HMS Royal George was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was the largest warship in the world at the time of her launch on 18 February 1756. Royal George took ten years to construct at Woolwich Dockyard. The ship saw immediate service during the Seven Years' War, including the Raid on Rochefort in 1757. She was Admiral Sir Edward Hawke's flagship at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759. The ship was laid up following the conclusion of the war in 1763, but was reactivated in 1777 for the American Revolutionary War. She then served as Rear Admiral Robert Digby's flagship at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1780.

Royal George sank on 29 August 1782 whilst anchored at Spithead off Portsmouth. The ship was intentionally rolled (a 'Parliamentary heel') so maintenance could be performed on the hull, but the roll became unstable and out of control; the ship took on water and sank. More than 800 people died, making it one of the most deadly maritime disasters in British territorial waters.

Several attempts were made to raise the vessel, both for salvage and because she was a major hazard to navigation in the Solent. In 1782, Charles Spalding recovered fifteen 12-pounder guns using a diving bell of his own design. From 1834 to 1836, Charles and John Deane recovered more guns using a diving helmet they had invented. In 1839 Charles Pasley of the Royal Engineers commenced operations to break up the wreck using barrels of gunpowder. Pasley's team recovered more guns and other items between 1839 and 1842. In 1840, they destroyed the remaining structure of the wreck in an explosion which shattered windows several miles away in Portsmouth and Gosport.

Service

thumb|Stern of Royal George: 1779 painting of a model by [[Joseph Marshall (painter)|Joseph Marshall at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich]]

Because of problems encountered during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), the Admiralty attempted to modernise British ship designs with the 1745 Establishment. On 29 August 1746, the Admiralty ordered construction of a 100-gun first rate of the new design, to be named Royal Anne. She was laid down at Woolwich Dockyard in 1746 but was unfinished when the war ended in 1748, causing construction to slow. The ship was renamed Royal George while under construction. She was not completed until 1756, during the Diplomatic Revolution, a few months before the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). The ship was commissioned in October 1755, before she was ready to launch, with her first commander being Captain Richard Dorrill. She was launched on 18 February 1756. The largest warship in the world at the time, she measured more than 2,000 tons burthen and was the "eighteenth-century equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction".

thumb|Bow of the Royal George, by Marshall at the [[Science Museum, London]]

Royal George joined the Western Squadron (also known as the Channel Fleet) under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke in May 1756, just as the Seven Years' War began. Captain Dorrill was succeeded by Captain John Campbell in July 1756, who was in turn succeeded by Captain Matthew Buckle in early 1757. The reason most of her complement were aboard was because of fear of desertion: all shore leave had been cancelled. Accordingly, every crew member then assigned to the vessel was aboard it when it sank, except for a detachment of sixty marines sent ashore that morning.

The exact number of the total crew on board is unknown, but is estimated to have been around 1,200. In April 2009, Isle of Wight Council placed a new memorial plaque in the newly restored Ashley Gardens on Ryde Esplanade in memory of Royal George. It is a copy of the original plaque unveiled in 1965 by Earl Mountbatten of Burma, which was moved in 2006 to the Royal George Memorial Garden, also on the Esplanade.

A court-martial acquitted the officers and crew (many of whom had perished), blaming the accident on the "general state of decay of her timbers" and suggesting that the most likely cause of the sinking was that part of the frame of the ship gave way under the stress of the heel. For example, naval historian Nicholas Tracy stated that Hollingbery allowed water to accumulate on the gundeck. The resulting free surface effect eventually compromised the ship's stability.

Deane brothers (1834)

thumb|Illustration of [[Charles Anthony Deane exploring the wreck of Royal George in 1832]]

No further work was carried out on the wreck until 1834, when Charles Anthony Deane and his brother John, using the first air-pumped diving helmet which they had invented, began work. From 1834 to 1836 they recovered 7 iron 42-pounders, 18 brass 24-pounders and 3 brass 12-pounders for which he received salvage from the Board of Ordnance. The remaining guns were buried under mud and the timbers of the wreck and were irrecoverable. It was during this operation that local fishermen asked the divers to investigate something on the seabed that their nets kept snagging. A dive by John Deane north east of Royal George revealed timbers and guns from Mary Rose, the first time that its resting place had been located in centuries.

Pasley's operation set many diving milestones, including the first recorded use of the buddy system in diving, when he ordered that his divers operate in pairs.

In 1840, the use of controlled explosions to destroy the wreck continued through to September. on an occasion that year the Royal Engineers set off a huge controlled explosion which shattered windows as far away as Portsmouth and Gosport.

Meanwhile, Pasley had recovered 12 more guns in 1839, 11 more in 1840, and 6 in 1841. In 1842 he recovered only one iron 12-pounder, because he ordered the divers to concentrate on removing the hull timbers rather than search for guns. Other items recovered, in 1840, included the surgeon's brass instruments, silk garments of satin weave "of which the silk was perfect", and pieces of leather; but no woollen clothing. By 1843 the whole of the keel and the bottom timbers had been raised and the site was declared clear.

Surviving timbers and guns

thumb|Memorial at [[Ryde, Isle of Wight commemorating the loss]]

A 24-pounder from the ship is part of the Royal Armouries collection and on display at Southsea Castle. Several of the salvaged bronze cannon were melted down to form part of Nelson's Column in London's Trafalgar Square. The Corinthian capital is made of bronze elements, cast at the Woolwich Arsenal foundry. The bronze pieces, some weighing as much as are fixed to the column by the means of three large belts of metal lying in grooves in the stone.

Recovered materials were used to make a variety of souvenirs. In the 1850s, timber from the ship was used to make the billiard table by J. Thurston & Co. for the North Wing of Burghley House. Wood salvaged from the Royal George was also used to make the coffin for the famous menagerie owner George Wombwell who died in 1850 and the covers of A Narrative of the loss of the Royal George, at Spithead, August, 1782; including Tracey's Attempt to raise her in 1783, also Col Pasley's Operations in Removing the Wreck, by Explosions of Gunpowder, in 1839–40 by Colonel Pasley.

Notes

a. Royal Georges usual complement was 867.