Mathew Baker

Mathew was the son of James Baker. John Hawkins' reformed naval administration began to bring discipline to the craft of shipbuilding. Perhaps the greatest architect of Hawkins' Navy was Mathew who, having been apprenticed to his father and grown up in the surroundings of the dockyard was himself appointed Master Shipwright in 1572.

The first list of 'Master Shipwrights' appointed 'by Patent' by Henry VIII of England included 'John Smyth, Robert Holborn, Richard Bull and James Baker' and Peter Pett the son of John was summoned from Harwich to work on the King's ships at Portsmouth.

James Baker had been appointed first Master Shipwright of King Henry VIII from 1537 and had been responsible for many of the designs and the construction of Henry's fleet, so Mathew, who was known to dislike his rival Phineas Pett, competed to become the chief engineer of Elizabeth I's navy. His success was achieved when he became the first known shipwright to evolve the process of 'laying down the lines' for a ship, not as was traditional at the site of construction, but on paper, so that scale models were no longer the only means of understanding the secret lore of the shipwright. By this method it became possible to discuss and modify the plans with the patron.

Few shipbuilding treatises survive from the middle ages; all date from the Fifteenth Century, and all of them are Italian (specifically, Venetian). The earliest detailed English treatise on ship design is by Mathew Baker, who is known to have built the 'Dreadnought', the 'Vanguard' and the 'Merhonour'. 

Peter Pett and Mathew Baker were both at Deptford when a new design of oceanic type of warship was launched in 1575. HMS the Revenge represented a departure from anything ever seen before. This was the origin of the 'Sailing Ship of the Line', and the design that was to hail the mastery of the seas so often associated with Britain. The 'Revenge', not a giant at 500 tons, was fast and dangerous. Heavily armed, its chief advantage was in that it could remain at sea for long periods, and was easily manoeuvrable in a tight spot against an aggressor.

Pett's sister married John Chapman, Master Shipwright, whose own son Richard Chapman was born in 1620, who was to become Master Shipwright of Woolwich and Deptford and build the 'Ark', and was raised in the Pett household, "as in all probability was Mathew Baker' with whom, from 1570 Peter Pett was associated in the works at Dover.\" The son of Peter Pett, Phineas, and his son, Peter, both endured the ill will of those in the boat building fraternity, spurred by jealousy, who wished, for the sake of personal gratification, to see the Pett Dynasty fall. A quarrel broke out between Baker and Phineas Pett and according to Pett's side of the story, over the following ten to twelve years Mathew Baker lost no opportunity of 'doing him a bad turn'. This seems to be borne out by Baker's own comments.
Phineas Pett was something of a free radical amongst the established Master Shipwrights who appear to have seen him as a dangerous upstart, they made several attempts to thwart his advancement, but failed in the long run to deter him. His crime was allegedly his pertinent and bold initiative in experimenting with sweeping aside Mathew Baker's grand principles of 'Shipwrightry'. Phineas Pett was to become the subject of an enquiry that became so serious that King James was forced to intervene, taking the matter personally in hand, in the light of stern criticism against Pett whilst he was out of the Country in 1621, from members of the Navy Commission, led by Burrell. At the behest of Baker, a party of 'diverse Master Shipwrights' of the Thames, amongst them a Naval Captain, George Waymouth, complained to the king that Pett, amongst other outrages, was found employing the practice of 'furring', to subsequently broaden the width of the 'Prince Royal'. It was alleged he had misjudged the calculated width, under Baker's system. He had in fact introduced modifications into the methods followed by Baker and the older shipwrights, such as his adjustments of the width of the floor and the shape of the bows.

In Perrin's introduction to Pett's Autobiography the biographer explains that: "this indictment cannot be lightly set aside. Mathew Baker was the most prominent shipbuilder of that day, Bright and Richard Meryett (or Meritt) were Government Shipbuilders of long experience, while Nicholas Clay, John Greaves and Edward Stevens were private builders of considerable standing in their profession". These men sided with Baker on who was competent to undertake the refit of the 'Prince Royal' built under Pett. Pett's own reference to this matter in his Autobiography reads: "touching the cross-grained timber, his Majesty protested very earnestly the cross grain was in the men and not in the timber!"

Thus, having "maliciously certified the ship (the 'Prince') unserviceable and not fit to be continued", by "the 24th of February succeeding, by special command from His Majesty, who well understood their malicious proceedings, the selfsame surveyors were again sent to Chatham and under their hands certified that the ship might be made serviceable for a voyage into Spain with the charge of £300/~ to be bestowed upon her hull and the perfecting her masts, which certificate was returned under their hands and delivered to His Majesty". The 'Prince' was brought into the docks at Chatham on the 8th of March 1623, to be launched a fortnight later.