HMS Colossus

Colossus was a 74-gun Royal Navy ship launched at Gravesend in 1787. Ships of this size were the hard-working centre of the late eighteenth-century battle fleet, usually about fifty-one metres long with roughly 600 people aboard. In eleven years Colossus fought at Toulon, Groix and Cape St Vincent. Damage at Cape St Vincent led to her being sent home for repair. In December 1798 she sailed from Naples towards Portsmouth carrying wounded sailors after the Battle of the Nile, captured goods and crates from Sir William Hamilton's second collection of ancient Greek pottery. She reached the Isles of Scilly on 7 December and anchored in St Mary's Roads to wait for a safer wind.

On 10 December the wind grew into a full gale. At about four in the afternoon the main anchor cable parted. A smaller anchor stopped the first drift, then another was dropped, but both dragged. Captain George Murray considered sailing out; the pilot feared the ship could not clear the rocks, so they tried to remain at anchor. Colossus first touched Southward Well gently at about six, was hauled free, then struck hard as the tide fell. Throwing the guns overboard might have made her settle onto the surrounding rocks, so that plan was abandoned. Pumps could not keep pace with the water. By midnight the rudder was gone; by dawn water reached the upper gun ports and the hull was breaking.

Island boats came out and removed the crew, wounded passengers and others aboard before about three in the afternoon after the wreck. Only one person was lost: the ship's quartermaster fell overboard while casting the lead to measure the water and drowned. Later accounts identify him as Richard King. That single death does not mean the escape was easy. Hundreds of people, including men already wounded in war, spent a night on a flooding ship pounding against rock in a gale before local boat crews could carry them away. The Greek pottery became the famous cargo, but the successful rescue is the most important human part of the loss.

Colossus broke up over a wide area south of Samson. Divers found a bow area in the 1970s and recovered more than 30,000 Greek pottery pieces, many now at the British Museum, where drawings made in Italy helped staff rebuild some vessels. A separate stern area found in 2001 preserves a large part of the port side, deck levels, rope, muskets and five iron guns still standing through their gun ports. A twice life-size carved wooden man from the stern retained traces of paint and gold and is displayed on Tresco. Moving sand can reveal and rebury timbers and small finds. A marked underwater trail allows visits under the protected-wreck rules; protection does not permit souvenir taking.

Colossus is the only protected example of a British 74-gun warship from its generation. Its timbers and guns show how the main fighting ships of the French Revolutionary Wars were built and worked, while its own service links the wreck with several major naval actions. Hamilton's pottery joins that naval story to wealthy British collecting in Italy and the movement of ancient objects during the age of the Grand Tour. The widely separated bow, stern and trails of objects also let researchers rebuild how a large wooden ship came apart after grounding. The loss is locally Scillonian as well as naval: island boat crews saved almost everyone, and today's dive trail and recovered stern figure keep the wreck connected to the islands.