Mathew Baker
Mathew Baker (b 1530) the son of James was to become one of the most renowned Tudor shipwrights, and the first to put the practice of shipbuilding down on paper.With John Hawkins reformed naval administration underway, the new generation of Shipwrights began to bring the ancient craft to rule. Perhaps the greatest architect of Hawkins Navy was the son of James Baker, Mathew who, having served apprentice to his father and grown up in the busy aromatic surrounds of the Dockyard was himself appointed Master Shipwright in 1572.
The first list of 'Master Shipwrights' appointed 'by Patent' by Henry VIIIth included 'John Smyth, Robert Holborn, Richard Bull and James Baker' and again Peter Pett the son of John was summoned from Harwich to work on the King's Ships at Portsmouth.
His father had been appointed first Master Shipwright of King Henry VIIIth from 1537 and had been responsible for many of the designs and the construction of henry fleet, so Mathew, who was known to dislike his rival Phineas Pett, competed to become the chief engineer of Elizabeth's Navy.
His success was achieved when he became the first ever known Shipwright to evolve the closely guarded secret of 'laying down the lines' for a ship, not as was traditional at the site of construction, but on paper, so that scale models were no longer the only means of understanding the secret lore of the Shipwright. By this method it became possible to discuss and modify the plans with the patron.
Few Shipbuilding treatises survive from the middle ages; all date from the Fifteenth Century, and all of them are Italian (specifically, Venetian). The earliest detailed English treatise on ship design is by the Elizabethan Master Shipwright Mathew Baker who is known to have built the 'Dreadnought', the 'Vanguard' and the 'Merhonour'.
Peter Pett and Mathew Baker were both at Deptford with the launch of a new design of oceanic type of warship in 1575, HMS the Revenge representing a departure from anything ever seen before. The origin of the 'Sailing Ship of the Line', and the design that was to hail the mastery of the seas so often associated with Britain.
The 'Revenge', not a giant at 500 tons was fast and dangerous. Heavily armed, its chief advantage was in that it could remain at sea for long periods, and was easily manoeuvrable in a tight spot against an aggressor.
Pett's sister married John Chapman, Master Shipwright, whose own son Richard Chapman was born in 1620 and Master Shipwright of Woolwich and Deptford, who was to build the 'Ark', and was raised in the Pett household, "as in all probability was Mathew Baker' with whom, from 1570 Peter Pett was associated in the works at Dover."
Perhaps inevitably, a quarrel ensued between Baker and Phineas Pett and according to Pett's side of the story, over the following ten to twelve years Mathew Baker lost no opportunity of 'doing him a bad turn'. This does seem to bear out when the poisonous comments in Baker's own words are noted.
Ironically, perhaps considering the lengthy predominance of the power of the Pett Dynasty over the years, but according to Pett, the administration of the Dockyards was, at the time altogether swayed by personal interest, jealousy and malicious intrigue.
The son of Peter Pett, Phineas, and his son, Peter, both endured the ill will of those in the boat building fraternity, spurred by jealousy, who wished, for the sake of personal gratification, to see the Pett Dynasty fall.
His crime, his pertinent and bold initiative in experimenting with sweeping aside Mathew Baker's grand principals of 'Shipwrightry'.
Phineas Pett was to become the subject of an enquiry, that had simmered until it became so serious King James I was forced to intervene, taking the matter personally in hand, in the light of stern criticism against Pett whilst he was out of the Country in 1621, from members of the Navy Commission, led by Burrell in this instance, on the seaworthiness that old but prestigious Ship the 'Prince'.
At the bequest of Baker, and party of accomplished and 'diverse Master Shipwrights', of the Thames, amongst them a Naval Captain, George Waymouth, all as eager as Courtiers for the attention of the King, to whom they complained of Pett, that amongst other outrages he was found employing the practice of 'furing', to subsequently broaden the width of the ' Prince Royal', it was alleged he had misjudged the calculated width thereof, under Baker's system.
He had in fact introduced modifications into the methods followed by Baker and the older Shipwrights, such as his adjustments of the width of the floor and the shape of the bows.
A great fuss was duly made concerning little more than a said poorly chosen selection of timbers for the construction, and an over estimation of cost, which appears to have been no more than the usual practice.
In Perrin's introduction to Pett's Autobiography the biographer explains that: "this indictment cannot be lightly set aside. Mathew Baker was the most prominent shipbuilder of that day, Bright and Richard Meryett (or Meritt) were Government Shipbuilders of long experience, while Nicholas Clay, John Greaves and Edward Stevens were private builders of considerable standing in their profession".
It was these men who sided with Baker on who was competent to undertake the refit of the 'Prince Royal' built under Pett. Perrin, giving the benefit of the doubt to Pett, comments on this matter that it is a pity hardly any authentic details have survived of the ship itself.
Pett's own reference to this matter in his Autobiography reads: "touching the cross-grained timber, his Majesty protested very earnestly the cross grain was in the men and not in the timber!"
Thus notwithstanding the opinions of said divers mariners, having "maliciously certified the ship (the 'Prince') unserviceable and not fit to be continued", by "the 24th of February succeeding, by special command from His Majesty, who well understood their malicious proceedings, the selfsame surveyors were again sent to Chatham and under their hands certified that the ship might be made serviceable for a voyage into Spain with the charge of £300/~ to be bestowed upon her hull and the perfecting her masts, which certificate was returned under their hands and delivered to His Majesty".
Whereupon the 'Prince' was brought into the docks at Chatham on the 8th of March 1623, to be launched a fortnight later.Phineas Pett and Mathew Baker.
Phineas Pett was something of a free radical amongst the established Master Shipwrights who appear to have seen Pett as a dangerous upstart, they made several attempts to thwart his advancement, but failed in the long run to deter him, one might well imagine this story to reveal a conspiracy, as Pett himself upheld.