James Desborough Kirkness was baptized on 27 August 1848 at St. Symphorian's, Forrabury, Cornwall,
the son of William John and Julia Mary
(Man) Kirkness.
He died, unmarried, on 7
September 1870 when the "H.M.S. Captain" foundered off Cape Finisterre,
Spain.
James belongs to Generation Six.
NOTES: HMS Captain:
The ship was built at Camell Lairds in Birkenhead near Liverpool, located on the
River Mersey. It was laid down on the 30 January 1867 and completed in January
1870. It was the first turret ship.
There is a history of many disagreements about the building of this ship.
It seems that the gun deck was located too low and made the ship unstable.
Seventeen seamen and a gunner survived the sinking, John Hermitage was among
those drowned along with the designer, Captain Cowper Coles and the midshipman
son of Mr. Hugh Childers, the First Lord, who had been sent to her by his father
to show his confidence in Coles’ ship against the views of his Chief
Constructor, Edward Reed.
This ship went down off Cape Finisterre on 7 September 1870 with the loss of all
the crew. A stained glass window was erected in the north transept of
Westminster Abbey in 1871 by Clayton and Bell. It shows scenes from the
Old and New Testaments, including the passage through the Red Sea, Jonah's
deliverance from the whale and Christ walking on the water. A brass on the floor
below the window commemorates Capt. Hugh Burgoyne V. C., Capt. Cowper Coles and
the officers, men and boys who died.
Designed and built as a test platform for Captain Cowper
Coles’ design for a warship with turrets arranged on the vessel’s centerline. Captain
had an extremely low freeboard – only 6.5 feet (2m) – and was badly over-rigged
with 50,000 square feet of sails. After participating in gunnery trials with
the British Mediterranean Squadron in September 1870, Captain was
blown over in a gale and sank with all but eighteen of the 499 men aboard.
February 2003
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