51 / 4332; Ship's Muster Roll held as ADM 36 / 3298.
Sutton, Graham (2003). Putrid gums and “Dead Men’s Cloaths”: James Lind aboard the Salisbury. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 96: 605-608