HMS Assurance

The final voyage

HMS Assurance, a 44-gun fifth-rate launched in 1747, was completing a transatlantic passage from Jamaica when her captain attempted to take her through the Needles channel off the western tip of the Isle of Wight rather than the safer route around it. The ship struck the outer rock and was wrecked on 24 April 1753 [1](https://www.wightpedia.org.uk/w/Assurance_(HMS),_shipwreck). Contrary to some later retellings, contemporary sources describe the loss as a navigational misjudgment rather than a fog-bound accident, and record that no lives were lost.

Aboard was Edward Trelawny, who had served as Governor of Jamaica from 1738 to 1752 and was returning to England; he reached London only four days after the wreck [1](https://www.wightpedia.org.uk/w/Assurance_(HMS),_shipwreck). The ship remained fast on the rocks long enough for those aboard to get off safely.

What was aboard

No cargo manifest for this voyage has been located in the research for this report; the site is complicated by its overlap with the separate 1811 wreck of HMS Pomone, and finds cannot always be confidently assigned to one ship or the other.

Ship's ordnance: Cannon and associated ironwork recovered and documented at the designated site.

Ship's fittings: Structural and metallic ship remains recorded by licensed survey teams since the 1970s.

How to collect

Insist on Assurance-specific attribution: Because Pomone wreckage is physically intermingled with Assurance's, generic 'Needles cannon' claims are not sufficient; ask what evidence ties a specific object to the 1753 loss rather than the 1811 one.

Check licensing history: This has been a licensed, protected site since 1974; anything claimed as a modern, unlicensed recovery should be treated with suspicion.

Do not expect a coin cargo: No documented treasure or coin manifest exists for this voyage; recovered material is predominantly ordnance and ship's fittings.

Verify Historic England designation status: Consult the current Historic England list entry, since the site's boundaries and attributions have been revised more than once.