Further Information
The "Boadicea" referrred to in this plaque was the third of that name. She was a 16-gun screw corvette, launched at Portsmouth in 1875 and was of 4,140 tons, 5,290 horsepower and 14.9 knots speed. Her length, beam, and draught were 280ft, 45ft, and 24ft. In the early part of her career the Boadicea took part in the Zulu War. 16 of her officers and 378 men under Commodore Francis Romilly supplemented the Naval Brigade at the battle of Ginginhlovo.
 
In 1881 the Broadicea had assisted in the first Boer war by the landing of the Naval Brigade. On January 6th 128 officer and men, two machine guns, and a couple of rocket tubes proceeded to the front, again under Commodore Francis Romilly.
 
The service referred to above began in 1888 when the Boadicea, commanded by Captain the Hon. Assheton Curzon Howe, and flying the flag of Rear Admiral the Hon. Edmund Fremantle, was at the head of a fleet of seven English vessels and one German ship taking part in the blockade of the Zanzibar Littoral. This action was associated with the suppression of slavery but was generally uneventful. On November 6th the Boadicea's pinnace, commanded by Lieutenant Walter Clifton Slater, captured a large slave dhow off Pemba. It had 41 slaves on board, and was not brought to until shots had been shot on both sides.
 
In September 1890 nine German traders were murdered in Vitu, a small state about 230 miles north of Zanzibar. On October 24th the boats of the Boadicea under Captain the Hon. Assheton Curzon Howe, and those of two other ships, proceeded to Baltia and burnt the village. On October 26th a Naval Brigade of 700 seamen and marines were landed under the personal command of Vice-Admiral the Hon. Edmund Femantle. Meeting with some brisk resistance en route, the expedition captured the town of Vitu on October 27th, Gunner George Alfred Jenning, of the Boadicea blowing up the town gate with gun cotton. The town and the Sultan’s house were burned, and the brigade returned to their ships, having lost 12 men wounded and developed several cases of sunstroke. Captain the Hon. Assheton Curzon Howe was made a C.B. for this service. In 1905 the Boadicea was broken up.
 
Captain Curzon Howe later became Port Admiral at Portsmouth, dying whilst in command on March 1st 1911. The Corporation commemorated him by naming a street which replaced many of the slums in Portsea after him. Curzon Howe Road exists today and is adorned by a plaque celebrating the clearance of the slums.
 
Photos of HMS Boadicea can be seen at www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/bacchante_class.htm