HMS Association

The final voyage

Association was a 90-gun second-rate launched at Portsmouth Dockyard on 1 January 1697. As flagship of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell she served in the Mediterranean during the War of the Spanish Succession, including the 1704 capture of Gibraltar and the 1707 Battle of Toulon. Returning from that campaign, the 21-ship squadron entered the western approaches to the English Channel on the night of 22 October 1707 (Old Style) having miscalculated its longitude in poor visibility. At about 8pm Association struck the Outer Gilstone Rock in the Isles of Scilly and sank within minutes; three other ships — Eagle, Romney, and Firebrand — were also lost that night, with total deaths commonly put at roughly 1,400 to 2,000. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Association)

Shovell reportedly reached shore alive at Porthellick Cove on St Mary's; local tradition holds he was killed for an emerald ring, though this account is unverified and disputed. The scale of the disaster was a direct spur to the Longitude Act of 1714. The wreck was rediscovered in June 1967 by the Royal Navy vessel HMS Puttenham under Lieutenant Roy Graham, followed later that year by civilian diving teams; more than 2,000 coins and artifacts were recovered in 1967 alone, with a further 12,000-plus coins and artifacts recovered over the following two decades. [2](https://www.crayfordhistory.org.uk/projects/shovell-and-the-longitude/archives-and-artefacts/underwater-exploration-association-diver-richard-larn)

What was aboard

No surviving ship's manifest has been located; the items below are drawn from the recovered artifact record described in Historic England's conservation and management documentation for the site.

Coinage of Shovell's monarchs: Gold and silver coins spanning the reigns Shovell served under, including Spanish colonial pieces of eight (e.g., an 1688 Potosí 8 reales) circulating as pay or prize money.

Ship's fittings: Copper bolts and nails, a lignum vitae pulley sheave, and other rigging hardware recovered from the wreck.

Personal effects: A pocket sundial, a midshipman's personal seal, clothing buckles, and a gunpowder measure, illustrating the everyday material of a working warship's company.

Ordnance: Bronze and iron guns documented at the site as part of the Historic England-managed protected wreck.

How to collect

Confirm licensed recovery: Post-1973 recovery from this Protected Wreck requires Historic England licensing; pre-1973 material should trace to the documented 1967–1970s salvage teams.

Look for period auction provenance: Coins and artifacts sold through documented sales such as the 1975 Penzance auction, or subsequent specialist auctions, carry a stronger paper trail than undocumented 'diver's collection' claims.

Match coinage to the documented reigns: Confirm coin dates fall within Shovell's service period and the ship's known specie types rather than accepting generic 'Association coin' claims.

Separate the ring legend from the record: The emerald-ring murder story is local tradition, not a documented fact, and should not be used to inflate the significance of unrelated jewelry.