HMS Conway (school ship)

HMS Conway was a naval training school or "school ship", founded in 1859 and housed for most of its life aboard a 19th-century wooden battleship. The ship was originally stationed on the Mersey near Liverpool, then moved to the Menai Strait during World War II. While being towed back to Birkenhead for a refit in 1953, she ran aground and was wrecked, and later burned down. The school moved to purpose-built premises on Anglesey where it continued for another twenty years.

From Mersey to Menai

In 1941, with air raids on the Liverpool docks taking place, Conway had already survived several near misses. It was decided to move the ship from the Mersey to Bangor in North Wales. This being wartime there was no official announcement of the move and local residents were startled one evening to see a picturesque Nelson-era battleship, a "wooden wall", coming up the Menai Strait. She was moored near the pier in Bangor and became something of a local tourist attraction.

Related Topics:
Bangor - North Wales

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At the end of the 1940s there was a surge in demand for merchant navy cadets. The ship was did not have space for more cadets so the ship's Captain Superintendent, Captain Goddard, started looking for space ashore with playing fields and a shore establishment. He picked on Plas Newydd, the stately home of the Marquis of Anglesey, a large part of which had been vacated by the US Intelligence Corps at the end of the War. This site seemed ideal, except that the seabed provided very poor anchorage. He therefore sank four five-ton anchors there, quite an operation in itself. Only one problem remained: could the ship be moved there in one piece? She would need to be towed by tugs through through a stretch of water between Anglesey and the mainland, known locally as the "Swellies". This area, bounded by the two Menai bridges (the Menai Suspension Bridge and the Britannia Bridge), is notorious for underwater shoals and dangerous, complex tidal currents. Goddard was proud of his experience as a hydrographical surveyor, and having studied the problem, believed it was possible.

Related Topics:
Plas Newydd - Menai Suspension Bridge - Britannia Bridge

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After a false start the day before, the ship was successfully moved on 14 April 1949, in spite of what seems to have been a great risk. Conway was the largest ship ever to have passed through the Swellies. Her draft was 22 ft (6.7 m) aft and the clearances were minute, not just underwater but overhead too: just three feet under the Menai Bridge, which is 100 ft (30 m) above high water. "I was glad when it was accomplished," Goddard wrote. "It created a lot of interest amongst the North Wales seafaring fraternity, who had declared the undertaking to be a foolish one." Sadly, history would yet prove them right.

Related Topics:
14 April - 1949

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