MOUSEHOLE'S VICTORIA CROSS: JOSEPH TREWAVAS, CRIMEAN WAR...

Mousehole V.C. (Joseph Trewavas, Crimean War...)

A Mousehole lad, educated in Paul,

Joseph Trewavas’ life panned out to enthral.

The sea had beckoned,

The Navy, he reckoned

Would be his vocation,

And his first embarkation

Aboard ‘Agamemnon’, a steamship heavily armed,

Took him to the Crimea, where his life would be charmed.

At Sebastopol and Inkerman with the Naval Brigade he fought;

Saw the diseased, the deceased, the damned and the distraught…

The Straits of Genitchi beckoned, 

In the Sea of Azov, he reckoned:

This was his vocation, 

On HMS Beagle, his embarkation,

For him to implement the imminent destruction

Of a supply-line, a pontoon, a Russian construction…

Densely defended, the floating bridge was heavily protected;

 Three previous excursions had been successfully rejected.

The pontoon thus beckoned,

An axe, Joseph reckoned:

This was his vocation:

In a gig, his embarkation

Led to shock and caused incredulity for the Russian massed 

defence,

As the craft was rowed forwards, the axe lifted and tense.

Joseph leapt from the gig and hacked at thick rope,

To sever the great hawsers, his forlorn, buoyant hope…

Broken cables beckoned,

One more swipe, he reckoned:

This was his vocation:

Would there be embarkation?

He scrambled aboard, Russian expressions agape,

A musket ball to the shoulder merely baulked his escape.

Excruciatingly embedded in flesh the missile became,

Bullets holed the gig, as it was rowed towards fame…

The Beagle’s safety beckoned,

Trewavas would live, he reckoned:

This had been his vocation,

A momentous embarkation…

The bridge was adrift, the Russians forestalled, 

Joseph was victorious, his enemy appalled.

The Cornishman was honoured by the Queen, in Hyde Park:

A Victoria Cross medal, a measure, a mark…

An esteemed life beckoned,

Of fishing, he reckoned:

This would be his vocation,

Quaint Mousehole his embarkation…

A quiet married life, he expected,

‘Agamemnon’ his vessel, his fame respected. 

A life, which spanned some sixty-nine years

Became affected by paralysis, frustration then tears…

Termination beckoned, 

A cheese-knife, he reckoned:

An end to his vocation, 

A final embarkation…

The blade slid mortally across an ageing, bloodstained neck

And he slipped away a day later, a hero, a sad ageing wreck…

Pete Ray

Joseph Trewavas is celebrated by a plaque upon an outside wall of the Mousehole house he had lived in. He was quite a hero. 

On 3^rd July 1855, the Russians were too surprised to fire at the small gig at first, containing only five men but they were too late to decide that the threat was serious. The gig nearly capsized, Joseph’s shoulder injury wasn’t serious and he was eventually lauded, winning the Legion of Honour from France and the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, as well as the Victoria Cross. He returned to the ‘Agamemnon’ in November, 1855. 

He committed suicide in July 1905.