Manby mortar

The Manby mortar was invented by Captain George William Manby, who was also the inventor of the portable fire extinguisher.

Manby mortar, 1842 drawing
John Cantiloe Joy, Going to a Vessel requiring assistance and Thereby preventing Shipwreck (undated), Norfolk Museums Collections

The mortar fired a shot with a line attached from the shore to the wrecked ship. It was used by the Waterguard and later by H M Coastguard for many years.

Manby invented the device after seeing a ship run aground off Great Yarmouth in 1807.[1]

The first recorded rescue using the Manby apparatus was on 18 February 1808, with Manby himself in charge. The crew of seven were brought to safety from the Plymouth Brig Elizabeth, stranded off the shore at Great Yarmouth. It was estimated that by the time of Manby's death nearly 1000 persons had been rescued from stranded ships by means of his apparatus.[2]

Earlier attempts

There had been earlier unsuccessful attempts at similar ideas, for example: by the French agronomist and inventor Jacques Joseph Ducarne de Blangy[3], and a ship to shore idea by a Mr John Bell, in 1792 the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce gave him a bounty of fifty guineas, he was at that time a sergeant, afterwards a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. In 1807 the same society furnished some further particulars, with a plate of the apparatus. [4]

See also

References
  1. Gilly Pickup, What the British Invented: From the Great to the Downright Bonkers, Amberley Publishing Limited, 2015 ISBN 1445650282.
  2. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Manby, George William" . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
  3. "Founders Online: To Thomas Jefferson from Jacques Joseph Ducarne de Blangy, 3 J …".
  4. Philosophical Magazine Series 1, Volume 37, Issue 158, p455. 1811 url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14786441108563318


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