PLAQUE FOR MILITARY DIVING PIONEER

Major General Sir Charles William Pasley FRS KCB (1780 - 1860)

The Historical Diving Society recently joined with the Royal Engineers in celebrating the diving achievements of Major General Sir Charles William Pasley FRS KCB (1780 - 1860).

A ceremony was held in the Historic Dockyard at Chatham, Kent, where Pasley conducted experiments into military diving during the 1830s and 40s. Brigadier Sexton, Commandant of the Royal School of Military Engineering, unveiled a plaque in the presence of a several RE personnel, the Mayor and Mayoress of Chatham, Historic Dockyard officers and representatives of The Historical Diving Society.

A Siebe Gorman helmet, divers boots and weights were used to cover the plaque with a Royal Engineers flag, whilst HDS Chairman Dr. John Bevan presented a eulogy on the life of Major General Pasley.

Action and Honour

Born in Scotland, Pasley joined the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich at the age of 16. The following year he obtained his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery before transferring to the Royal Engineers. Thus began an incredible early career as a soldier on active service in the Napoleonic wars. At the siege of Flushing in 1809 he led a party to spike an enemy battery during which he received a bayonet wound to the leg and a bullet in his back. Though invalided for a year he returned to the war, serving directly under Wellington.

In 1812 he was appointed, on Wellington's recommendation, as first Director of the Royal Engineer training establishment in Chatham. It was the start of a long and distinguished second career. Under Pasley the Corps of Royal Engineers and its Sappers and Miners was developed into a highly professional and formidable force. Pasley's keen intellect allied with a genuine understanding of campaigning and soldiering gave him a unique insight into the engineering requirements of the 19th century British Army.

Pasley welcomed new technology and the outpouring of products and innovations that sprang from the second industrial revolution provided him with an unending opportunity to experiment with new materials and techniques.

Pasley and Diving

In 1838 he turned his attention to diving, and over the next five years undertook a programme of practical experimentation which not only introduced diving to the military, but served in itself to advance the technology as never before. Indeed Pasley's involvement in the adoption of the closed diving dress was crucial, his interest provoking a flurry of development amongst manufacturers - most notably Augustus Siebe - anxious to obtain lucrative government contracts.

During this period Pasley first learned all he could from the foremost civilian divers of the day, and then through the application of a military mindset which saw even a civil engineering task as an attack on an objective, elevated diving to hitherto undreamed of capability. The destruction of the wreck of the Royal George in the Solent was Pasley's greatest achievement, still famous today. However, it was his attention to detail and willingness to experiment that really brought diving - through the military adaptation of the Standard Dress - into the modern era.

As a result of his early diving success Pasley even persuaded a reluctant Royal Navy to take it up (initially under Royal Engineers instruction), whilst the impact of the closed apparatus on the world of engineering and salvage was incalculable. No doubt someone, somewhere, would eventually have advanced diving if Pasley hadn't, but it remains a fact that the commercial and military divers of today can trace the formal roots of their professional training back to Pasley's early 19th century vision.

Implacable Event

After John Bevan had outlined Pasley's life, which also included important work in areas as diverse as the use of cement and a proposal for decimal coinage, Brigadier Sexton, flanked by a Guard of Honour and to the accompaniment of a bugle fanfare, unveiled the plaque. This was achieved by the unusual yet highly appropriate method of moving one of the divers weights, a keen and icy wind off the River Medway doing the rest. 'Diving weather' - as all the divers present remarked!

The erection of the plaque, which was jointly sponsored by The Historical Diving Society and the Royal Engineers, was organised by Major Tom Flower RE, formerly in command of Royal Engineer diver training at the joint services diver training establishment on Horsea Island. Anyone who knew Tom at Horsea may be interested to know that the plaque unveiling was his last military duty - he has now retired and intends, in the first instance, to 'finish the bloody boat'!

The HDS has an ongoing programme of commemorating famous divers and diving events, with a small budget set aside each year to help achieve this. The Society would be delighted to hear from anyone with an idea for a plaque or other memorial.