1705 – Talbot Edwards – Chief Engineer of Gibraltar
William Skinner is one of the more well-known British Chief Engineers of the many we have had in Gibraltar. He spent 2 years on the Rock from 1736 to 1738 in an acting capacity and then possibly another five from 1741 as the official version when he was given - among other titles - that of Director of Engineering.
Less well known is that Skinner lost his parents when young and was adopted by his father's sister, a Mrs. Lambert, who later married Captain Talbot Edwards, the military Chief Engineer in Barbados and the Leeward Islands and who later became one of the four "fourth engineers" of Great Britain.
By 1702 Edwards had been promoted to second engineer and had inherited a series of maps and plans from the King’s overall chief engineer - Martin Beckman, at least one of which - as shown below - was a 1684 plan of Gibraltar which he produced while on a visit to Tangier and Gibraltar in 1683.
Gibraltar (1684 – Martin Beckman)
It must have come in handy as in 1705 when Edwards became the Rock’s chief military engineer. He was supposed to have taken over from Captain Joseph Bennet who had been sent to Gibraltar from Lisbon and was in effect - if not officially - the first military chief engineer on the Rock after it was taken over by Anglo-Dutch forces in 1704.
Not that Bennet could have had much time to put into practice his engineering skills in peace and quiet as the new occupiers fought off Franco-Spanish forces determined to retake the place.
Soon after Edwards’ arrival in February 1705 he wrote the following to the Board of Ordnance:
Day and night they throw bombs and shot into the town, which has laid great part of it in rubbish. The houses near the enemy look like a place where some great fire has been, but the Fortification towards the land is most dreadfully torn, which indeed cannot be wondered at since it is now above seventeen weeks the siege began, and in that time it is computed there has been 8000 bombs thrown in and above 70,000 shot which not long since had dismounted all the cannon. But by the un- wearied pains of the good Prince here (who is continually upon the Fortifications and often will work himself some are mounted again and the rest are in hand.
All of which is not surprising as he didn’t last very long in Gibraltar and was replaced less than a year after his arrival by Bennet who then became the official Chief Military Engineer of the fortress.
Postscript
In the 1670s, an Anglo Irish self-styled colonel and scoundrel called Thomas Blood attempted to steal the Crown Jewels of England. These were kept in the Tower of London and were looked after by the Master of the Jewel House who happened to be Talbot Edwards’ father, the 77 year old, Talbot Edwards Snr.
The plan and its lengthy execution are far too obtuse to go into here. but suffice to say that it failed – mostly because of the intervention of Talbot Edwards Jnr – some say it was his younger brother Wythe - who happened to be visiting at the time. Blood was captured and imprisoned but was curiously never prosecuted. Instead he was given a pension and some valuable land in Ireland.
Post-postscript
Blood's son Holcroft Blood – a contemporary of Talbot Edwards Jnr - became a distinguished military engineer rising to the rank of Brigadier-General.
To quote Woody Allen - Crime does pay, The hours are good and you travel a lot.