page_title: Tilbury Fort
section_title: 18th–19th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Tilbury Fort / History / 18th–19th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: Late 18th century cannon at Tilbury Fort
context_page_description: Tilbury Fort, also known historically as the Thermitage Bulwark and the West Tilbury Blockhouse, is an artillery fort on the north bank of the River Thames in England. The earliest version of the fort, comprising a small blockhouse with artillery covering the river, was constructed by King Henry VIII to protect London against attack from France as part of his Device programme. It was reinforced during the 1588 Spanish Armada invasion scare, after which it was reinforced with earthwork bastion, and Parliamentary forces used it to help secure the capital during the English Civil War of the 1640s. Following naval raids during the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the fort was enlarged by Sir Bernard de Gomme from 1670 onwards to form a star-shaped defensive work, with angular bastions, water-filled moats and two lines of guns facing onto the river.
  In addition to protecting the Thames, in the 18th century Tilbury also began to be used a transit depot and for storing gunpowder. It continued to be essential for the defence of the capital and a new artillery battery was added in the south-east corner during the Napoleonic Wars.
context_section_description: By the start of the 18th century, Tilbury Fort was one of the most powerful in Britain. The number of artillery guns varied; in 1715 there were 17 demi-cannon and 26 culverins mounted on the west gun platform, and 31 demi-cannons and one culverin on the east; the following year there were reported to be 161 guns in total at the fort, although 92 of these were in poor repair and inoperable.
  In addition to its role in protecting the Thames, the fort had various military uses during the 18th century. From 1716 onwards, the Board of Ordnance began to use it as a gunpowder depot; there were safety restrictions on moving gunpowder in and out of the London docks, so Tilbury was used instead. Two large magazines were built, able to hold 3,600 barrels of powder each, and the old blockhouse and other buildings were converted to act as further magazines. Eventually the fort could hold more than 19,000 barrels of gunpowder. It was also used as a transit depot for soldiers and, after the Jacobite rising of 1745, as a prison to hold 268 Highlander prisoners of war. The Jacobite prisoners were kept in the gunpowder magazines and 45 died from typhus before they were sent on to London for trial.
  The living conditions at the fort were poor. It was surrounded by marshes, with a poor road network, and the garrison had to survive on collected rainwater. A trader called a sutler built a house inside the southern entrance, growing vegetables within the south-west bastion and enjoying an effective monopoly on selling food to the soldiers. New barracks for the officers and enlisted men were rebuilt in 1772, but the officers often preferred to live across the river in the more urban setting of Gravesend, near the military headquarters there. A cricket match in 1776 between men from the Kentish and Essex sides of the Thames reportedly ended in bloodshed when guns were seized from the guardroom; newspapers recounted how an Essex man and a sergeant were shot dead, and a soldier was bayonetted, before both sides fled the scene. It is uncertain how accurate the newspaper account was, although the historians Andrew Saunders and Charles Kightly give it some credence.
  During the American Revolutionary War there were fears of a French attack on London. In 1780, the Army carried out a practice attack on the fort with 5,000 soldiers, but there were less than 60 guns left at the fort and many of these were in poor condition. Thomas Hyde Page inspected Tilbury in 1788 and reported that the defences facing the Thames were seriously inadequate. As a consequence, a new battery was built in the south-east corner of the defences, armed with 32-pounders (14.5 kg) pointing down-river, and a new battery, New Tavern Fort, was built along the river to the east. Fears continued during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and smaller batteries were constructed further up the river in 1794. Tilbury continued to be an essential part of the capital's defences because of its control of the crossing point on the Thames, and the guns were upgraded with new traversing platforms; the Gravesend Volunteer Artillery was formed to man the forts on both sides of the river. During the invasion scare of 1803, the Royal Trinity House Volunteer Artillery manned ten armed hulks placed across the river as a barrier at Tilbury.
  The size of the garrison varied during the first half of the century, but in 1830 the fort had space for 15 officers and 150 enlisted men. Despite the construction of a new range of facilities in 1809, the living conditions of the soldiers remained poor, with four men sharing each of the two-bed rooms in the barracks, and no running water on the site. During the 19th century, a pump was installed to bring water up from a well 178 metres (584 ft) below the surface. Nationwide investigations into the standard of Army barracks during 1857 led to investment in better facilities at Tilbury; piped water was run into the site in 1877, and improved amenities and sanitation were installed after 1880.
  By the 1850s, the advent of steam ships meant that enemy vessels cou
caption: Late 18th-century cannon on the bastion walls
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