The First Computer
Madup Orfer
The First Computer
In the first part of this story I recounted how Secret Papers describing this project were discovered describing Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's meeting with the brilliant mathematician Lana Gutrin, who later disguised herself as a man in an attempt to overcome the prejudices of the male-dominated 19th century scientific establishment in order to try to get her ideas for a calculating engine accepted. How Nelson was asked by the Admiralty to oversee the construction of the machine as a code breaking tool and how, as he became involved in this work and close to Lana he found he was becoming estranged from Emma Hamilton. Eventually, as he lay apparently dying on the Victory at Trafalgar, yet convinced that his wound was not as serious as at first thought, he realised that his only chance of escaping from his old life with the constant financial worries and health problems caused by his wounds and continual life at sea was to allow himself to die. Everyone believed Horatio Nelson was dying, so, if he was spared, he decided to become someone else.
There are no accounts in the secret journals as to how the deception was managed. The surgeon, Dr. Beatty, must have been a party to it, as must Captain Hardy, and there must have been other conspirators. It would not have been difficult to find a substitute body, there were plenty aboard Victory that day. Also, in the Great Storm which followed the battle in which many ships were dismasted or foundered there was much confusion, which would have made the deception easier.
There is only one hint that might explain how Nelson was smuggled off Victory and returned to England. Included in the secret documents were some private notes made by Dr. Beatty. Assuming that these must have been placed with the others for a reason they were examined in detail. Dr. Beatty makes reference to being assisted, immediately after the battle, by someone named 'Bowen', who seems to have impressed Dr. Beatty with his skill, although there are no specific details. There was no other surgeon in the fleet and no-one of this name on board Victory who might have helped in this way. However, there was one ship present at Trafalgar which was not a part of Nelson's fleet. This was the frigate Calypso, captain Nicholas Ramage, and Calypso's surgeon was named Bowen. He was an unusual person to have found his way into this position in the navy, where the pay and conditions tended to attract the very lowest members of the profession. Bowen had once had a wealthy Harley Street practice, and been very highly regarded. However, he had become addicted to drink, fallen deeply into debt, and, to escape debtors prison, been obliged to absence himself by becoming a ship's surgeon. He became cured of his addiction, and although his debts were settled and he could have returned to his previous lucrative practice, he remained at sea. It is therefore quite likely that this was the 'Bowen' referred to, especially with his superior medical skills.
Furthermore Captain Ramage was well known to Nelson and greatly in his debt. Some years before Ramage faced a court martial on a trumped-up charge aimed mainly at his father, the Earl of Blazey, a retired Admiral who had made many political enemies. Nelson had arrived to find the court martial in session, and, as senior officer on the station, ordered all the ships to sea. This obliged their captains, who had been presiding at the court martial, to depart with them, and made it impossible for the court martial to be re-convened.
A likely scenario is that Bowen came aboard Victory to attend Nelson and ensure that it was safe to transfer him to the Calypso. This must have happened very soon after the battle because later, in his journals, Nelson says that he thought that he would be leaving Emma Hamilton a very substantial sum, referring to his portion as Admiral of the prize money from the unprecedented number of Spanish and French ships taken at Trafalgar. Therefore he must have departed after the battle but before the Great Storm, since it was not until some time later when he was back in England and it was too late to change his mind that he discovered that the majority of the prizes, being greatly damaged in the battle, had foundered in the storm and so there was little prize money.
Although some material relating to the following few years has survived this consists primarily of portions of Nelson's personal diaries. It is obvious that everything relating to the calculating machine was kept in separate journals, and we believe that these were all destroyed after his death to preserve the secret. His diaries reveal that he spent some time recovering from his wounds at Blazey Hall, and later was living in a house at Abbey Wood in North Kent, with Lana Gutrin, as 'Captain and Mrs. Horace'. Lana was also playing the part of 'Mr. Gutrin', resuming her earlier disguise as a man where appropriate to enable her to supervise the building of the calculating machine.
Work on the machine was proceeding, but rather slowly. The use of semaphore signals to pass messages between Paris and the French military ports and garrisons was now common practice, and these messages could be read by any British agent in France. However, anything of significance was in code, and although the coded messages could be rapidly passed back to England by carrier pigeon even where an individual message could be deciphered this invariably took too long for the information to be of use. What the Admiralty was primarily interested in was news of warships putting to sea, as a large portion of the navy's strength was tied up in blockading French ports. Being forewarned would enable the Admiralty to reduce the number of ships needed for close blockade.
As so often happens Lana's design had gone through a number of changes and had become more complex. No drawing or proper description of the design has survived, so the description below is based upon references in the few that do exist. .
The main part of the device consisted of a large number of modular units mounted in a framework which resembled a large letter 'A'. This framework was rather fragile, and to stiffen and support it and carry the weight of the platforms upon which the operators would work there was a hollow brick tower. This also served to carry an access stairway and a large iron water tank which acted as the reservoir for the calculating engine. We know almost nothing about how this actually worked, only that it used water flowing downward through the various stages to move a cascade of levers. This water was exhausted from the two bases of the framework and collected in a pair of pools from whence it was pumped back up to the main reservoir.
On a day late in October 1808 a messenger arrived at the Admiralty to say that there had been a terrible accident at Abbey Wood. An agent who was acquainted with the secret project was at once despatched. Most of the information we have about this structure comes from the report on this incident submitted to their Lordships of the Admiralty by this agent which is one of he very few documents to survive intact.
At Abbey Wood he was told that when the workmen arrived in the morning they had found 'Mr Gutrin' lying dead, close to the crane that was used to hoist materials to the top of the tower, which structure was then nearing completion. The crane had been devised by Nelson himself. It had two large wooden cradles, arranged so that as one rose the other fell, and the movement of these was controlled by a capstan. This arrangement allowed the construction materials, including heavy timbers, to be hoisted up to the top of the brickwork tower with the minimum of manpower, an essential requirement to preserve secrecy.
The last workmen to leave the site on the previous day described how they had been on the top of the tower, finishing off the brickwork ready to take the iron reservoir tank. A fine rain started to fall, and they had been unable to complete their work while it continued. Eventually it began to get dark, and so they decided that they would not finish that day. Several sacks of plaster had been hoisted to the top of the tower for them to use, and not wishing to leave them exposed to the rain they put them in the hoist cradle and covered them with a tarpaulin, and then climbed down the ladders and went home. There were no witnesses to the accident, but the official who compiled the report must have had s good knowledge of routine at Abbey Wood for he was able to produce a very plausible explanation as to how events must have unfolded. Nelson, playing the part of an invalid naval officer, normally stayed away from the structure while the workmen were about, but it was his habit to inspect progress in the early evening when they had left. Because he found climbing the ladders difficult with only one arm when he wanted to inspect work high up the tower he would have himself hoisted up in one of the cradles. On this occasion there was no-one but Lana to do this, but thanks to the ease with which this could be accomplished using the capstan, this would not have been difficult. The assumption is that Nelson had climbed into the cradle at ground level, and Lana, still dressed in man's clothing, had cast off the locking lever on the capstan and prepared to hoist him up.
As she leant on the capstan bar and the locking lever disengaged the weight of the heavy bags of plaster in the cradle at the top of the hoist took over. Being much heavier than Nelson's slight form they began to move rapidly downward while Nelson, in the other cradle, began to move equally rapidly upward. The sudden movement caused the capstan to spin around, dragging Lana forward and snatching the bar out of her grasp. While still in this position she was struck violently in the back of the head by a capstan bar, shattering her skull and causing her death, and in this position her body was found by the workmen the next morning.
Meanwhile the cradle containing the plaster plummeted to the ground where it hit with such force that it shattered and the sacks holding the plaster split, spilling it into a heap. Relieved of this counterweight, the other cradle, containing Nelson, was now the heavier, and so reversed direction and headed back towards the earth at high speed. When the cradle struck it overturned and he was spilled out onto the top of the heap of plaster from whence he rolled down onto the ground, becoming covered in the material in the process. It is not possible to discover how badly injured he was by the fall, because by the time the Admiralty agent arrived the light rain had made the plaster set into a solid shell. The workmen, believing the body to be a statue of some sort, had picked it up and propped up against a nearby fence as it was impeding access to Lana's body. The agent inspected it briefly, but Nelson had obviously not survived his ordeal and he therefore left it as it was as he did not wish to draw attention to it, especially as the workmen seemed to have formed the opinion that 'Mr Gutrin' had been trying to hoist the 'statue' up with the crane when it had slipped out of the cradle and struck him. Furthermore the figure of Nelson covered in plaster bore an uncanny resemblance to him in his former life, possibly because of the telescope tucked beneath his arm.
Despite diligent searching the plans for the calculating machine could not be found. Floorboards were torn up, panelling removed, even the furniture was taken apart in the hope of finding a secret compartment, but to no avail. The possibility that the plans might have been stolen by French agents and Lana and Nelson murdered in the process was considered but discarded when not a hint of any foreign intervention could be discovered. Eventually it was decided that Nelson and Lana had been working entirely from the few rough sketches that had been discovered and had kept all the details in their heads. The Admiralty therefore decided that it would not be possible to continue and so all records were destroyed or locked away and every sign of the structure at Abbey Wood razed to the ground.
There the matter might have ended, except for the intervention of another charismatic figure.
In 1808 Sir Arthur Wellesley was recalled to Britain, apparently to face criticism for his failure to press home his advantage after winning the battle of Vimero. In fact, it was because some hint of what the Admiralty were up to had been picked up by the army. At this time there was intense rivalry between the the two services. This was mainly because of the way that officers were chosen. Naval promotion was almost entirely by seniority and merit. A potential officer would enter the service at a very early age, often as young as 12, and serve as a midshipman until he was old enough to become a lieutenant. Before this could happen he had to pass an examination to show that he was proficient in all aspects of navigation, ship handling, and other matters. Eventually he might be given command of a ship, and in due course become a 'post captain'. From then on promotion was almost entirely by seniority, and eventually, as those on the 'navy list' above him retired or died of disease or in bloody battles he would reach the rank of Admiral.
The army did things rather differently. To become an officer it was necessary to purchase a commission. Promotion by merit was rare, it was normally achieved when a position in the next higher rank became vacant so it could be purchased by the aspirant. Only people with money could become officers, as an officer's mess bill would invariably be higher than his pay, so independent means was essential. Aristocratic rank, wealth, influence and social status were far more important than military ability, and this system ensured that the 'riff-raff' were kept out and the army was run and controlled by the English landed gentry. The army therefore looked down upon the navy as although there were many titled admirals they often, like Nelson, had humble beginnings and had earned their titles rather than having inherited them.
Wellesley was an exception. He was given his first independent command by his brother, who was then Governor General of India. His obvious brilliance made him impossible to ignore, and so the army was obliged to make use of him. The establishment did not, however, approve. Although the son of a peer it was an Irish peerage, and so he was not a 'proper' gentleman. The army knew that the navy were 'up to something', and they wanted to know what it was, and Wellesley was asked to spend his time in England finding out. From the army's point of view he was perfectly suited for their purpose since he was obviously ambitious and no real gentleman would ever have accepted an assignment which might have been construed as spying.
He managed to find out about the house in Abbey Wood, and made a connection between this and some gossip about it and some sort of code breaking machine, but it seemed that the Admiralty had abandoned the project. Finally he decided to ride down to Abbey Wood himself. There he found a gutted house and a few piles of rubble. The only recognisable object was an old statue propped against a rotting fence. As he pushed aside the vegetation to take a closer look the fence collapsed, the statue fell over, and the part that looked like a stick tucked beneath the statue's arm snapped, revealing itself to be a roll of papers covered in plaster.
Wellesley chipped away at the plaster with a pistol but and discovered that not only had he found the plans of the calculating machine, but that the 'statue' was actually a body covered in plaster. Understanding the significance of his find, he rode quickly back to London. However, instead of reporting to his army superiors he decided that this was far to important to be given to people whose idea of secrecy was to tell only their immediate family, officers of equal or superior rank, and any cousins or people who had been to the same school. As he was a Member of Parliament he therefore went straight to the Prime Minister, Lord Portland. Unfortunately Portland was an ineffectual prime Minister, he left everything to his ministers, so Wellesley departed thinking he had placed the matter in safe hands and Portland did nothing.
It seems that the plans were just put away and forgotten, and it was only when Wellesley, then Duke of Wellington, returned to England in 1818 and was offered a place in the Cabinet that he discovered that nothing had been done. He used his influence to secure the setting up of a special Secret Committee to look into the matter. The design was greatly refined and improved and made even more complex, but with the end of the Napoleonic Wars the matter was not given any great priority. However, when Wellington left the Cabinet in 1827 to become Commander in Chief of the British Army he used his position to secure some land, behind the army's headquarters in Horseguards, on which the machine could be built.
Once again there were delays, complicated by the fact that Lana's plans, although detailed, were missing some essential dimensions. However, the final design for the site was completed by Sir Charles Barry in 1840, and the supporting tower by William Railton, and construction began, though rather more ornate than the original to conceal its true purpose. Unfortunately the various long delays meant that the project had been overtaken by events. In 1821 Charles Babbage produced his Difference Engine, and in 1832 announced his Analytical Engine. Both projects continued in parallel for a while, but Babbage's project seemed to offer a much cheaper solution, so work on Nelson's and Lana's computer was suspended.
Too much had been done for it to be to completely abandoned, so the design was altered slightly, the supporting column being moved further away from the sump pools than originally intended, and the pumps which had been intended to drive the water up to the reservoir tank were used to drive fountains mounted on the plinths which would have held the main framework of the Calculating Engine. To honour the original champion of the project, E.H.Bailey was commissioned to produce a statue. It cannot be confirmed, but it is believed that this 17ft tall statue contains within it the plaster covered body found at the house in Abbey Wood.
Although there is now nothing remaining of the wonderful Calculating Machine the components of the structure that would have supported it can still be seen to this day.
Madup Orfer