The frigate HMS Arethusa was the last ship to be delivered and completed by the J. Samuel White shipyard before its closure in 1965.
When she was launched on 5th November 1963, she left behind empty slipways that would never again be used. She was commissioned 2 years later on 24th November 1965.
The commissioning ceremony was held at Northwood House. Following the ceremony, the ship’s crew marched to JS White’s where the Royal Marines’ band played Auld Lang Syne from the quayside as they boarded the vessel.
For around a century – from 1865 to 1965 – JS White’s had constructed around 2,580 vessels of various sizes at the mouth of the River Medina. In the inter-war years, when the yard was at its zenith, up to 5,000 workers were employed there. However, numbers virtually halved in the early 60s with the general slump in world shipbuilding.
There had been 8 Royal Navy Arethusas prior to the construction of JS White’s Arethusa at Cowes. The earliest was the HMS Arethusa of 1759, which was captured from the French. Her engagement with the French in 1778 has been immortalised in the ballad The Saucy Arethusa.
The cruiser HMS Arethusa (1934) was possibly the most distinguished Royal Navy vessel to have borne the name of the Greek nymph, having served in World War II in the Norwegian campaign, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Normandy landings.
In 1949, the cruiser Arethusa participated in atomic tests off the Isle of Wight, close by the Nab tower. The Ministry of Defence at that time was interested in the effects of radiation on naval ships and decided to subject the cruiser to bombardments of gamma rays, which follow atomic bomb explosions.
The frigate Arethusa was launched from East Cowes by Lady Hamilton – wife of Vice Admiral Sir John Hamilton. Hundreds of the workmen responsible for the construction of the last ever Isle of Wight warship watched her slide down into the Medina, where tugs stood waiting to manoeuvre her to the fitting out quay on the west bank.
HMS Arethusa was built at a cost of £4.5million (£82million in today’s values). The 2,400-ton vessel had a length of 472feet and a beam of 41feet. She was defended by 2x 4.5inch guns, a Seacat ship-to-air guided missile launcher and an anti-submarine launcher. She also carried a helicopter. She had a complement of 17 officers and 210 ratings.
During her 24 years of service, the frigate sailed around the globe, traversing every ocean and stopping at countless ports on all 6 continents. in 1972, Arethusa participated in a Beira patrol designed to prevent oil reaching the landlocked country of Rhodesia, which had unilaterally declared UDI (independence) from the United Kingdom.
The closest Arethusa came to firing a gun in anger was on 20th July 1973 when she was rammed by the Iclandic gunboat Odin during the Cod War with Iceland. The warship had been protecting the Hull trawler Kingston Jade, which had been fishing within Iceland’s disputed 50-mile fishing limit. The damage to the vessel was thought to have been slight, and no one was injured.
The Arethusa was decommissioned on 4th April 1989. Sadly, she was sunk as a target in 1991.
When the Arethusa was launched in 1963, JS White’s had a building order for 2x 200-ton coastal cargo vessels. The yard also had a contract to refit and modernise 2 destroyers for the United Arab Emirates. Mr Allen, the then managing director, claimed that there was no immediate threat of redundancy for his workers.
However, on 26th November 1965, the then 400 workers of the shipyard lost their employment, and the 300-year history of shipbuilding in Cowes ended forever.
The closure of the yard may well have been premature, since it was around the time that demand for offshore supply craft (OSSV) for North Sea oil and gas exploration was about to soar. JS White’s was well capable of constructing such craft.
Sadly, the workers missed out on substantial redundancy payments by 10 days as the Redundancy Payments Act only came into force on 6th December of that year.
Did you, a parent or a grandparent work at JS White’s? Did you serve on HMS Arethusa? Let us know in the comments…
My dad work on this ship
Although this is slightly off topic, I worked for J Arthur Dixon at Forest Side, Newport in the mid to late 1960s. At that time the company was owned by J Samuel White. It was rather an odd aquisition. Dixons were famous for printing post cards, Christmas cards and general greetings cards. A printing process called gravure was used for some of their work. It was considered to be an excellent form of colour reproduction – better at that time than offset litho. Dixon had another factory in Inverness and a gravure plate making plant in Ventnor (or was it Shanklin?).
Great story.
Does anyone have any actual photos/videos of the launch? I served on Arethusa 1970-72.. she was the best ship ever ⚓️
Does anyone have any actual photos/videos of the launch? I served on Arethusa 1970-72..
I was a Stoker on Arethusa around 1980 when we deployed to the Med, Middle East, Far East, Australia and New Zealand, absolutely amazing trip and what a fantastic ship and ships company. A real honour.