Time Fuse in a Box and a Model of a Torpedo

Entry

Time fuse in a round brass casing, closed off on one side with a blind flange, made watertight by means of a leather gasket bearing an inscription. The time fuse itself is a flintlock with a clockwork mechanism. The cock, which has the tumbler in the foot on which the mainspring exerts constant pressure, is held back by a lever (the sear) gripped by means of a hook at the top; thus sear and tumbler are separate. The sear is held in place with an extension on a round plate with an indentation. The plate is mounted on a spring drum and turned by the clockwork mechanism: when the indentation reaches the extension of the sear, the cock is released. In the side of the casing, a locking mechanism is mounted: a pin through the side pushes a spring which stops a toothed wheel at the base of the drum from turning, thus locking the clockwork. The pin is pushed outward by the spring, but can be held in place by a blocking pin going through two eyes on the outside of the casing; the blocking pin is missing. The idea was to be able to set the time mechanism in motion by removing the blocking pin. The vent is located in the bottom of the casing and comes out at the rear, where the fuse is designed to be mounted on a torpedo. The torpedo, as shown by the wooden model, is a cylinder with round ends and with a box (float) on top. The fuse is mounted on one of the round ends, the lock is drawn in ink. A second, separate float is attached to the torpedo with lines, as is a harpoon. The ship under attack was to be harpooned with a gun and its motion through the water would draw the torpedo underneath it.

The time fuse and model of the torpedo were the property of Rear Admiral Anthony Cornelis Twent (1771-1852) and were donated to the Navy Model Room by his daughter in 1863. During his stay in France between 1796 and 1804, Robert Fulton (1765-1815) designed the torpedo together with a submarine.

The time fuse was inspired by a design by David Bushnell. His first torpedoes were built in the United Kingdom in 1804, however, and used in the attack on Boulogne on 2 October 1804, with little success. Fulton demonstrated the torpedo again on 15 October 1804 by blowing up the brig Dorothea in Deal Harbour; however, a subsequent second attack on the French proved no more successful than the first. Fulton offered his invention to the Batavian government in 1805, but was turned down. He received £ 15,000 from the British government for his efforts and left for the United States in 1806. In 1809, the British used the time fuse in an attack on Flushing, where the British Captain Thomas Johnson attached one to the pier; the fuse did not go off and was recovered by the Dutch, and is now in the collection of the Flushing Municipal Museum.