Admiral Blake

At the end of Fore Street is a bronze statue of Admiral Robert Blake, Oliver Cromwell’s “General at Sea”. The plaques mounted on the granite pedestal illustrate his victories at sea and the return of his body to Plymouth in 1657.

Robert Blake (1598-1657) was one of the most important military commanders under Cromwell. He was the eldest son of 13 siblings born to a Bridgwater merchant, and in 1640 was elected as MP for Bridgwater in the Short Parliament until it was dissolved by King Charles I after just 3 weeks. When the civil war broke out, he began his military career on the side of the parliamentarians with very little experience of military or naval matters. His victories included the siege of Bristol (1643), siege of Lyme Regis (1644), siege of Taunton (1645) and the siege of Dunster (1645). At Taunton he declared he would eat three of his four pairs of boots before he would surrender. The Parliamentary garrison held out for nearly a year and it proved a turning point in the Civil War.

In 1649 he was appointed General at Sea and is often referred to as the “Father of the Royal Navy.” He was responsible for building the largest English navy hitherto with well over a hundred ships, was the first to keep a fleet at sea over winter, developed new techniques to conduct blockades and landings, and to attack successfully despite fire from shore forts. He established parliamentarian supremacy at sea after hunting down and defeating the Royalist feet under Prince Rupert and the Portuguese fleet in 1650 at Cartagena. He then consolidated Cromwell’s hold on the isles of Scilly and the Channel Islands, and was then supplied Cromwell’s army with provisions in Ireland and in the Americas.

In 1652 a stupid war broke out between England and Holland, beginning with the Battle of Godwin Sands when the Dutch fleet under Admiral Maarten Tromp delayed in saluting the British fleet, and two Dutch ships were sunk. Despite Tromp’s determination to sweep the English fleet off the seas, and fixing a broom to his masthead, peace with the Dutch was finally made after the Battle of Scheveningen in 1653, where Tromp was killed.

In 1655 Robert Blake was sent to the Mediterranean to extract compensation from the states fostering piracy against English shipping. When the Bey of Tunis refused to comply, Blake destroyed 9 Algerian ships and the two shore batteries without landing men ashore, the first time this had been done.

During the 1656-1657 Anglo-Spanish War, Blake blockaded Cadiz throughout the winter, and then destroyed the Spanish fleet at Santa Cruz Bay, Tenerife, without losing a ship but himself being severely wounded. He died just before reaching England, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, until after the restoration of the Monarchy when his body was exhumed and dumped in a common grave.

But Bridgwater is proud to have such a son, and his name is perpetuated throughout the town. Blake gardens were purchased for the town in 1898. Blake Street is named after him. The statue was unveiled in 1900. Hamp Secondary Modern School was renamed Blake in 1957, when Blake Bridge was also constructed, at the 300th anniversary of his death.