Qualla: HMS Conway https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/n/hms-conway-school-ship-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: HMS Conway https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship HMS Conway: Introduction https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship/ Photo credit SouthcottC, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the morning of 14 April 1953, the master of a wooden warship built in 1839 walked aboard, ordered the tugs to cast off, and started a passage through the Swellies - the most dangerous stretch of tidal water on the Welsh coast - without checking a weather forecast. Thirteen miles north of him, the Liverpool pilot boat was logging northwesterly winds at force 6. In the shelter of his anchorage at Plas Newydd, his own logbook recorded northerly force 1. Within ninety minutes HMS Conway, the floating naval academy that had trained merchant officers for ninety-four years, would be aground on the Platters and broken-backed. The fact that not a single cadet, officer or crewman died that morning is one of the more remarkable accidents in British maritime history.

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/n/hms-conway-school-ship-wp/gcmn-hms-conway-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full HMS Conway: The Demand for Officers https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship/ Photo credit SouthcottC, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the mid-nineteenth century the merchant navy was a vast, unstandardised industry. Ship owners wanted officers who could navigate, do mathematics, write reports, and lead crews - which is to say, men formally educated for the job. In 1857 the Mercantile Marine Service Associati...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/n/hms-conway-school-ship-wp/gcmn-hms-conway-the-demand-for-officers.mp3 0:06 2 full HMS Conway: Cadets and Quarterdecks https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship/ Photo credit SouthcottC, CC BY-SA 4.0. For nearly a century she trained merchant officers and a remarkable number of remarkable men. Captain Matthew Webb (Conway 1860-62) became the first man to swim the English Channel. John Masefield (1891-94) became Poet Laureate, and decades later returned to unveil the new figure...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/n/hms-conway-school-ship-wp/gcmn-hms-conway-cadets-and-quarterdecks.mp3 0:06 3 full HMS Conway: Mersey to Menai, 1941 https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship/ Photo credit SouthcottC, CC BY-SA 4.0. When German bombers found the Liverpool docks in 1941, Conway had already survived several near misses. The decision was taken in secret: move the ship to Anglesey, out of the bombers' likeliest tracks. She was towed north and moored in the Menai Strait between the former Bishop'...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/n/hms-conway-school-ship-wp/gcmn-hms-conway-mersey-to-menai-1941.mp3 0:06 4 full HMS Conway: The Platters https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship/ Photo credit SouthcottC, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1953 another refit was due. Birkenhead dry dock was the only option, which meant returning through the Swellies. Captain Eric Hewitt had planned the timing carefully with the Caernarfon harbour master, allowing for the brief equilibrium between opposing tidal streams that Wels...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/n/hms-conway-school-ship-wp/gcmn-hms-conway-the-platters.mp3 0:06 5 full HMS Conway: After the Wreck https://qualla.com/hms-conway-school-ship/ Photo credit SouthcottC, CC BY-SA 4.0. The school did not die with the ship. Captain Goddard's earlier search for a shore establishment had already settled on Plas Newydd, the stately home of the Marquess of Anglesey. The cadets moved fully onshore, and the school continued at Plas Newydd until 1974, when changing pat...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/n/hms-conway-school-ship-wp/gcmn-hms-conway-after-the-wreck.mp3 0:06 6 full