Northumberland

Northumberland was built at Bristol by Francis Baylie and launched in 1679 as a 70-gun third-rate warship. She belonged to the large building plan begun in 1677 to strengthen the English navy and was rebuilt at Chatham in 1702. She fought at Beachy Head in 1690, Barfleur and La Hogue in 1692 and Vigo Bay in 1702, and served under John Benbow off Saint-Malo. In 1703 Captain James Greenway commanded her with the Mediterranean Fleet. After helping to hold the French fleet at Toulon, she returned through a voyage already weakened by sickness and deaths among the wider fleet. The ships then anchored in the Downs between Deal and the Goodwin Sands.

On the night of 26 to 27 November 1703, by the old calendar then used in England, a violent west-south-westerly storm struck the Downs. Northumberland fired distress guns as her anchors dragged or their cables failed. Captain James Adams of the Mary saw Northumberland driven towards the Goodwin Sands before both ships disappeared from view. Northumberland struck the sandbank and broke apart in the heavy sea. The same storm destroyed Restoration, Stirling Castle and Mary nearby and wrecked or damaged many other vessels. It became known as the Great Storm, and Daniel Defoe later gathered eyewitness accounts showing how rescuers at Deal and Ramsgate could do little while ships were destroyed beyond the surf.

Historic England's current working account says all 253 people aboard Northumberland died, including Captain Greenway. An older printed story said 64 men were rescued from her, but the latest official study considers the all-hands account more reliable. Confused reports are understandable because several warships were breaking up together in darkness and extreme weather, but the rescue story should not be repeated as settled fact. Northumberland's loss was part of a much wider disaster: the four royal warships on the Goodwin Sands alone took more than 1,000 lives, while the full storm killed many more people on sea and land.

Local divers found the site in 1979 and 1980 by checking places where fishermen's nets repeatedly caught. It lies in about 14 to 20 metres of water and includes a large buried wreck mound, joined hull sections and a wider trail of wreckage. Surveys have recorded iron guns, some still with carriages, anchors, rigging, muskets, swords, copper cooking vessels, bottles, pottery, pewter and a sea chest. A bell dated 1701 and pewter plates marked J.G., probably for James Greenway, support the name, but no single object spells out Northumberland. Moving sand can protect deep layers and then expose them quickly; recent work found up to about 3.5 metres of buried remains. Lost fishing nets have also damaged and hidden parts of the wreck.

Northumberland records both the growth of the late Stuart navy and its vulnerability to weather. Her long fighting career links the wreck to major sea battles, while the guns, ship structure, weapons, food and personal goods show how an ordinary warship worked between the Mary Rose and Nelson's Victory, periods with far fewer surviving hulls. For Deal and Ramsgate it is also a local story of fishermen, divers and rescuers living beside the Goodwin Sands. Early finds went to Ramsgate Maritime Museum, and local licensed divers have continued to watch the site. Its present decline matters because every exposed gun or timber can explain the ship and the storm only while it remains in place and properly recorded.