Joseph Trewavas

The Royal Navy Sailor Who Cut Russia’s Lifeline Under Fire

Six sailors in a small boat faced roughly two hundred Russian troops. Their supporting gun had failed, two earlier attempts against the target had been unsuccessful, and the enemy occupied the shoreline only about eighty yards away. Yet when the boat reached the floating bridge at Genitchi, nineteen-year-old Joseph Trewavas leapt onto it with an axe and cut through the hawsers holding it together.

What followed became one of the Royal Navy’s celebrated small-boat actions of the Crimean War. The official naval dispatch described the destruction of the bridge as having been carried out under a very heavy fire of musketry. Trewavas himself later recalled the sequence more precisely. According to his account, the Russians held their fire while the gig approached and while he cut the hawsers. Only after he had jumped back into the boat, and a British sailor fired toward the Russians, did the defenders unleash their fire. The distinction matters, but it does not diminish what followed. The British boat was riddled with musket balls, Trewavas was wounded, and the crew escaped in a damaged gig that was filling with water.

Joseph Trewavas was born on 14 December 1835 in the Cornish fishing village of Mousehole. The eldest child of fisherman Joseph Trewavas and Anne Roose, he grew up in a community whose livelihood depended upon the sea. On 15 October 1853, still only seventeen years old, he joined the Royal Navy at Devonport and was posted to HMS Agamemnon. A detailed service chronology records him entering the ship as an Ordinary Seaman, Second Class.

Less than a year later, he was serving in the Crimean War. Trewavas landed with the Naval Brigade and served in the trenches before Sebastopol, where sailors and Royal Marines fought ashore alongside the Army. He was also present at the Battle of Inkermann on 5 November 1854, one of the hardest-fought actions of the campaign. His participation in these operations was later represented by the Inkermann and Sebastopol clasps on his Crimea Medal.

Trewavas returned to HMS Agamemnon in February 1855. In late May he was lent to HMS Beagle for operations in the Sea of Azov, where British naval forces sought to disrupt the supplies sustaining the Russian armies in Crimea. Ships and boats attacked military stores, transport facilities, shipping and communications along the coast. Trewavas's service in this theatre earned him the Azoff clasp, giving his Crimea Medal three clasps in all: Inkermann, Sebastopol and Azoff. His surviving medal is preserved with all three clasps.

Among the most important objectives was the crossing between Genitchi and the Arabat Spit. Contemporary British reports described it as a ferry or floating bridge formed by large flats and hawsers. Destroying it would interrupt an important Russian line of communication and force supplies onto a much longer route. Two previous attempts had failed, increasing the danger of another attack.

On 3 July 1855, HMS Beagle made a further attempt. Acting Gunner John Hayles commanded the ship's four-oared gig, while Midshipman Martin Tracey commanded a supporting paddle-box boat. Contemporary and later accounts describe the small British party operating close to a shore occupied by Russian troops and riflemen. The gun intended to support the attack became ineffective after its first discharge, leaving the boat party dangerously exposed.

Trewavas was pulling the bow oar as the gig moved toward the crossing. His later account gives a striking detail absent from the terse official dispatch. He remembered seeing Russian soldiers being kept down on shore, but said that they did not initially fire. He believed they had misunderstood the British sailors' purpose.

When the gig reached the crossing, Trewavas jumped out with an axe, cut the hawsers and returned to the boat. In his later recollection, the Russians had still not fired while he was actually cutting. A British sailor in the bow then fired his rifle toward them. The Russians immediately responded.

The boat party now came under intense musketry at extremely short range. The water was so shallow that the gig had difficulty getting clear. Trewavas remembered the incoming shot striking around them like hail. Men were wounded and the boat was repeatedly hit. By the time the gig regained the protection of HMS Beagle, it was badly damaged and filling with water.

Lieutenant William Hewett's official report, written aboard HMS Beagle the following day, confirmed the essential facts. He reported that the hawsers had been cut, that the operation had taken place under very heavy musketry fire at about eighty yards, and that Russian troops lined the beach while riflemen occupied the nearby houses. Hewett particularly praised the boat's crew and singled out Joseph Trewavas, Ordinary Seaman, as the man who cut the hawsers. The casualty return recorded Trewavas as wounded during the attack.

The Victoria Cross citation, published in the London Gazette on 24 February 1857, condensed the entire operation into the wording for which Trewavas became famous:

“Particularly mentioned as having cut the hawsers of the floating bridge in the Straits of Genitchi, under a heavy fire of musketry.”

The citation also recorded that he had been wounded and emphasized the proximity of the Russian troops and riflemen. Its wording describes the action as a whole and does not give the second-by-second sequence later supplied by Trewavas himself. The two accounts should therefore be read together rather than forcing one to replace the other.

Trewavas also received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for his conduct at Genitchi. His original CGM survives with the remainder of his five-medal group. Ten days after the action, on 13 July 1855, his service chronology records his advancement to Able Seaman. This explains why he is commonly described by that rating in later accounts even though the contemporary Genitchi dispatch called him an Ordinary Seaman.

Queen Victoria personally presented Trewavas with the Victoria Cross at Hyde Park on 26 June 1857 during the first great public investiture of the new decoration. His Victoria Cross retains the dark-blue ribbon originally prescribed for Royal Navy recipients. Penlee House Gallery and Museum, which preserves the medal, identifies Trewavas as the first Cornishman to receive the Victoria Cross.

His Crimean service brought further recognition. France appointed Trewavas a Knight, or Chevalier, of the Légion d'honneur. The award was formally recorded among the French decorations granted to British servicemen, with Trewavas listed as an Ordinary Seaman of HMS Agamemnon. He also received the Turkish Crimea Medal. Together with his Victoria Cross, Conspicuous Gallantry Medal and Crimea Medal with three clasps, these formed the five-medal group now associated with him.

Trewavas continued in the Royal Navy after the Crimean War and eventually served in other parts of the world. His later naval career included service aboard HMS Pelorus. He left the Royal Navy on 10 December 1862 after nearly a decade of service, his final recorded rating being Able Seaman.

Returning to Mousehole, Trewavas resumed the life of a fisherman. He married Margaret Harry in the mid-1860s and bought a fishing lugger that he named Agamemnon after the ship on which his Royal Navy career had begun. He later became prominent in local public affairs, serving on Cornwall County Council and the County Fisheries Committee. During the 1890s he was also associated with the Mousehole Harbour Commissioners and served as secretary and treasurer.

Joseph Trewavas died in Mousehole on 20 July 1905, aged sixty-nine. He was buried in an unmarked grave at Paul, near Mousehole. Almost a century later, on 26 June 2002, exactly 145 years after his Victoria Cross investiture, a memorial plaque was unveiled at St Pol de Leon Church in Paul. His medal group is preserved by Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Penzance.

Joseph Trewavas did not earn his reputation through command or high rank. At Genitchi he was a nineteen-year-old Ordinary Seaman in the bow of a small boat sent against a defended Russian crossing. Two earlier attempts had failed. The supporting weapon had become ineffective. Russian soldiers and riflemen were positioned only a short distance away.

Trewavas still climbed onto the crossing and cut the hawsers.

His own later recollection indicates that the Russians held their fire until he had completed that task and returned to the gig. Then the musketry began. The official naval report described the wider operation as being carried out under very heavy fire, and the battered boat and wounded sailors testified to the danger of the withdrawal.

Trewavas had done what the boat party had been sent to do. The crossing was broken, the crew escaped, and his part in the operation was formally singled out in the dispatches. It earned Joseph Trewavas the Victoria Cross and helped secure his place among the Royal Navy's most remarkable sailors of the Crimean War.