BERNARD DE GOMME

'Sir Bernard de Gomme' (1620 – 23 November 1685) was a military engineer.

Contents

Early life

Restoration

Notes

Early life

In his youth he served in the campaigns of Frederick Henry, prince of Orange. He afterwards accompanied Prince Rupert to England, and was knighted by Charles I. He served with conspicuous ability in the royalist army as engineer and quartermaster-general from June 1642 to May 1646 ^[1], leaving England after the 1646 defeats of the first English Civil War. His plan of the fortifications and castle of Liverpool, dated 1644, is preserved in the British Museum^[2]. On 15 June 1649, Gomme received a commission from Charles II, then at Breda, to be quartermaster-general of all forces to be raised in England and Wales ^[3].

Restoration

In March 1661 he was made engineer-in-chief of all the king's castles and fortifications in England and Wales. Among his first tasks were the repairs of Dover pier, the erection of fortifications at Dunkirk, and the surveying of Tilbury Fort. In August 1665 instructions were given for making the fortifications at Portsmouth according to the plans prepared by Gomme. On 14 Nov. of the same year the king directed him to give his assistance to commissioners for making the Cam navigable, and establishing a communication with the Thames. Three days later he received a commission to build a new citadel on the Hoe of Plymouth. In March 1667, he accompanied the Duke of York to Harwich, which it was proposed to entrench completely all round. On returning to London he was summoned to give advice for fortifying the Medway and Portsmouth, as well as Harwich ^[4]. In 1673 and 1675 he was making surveys about Dublin. A reference to Gomme's ''design of building a fort-royal on the strand near Ringsend,'' in the neighbourhood of Dublin, occurs in the report of the elder Sir Jonas Moore, surveyor-general of ordnance, drawn up in 1675 ^[5]. In July 1682, Gomme was appointed surveyor-general of ordnance ^[6]. He died on 23 November 1685, and was buried on the 30th of that month in the chapel of the Tower of London ^[7]. He left liberal legacies to the Dutch Church in London and to Christ's Hospital. He married, first, Katherine van Deynse, widow of Johannes Beverland, by whom he had a daughter, Anna. After Katherine's death, Gomme married, by license dated 15 October 1667, Catherine Lucas of Bevis Marks, a widow of fifty who died a few weeks before him, and was also buried in the Tower chapel, 19 October 1685.

Notes

1. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 448
2. Sloane MS. 5027, A. art. 63
3. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649–50, p. 188
4. PEPYS, Diary, ed. 1854, iii. 90
5. ‘Letters written by Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,’ &c., 4to, London, 1770 (p. 167)
6. CHAMBERLAYNE, Angliæ Notitia, ed. 1684, pt. ii. p. 219
7. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ix. 252