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Edmund Dummer (1651–1713) was an English naval engineer and shipbuilder who, as Surveyor of the Navy, designed and supervised the construction of the Royal Navy dockyard at (Devonport), Plymouth and designed the extension of that at Portsmouth. His survey of the south coast ports is a valuable and well-known historic document. He also served Arundel as Member of Parliament for approximately ten years and founded the first packet service between Falmouth, Cornwall and the West Indies. He died a bankrupt in the Fleet debtors' prison. In her account of Dummer, Celina Fox sums up his career thus: "Using elements of mathematical calculation and meticulously honed standards of empirical observation, Dummer tried to introduce a more rational, planned approach to the task of building ships and dockyards, with the help of his extraordinary draughting skills. Operating on the margins of what was technically possible, meeting with opposition from vested interests and traditional work patterns, he struggled to succeed. Today he is little recognized outside the circle of naval historians and his grandest building projects were almost wholly destroyed by later dockyard developments or bombing." ==Early career== Dummer was baptised on 28 August 1651 at St. Nicolas' Church, North Stoneham, Hampshire, the eldest of four sons born to Thomas Dummer (1626–1710), gentleman farmer of Chickenhall, in the parish of North Stoneham near Southampton, and his wife, Joanne Newman. He joined the Royal Navy in 1668 and served his apprenticeship as a shipwright under Sir John Tippetts at Portsmouth naval dockyard.〔 In his 1686 account of the state of the Navy, Samuel Pepys wrote that when Dummer was apprenticed to Tippetts, he was "''mostly employed as his clerk in writing and drawing''". By 1678, Dummer was employed as an "extra clerk" in the office of the Surveyor, "''my patron and friend from my youth upward''".〔 His job was to make designs for a variety of projects – lanthorns, wet docks, lodgings at Sheerness, ships' sterns – as well as to draught ships' lines. In 1677, Dummer and Tippetts assisted Sir Anthony Deane, who had been appointed Controller of the Victualling Accounts on the Navy Board, and given the responsibility for establishing for the first time standardised sets of dimensions of ships of the line to be applied to the "''thirty new ships''", the largest single shipbuilding programme hitherto undertaken.〔 For his work on establishing the new standards, Dummer was "''singled out by the Navy Board for his extraordinary ingenuity to lay down the bodies of all the thirty new ships''".〔 Several of Dummer's draughts from this period survive including a sketch-book of "''Tables of Proportions of Ships''" which comprises a series of engraved sheets of squared paper on which are plotted the curves or sweeps of the hulls of one second rate and some of the third rate ships newly built in the Thames and Medway yards.〔 A volume of eight Dummer drawings entitled "''Draught of the Body of an English Man of War''" is in the Pepys Library; these are much more elaborate, doubtless intended to show off his extraordinary skills as a draughtsman to potential patrons, and include vertical sections through the ships showing the design and layout of the structure. These works constitute the earliest surviving example of Dummer's skills as a draughtsman, demonstrating a capacity to express an organised tectonic sensibility that was to mark his progress towards the surveyorship.〔 In February 1679, Dummer became caught up in a political dispute involving Pepys and Deane, who had been accused of leaking naval intelligence to France. Amongst the charges laid against Pepys and Deane by Parliament were that "''they had employed a man to take the bodies of the king's ships, supposed to be no good intention''". Dummer, "''being extremely fearful myself what ill use might be made of me, or of the works so innocently meant''" was taken before the King "''to prevent (if in him it lay) by the King's approbation and allowance any reflection upon them that were already distressed''". Dummer was sent to Bristol until January 1680 when he was summoned to attend the Navy Board with his draughts. There he met Deane who had been released from prison though not yet discharged; Deane asked Dummer to make two draughts for him, a promise Dummer failed to keep, having been instructed by the Navy Board not to do so.〔 The Admiralty still appeared to have suspicions about the loyalty of both Dummer and Deane, and at a meeting of the Lords Commissioners it was ordered "''that I did not at the same time draw draughts for any other and as well as that of the King's service, and ordered they should give me a written order ... and also to report what was fitting to allow me to draught ...''".〔 By April 1680, Dummer had delivered five draughts; he wrote to the Navy Board to ask "''whether I can be supposed to draw new draughts by that way I have practised''". In May he was still asking whether the Board wanted to discharge or continue employing him, warning of his impending ruin: "''I could have borne the present with more respect and patience, were I not able to say it hath been always my misfortune, that the greatness of the enterprise was never truly valued nor encouraged''". Although the order to pay him at the rate of £7 per draught was made by the Admiralty to the Navy Board on 24 February and again on 11 May 1680 (with the proviso, "''to take care before the payment of any of the said sums to the said Mr Dummer, that the work be so performed as may answer the end for which the said draughts were at first designed''") he was still waiting for payment on 11 June. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Edmund Dummer (naval engineer)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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