Foster 876

The ‘Bombay Grab’, a Cruiser of the Bombay Marine, a three masted sloop, with crossed mizen yard, ten gun ports showing, and a low-cut bow with a very heavy, almost horizontal bowsprit above, sailing to the proper right, with topsails, fore course and jib set, over a calm sea. By a Bombay artist, c.1780.

Original title painted on reverse of canvas (now relined): ‘Bombay Grab’, with attached label reading: ‘Your Great Grandfather Harrison's ship, when he was in the Indian Medical Service, and went in in’ (sic)’ India. It is very old so requires great care. August 1919.’

Oil on canvas, in original frame, 41 by 52 cms.

Purchased 1994

Literature: Jean Sutton: ‘Lord of the East: the East India Company and its Ships’, London, 1981. David MacGregor: ‘Merchant’ ‘Sailing Ships 1775-1815’, London, 1985.

Compare W.A. Skynner's drawing of the Bombay Grab in 1776, WD2206.

The ‘Bombay Grab’ was an armed ‘cruiser’ of the Bombay Marine with somewhere between 20 and 28 guns (the sources differ), built of Malabar teak in the Bombay shipyard of Lowjee Nusserwanjee in 1739. It was manned normally by over 60 seamen in addition to the Commander and three lieutenants. It was one of the Bombay Marine's biggest ships, being exceeded only by the Commodore's flagship, a frigate, and took part in the principal engagements in the Arabian Sea including the destruction of the Angrian pirates. Its longevity, owing to its teak construction, was a legend, but it ‘took fire accidentally in the harbour on the 29th July [1789] and burnt with such rapidity that all assistance was ineffectual’ (Public Letter from Bombay, 24th December 1789, para.87). A lieutenant and 15 crew perished. ‘The ship towards morning drifted up the harbour over to the Maratta shore near Ballapore where she burnt to the water's edge.’ The lack of a ‘respectable watch’ was partly blamed for the disaster. The Bombay government immediately ordered two new frigates from the same yard, one of which, completed in 1793, was also named ‘Bombay’.

'Grab' is derived from the Arabic 'gorab' and the Marathi 'gurab' or fast galleys used in India particularly by the Angrian pirates, who must have found the forward lines of the 'grabs' very useful for ramming and boarding their prey. The engraving by P. Chesham (from Orme?) of the 1756 attack on Gheriah shows grabs with two masts, and similar bowsprit to the ‘Bombay Grab’, but the larger Bombay Marine ships such as the one shown in this painting and the Company's 16 gun sloop or packet ‘Swallow’, similarly built in Bombay, were modified with three masts.

The ‘Bombay Grab’ is flying a Union Jack in the bows and a pendant-like red ensign, both without the blue ground of St. Andrew's cross, rather than an authorised Company flag (the design is clearly pre-1801). On the other hand many 18th century pictures of the E.I.C.'s ships show them with the Union Flag which was contrary to regulations enforced since the 17th century. Chesham's ‘The Attack on Gheriah’ shows the Bombay Marine ships with varieties of flags, and with at least one of the grabs flying the Union Jack at the bow. The absence of shrouds on the port side of the ship suggests that it is painted according to a ship's rigging- or sail-plan, where it was usual to omit the port shrouds for the sake of clarity. Other such details including the over-tall masts and lack of nautical clarity as well as the general 'primitiveness' of the painting's appearance suggest an Indian artist coming to terms with the use of oils. MacGregor p.189 reproduces a painting in oils of the E.I.C.'s ship ‘Carnatic’ anchored possibly in Bombay harbour, apparently by an Indian artist about 1800, showing similar flags and with over-tall masts.

Richardson Harrison, of the Bombay Medical Service, was appointed 31st March 1769. Lists of officers of the Bombay Marine in the 1770s show Harrison on the lists of surgeons available for ship's duties between 1770 and 1778, but the accompanying incomplete lists of ship's officers do not show him as surgeon of the ‘Bombay Grab’, although his name appears on other ship's lists. Surgeons’ duties on ship were regarded as boring and uncomfortable, and were the subject of much grumbling in the Bombay medical service. There seems to have been a roster of such duties among the junior members of the service. Harrison became surgeon at Tellicherry in 1781, and the Second Member (of two) of the Bombay Medical Board when it was established in 1787. He went on furlough in 1789 and did not return to the service. He presumably brought this picture of the ‘Bombay Grab’ in its last year back with him (or is it perhaps a commemorative portrait?).