John Bythesea - Loss of HMS Lord Clyde

Loss of HMS Lord Clyde

On 14 September 1871 he commissioned the battleship HMS Lord Clyde at Plymouth and took her out to the Mediterranean Fleet. In March 1872, Lord Clyde:

"was lying at Syracuse and received a wire from Malta to proceed at once to the help of a British steamer aground on the island of Pantellaria, on which service she got far worst aground herself. Anchors were laid out, coal jettisoned, guns, ammunition and stores hoisted over the side into small casters in the island hired on the spot, and everything possible done to lighten her, but she remained a fixture except to sway in the swell from the open sea, strain her back, and wrench off her sternpost, rudderpost and rudder. It took some time to summon help, as that was a full generation before the days of wireless telegraphy and Pantellaria had no cables; but an officer was dispatched by a passing steamer to Malta, where the HMS Lord Warden was lying as flagship and came at once to pull her crippled sister off the floor and get her to bed. This proved an extremely difficult job even when she was afloat again, as she yawed about so violently without a rudder when in tow, as to pull the sister in charge all over the place. It took three days to conduct erring footsteps a distance that could ordinarily be covered in less than one, and all the while she was leaking at a steady rate of 2 feet per hour. On arrival at Malta she had to be docked with great care on account of the badly damaged state of her bottom; and the yard reported that it would take six months to repair."

The court-martial in April 1872 severely reprimanded Bythesea and the Navigating Officer, who were dismissed from their ship and neither of them were ever employed at sea again.

The Lord Clyde was never commissioned again.