Charles Sheldon (shipbuilder)

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Charles Sheldon (born September 29, 1655 in Gothenburg , † August 6, 1739 in Karlskrona ) was a Swedish shipbuilder who headed the royal shipyard in Stockholm and initiated the construction of the first dry dock on the Baltic Sea in the naval port of Karlskrona .

origin

Charles's father, Francis Sheldon (* 1612 in Chatham (Kent) ; † 1692) was an English shipbuilder who allegedly worked with his brother Gilbert Sheldon (1598–1677), Archbishop of Canterbury since 1663 , and another brother, Joseph Sheldon (* around 1627), Mayor of London , is said to have tried to free King Charles I from prison. In 1655 he emigrated to Sweden for political reasons and worked as a shipbuilder in Stockholm and from 1678 to 1883 in Riga, which was then Swedish . In 1685 he returned to England because he was not reimbursed for the construction costs of ships. From 1686 to 1690 he worked in Denmark . His younger son Francis John Sheldon (the younger), also a shipbuilder, who was born in 1660, died in Sweden in 1692.

plant

His younger son Charles Sheldon went back to Sweden after training as a shipbuilder in England 1685–1688 and became a master servant in 1689, then master shipbuilder at the royal shipyard in Stockholm and later head of Karl XI's. founded naval shipyard in Karlskrona. He held this office until his death. One of his ship designs, which his brother Francis (the younger) was in charge of during the implementation, was the Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia, built in 1692 and later named as this . In 1703 he visited England, France and Holland to study innovations in shipbuilding technology. After his return, he proposed the construction of a dry dock in the new Karlskrona shipyard, construction of which began in 1716 under the direction of the inventor Christopher Polhem . After an interruption from 1718 to 1720 caused by political unrest and difficulties with the contractors, the dock - the first on the Baltic Sea - was inaugurated in 1724.

In his role as the chief royal shipbuilder, Sheldon (presumably in collaboration with Polhem) carried out the first attempts at towing with scale models. He designed numerous types of warship, including fires with explosives, but also floating log houses, galleys and a frigate for operations on Lake Ladoga , also on the basis of intelligence reports from Russia and Denmark, which are hostile to Sweden .

progeny

Charles had twelve sons and seven daughters. His son Gilbert Sheldon (* 1710 in Karlskrona; † 1794 ibid.) Was his pupil and continued his father's work at the royal shipyard with the rank of lieutenant colonel . He built 69 larger ships, some in Gothenburg and Landskrona . His son Francis (* 1755) continued to run the shipyards; he was raised to the nobility (Francis af Sheldon). The family's shipbuilding tradition did not end until 1814.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the Society for Nautical Research
  2. ^ T. Eisentraut: The Swedish warship "Prinsessan Hedvig Sofia" (1692-1715) .
  3. ^ Website of the Society for Nautical Research
  4. ↑ January Glete: Swedish Naval Administration 1521-1721: Resource Flows and Organizational Capabilities. Leiden / Boston 2010, p. 343 f.
personal data
SURNAME Sheldon, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish shipbuilder
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1655
PLACE OF BIRTH Gothenburg
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 1739
Place of death Karlskrona