…the Mary Rose was lost at Spithead and the ship never was weighed up. It may fairly be presumed, therefore, if the wreck the guns were laying on could be dispersed to some degree, that more guns and other articles of an interesting character might be discovered and weighed…
Admiralty report, September 1836
Following the failed attempts of the Tudor salvage divers to recover the Mary Rose, the ship was abandoned and eventually became lost.
However, in June 1836 fishermen from Gosport reported snagging their nets on ‘something’ on the seabed of the Solent.
Henry Abbinett
At the time, Gosport pub owner and diver Henry Abbinett was recovering some of the charred remains of HMS Boyne near Southsea Castle. He investigated the fishermen’s claims and became the first person known to see the Mary Rose for almost two hundred years.
John Deane
Nearby at Spithead, also in the Solent, divers John Deane and William Edwards were raising large bronze and iron guns from HMS Royal George. John’s brother Charles had some years earlier patented a breathing apparatus for use in firefighting, which was later adapted into a diving helmet.
While this wasn’t the first such device invented, it was more efficient, and gave the Deanes an edge that their competitors lacked. This lead to them picking up some lucrative admiralty contracts, including the salvage of the Royal George, which had sunk about a mile from the Mary Rose wreck site.
They started work on the Mary Rose site on 16th June 1836, and by the 18th July they had located and recovered several timbers, as well as a bronze gun. After reporting this to the Board of Ordnance, they continued investigating the site, where they recovered more guns. The wreck was identified as being the Mary Rose early in August of that year, and it was publicised in the Nautical Magazine.
Staking claim to the Mary Rose wreck
There was some controversy at this point, as various parties staked claims to the Mary Rose site. The fishermen, who had originally snagged their nets, as well as Abbinett, claimed that they should each have the exclusive rights to salvage the site. Abbinett, sadly, was rebuked by the Admiralty, but the fishermen were offered one third of the salvage value of the guns they had helped recover, as well as any others the Deanes recovered.