The Hong Kong History Podcast · Stephen Davies, DJ Clark

The small details: Edgar Goodman RMLI

·59 min·3 clips

Stephen says the wreck matches HMS Tamar, while the government calls it an unidentified iron object.

1. The Hong Kong History Podcast episode focuses on Edgar Goodman and the wreck off Wan Chai that Stephen Davies argues is HMS Tamar. 2. DJ Clark hosts from Hong Kong, and Dr Stephen Davies joins from Chester as the historian who identified the wreck and traced Goodman’s service record. 3. The episode asks why a “90 metre long” iron object found in 2013 matters for Hong Kong’s maritime and naval history. 4. Davies says the Central to Wan Chai Bypass dredger hit the wreck while preparing tunnel foundations in 2013. 5. He describes using a three-part manuscript chart from the Royal Navy’s postwar harbour surveys to locate the wreck “within three meters” of the charted position. 6. He says the chart marked the wreck as “HMS Tamar,” which matched the find off the Wan Chai waterfront. 7. Davies argues that the wreck’s stern section and orientation fit the old naval plans held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. 8. He says the Hong Kong government rejected the identification and kept calling it an “unidentified iron object.” 9. He says two later archaeological investigations cost “over two and a half million dollars” and still did not settle the identification. 10. Davies uses the incident to compare Hong Kong’s case with the Mary Rose, where he says a ship can still be identified from probabilities even without a ship’s bell or nameplate. 11. A tiny brass label on the wreck led Davies to Edgar Charles Goodman, who joined the Royal Marines in 1903. 12. He says Goodman was serving on the China Station in 1914 on the gunboat Thistle. 13. Davies traces the label to naval processing at a base depot ship and says a bag tag or service label could have moved through HMS Tamar. 14. He links Goodman’s movements to the Navy’s wartime reshuffle from HMS Tamar to HMS Triumph in 1913–1914. 15. Davies explains that Admiral John Fisher’s reforms pushed the Navy to replace old depot ships with vessels that could be used in war. 16. He says HMS Triumph had been built in Britain for Chile, then bought by the Royal Navy, renamed, and sent to Hong Kong to replace Tamar. 17. Davies describes the “nucleus crew system” and says the Navy had to find about 400 extra men to bring Triumph up to wartime strength in 1914. 18. He says 100 men came from the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, and the rest came from gunboat crews along the China coast. 19. The episode sounds conversational and digressive, with Davies moving from a wreck report to charts, naval administration, and personal family stories. 20. Listeners who like Hong Kong harbour history, Royal Navy bureaucracy, and archival detective work will get the most from it.

As heard by us

A harbour discovery leads into salvage work, wartime mobilization, and the practical problem of finding enough people to crew a ship.

A dredger on the Central to Wan Chai bypass project turns up a 90 metre long iron object nobody expected, and the episode uses that find to open out into Hong Kong harbour history and Royal Navy wartime readiness.

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Why you'd press play

If you like one odd find leading to a whole harbor wartime story, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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