Henry Ince

Inside a gallery on the Rock of Gibraltar, engraved by I.C. Stadler after Rev C. Willyams (c. 1800), depicting one of the tunnels excavated by Henry Ince

Henry Ince (1736–1808) was a sergeant-major (and later lieutenant) in the British Army who achieved fame as the author of a plan to tunnel through the North Face of the Rock of Gibraltar in 1782, during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. As a result of his work, by the end of the 18th century Gibraltar had almost of tunnels in which dozens of cannons were mounted overlooking the isthmus linking the peninsula to Spain. He was one of the first members of the Soldier Artificer Company, a predecessor to today's Royal Engineers, and rose to be the company's senior non-commissioned officer. He was also a founder of Methodism in Gibraltar through his activities as a Methodist lay preacher. Ince spent most of his life in the Army and served for 36 years in Gibraltar before retiring to Devon four years before he died at the age of 72.

Early life and posting to Gibraltar

Born in Penzance in Cornwall in 1736, Ince first worked as a nailor (a nail-maker) before turning his hand to mining. He enlisted in the 2nd (The Queen's Royal) Regiment of Foot in 1755 and served in Galway, Ireland. The Regiment remained in Ireland until June 1765, when it was posted to the Isle of Man. It was subsequently sent to Gibraltar in March 1768, where Ince was able to put his mining skills to use.

He was also a highly active Methodist lay preacher, and may have met John Wesley during the latter's preaching in Ireland between 1756 and 1765. Although no record of such a meeting has survived, Wesley's journal records that he often preached to soldiers in Irish towns where Ince's regiment happened to be stationed at the time. On 3 April 1769 Ince wrote to Wesley from Gibraltar in terms which suggest that the two men did know each other:

According to Gibraltarian Methodist tradition, the colony's first regular Methodist meeting place was Ince's old home on Prince Edward's Road – a claim which is made on a plaque that was originally mounted in the Methodist Church on Prince Edward's Road and is now in the modern Gibraltar Methodist Church on Main Street. However, there is no evidence to support this; according to Ince's own correspondence to Wesley, he hired a room in which the Methodists could meet, rather than using his own home, and the site on Prince Edward's Road where the first Methodist Church was built was leased to another man during Ince's lifetime. He is recorded as owning property elsewhere in Gibraltar, on the east side of Main Street.

Service with the Soldier Artificer Company

On 26 June 1772, Ince joined the Army's first unit of military artificers and labourers, the Soldier Artificer Company, and was promoted to sergeant on the same day. The works were initially carried out by civilians recruited from England and elsewhere in Europe, but this proved slow, expensive and unsatisfactory. To resolve these problems, Green was authorised to raise a 68-man company consisting of one sergeant-adjutant, three sergeants, three corporals, one drummer and 60 privates working variously as stonecutters, masons, miners, lime-burners, carpenters, smiths, gardeners and wheel-makers.

Ince was one of the first two sergeants mustered into the company on 30 June 1772. Seven years later, the Great Siege began as a French and Spanish army laid siege to Gibraltar in what was to become the longest siege ever endured by a British garrison. The members of the Company carried out extensive work on the fortifications to repair damage caused by enemy bombardments and strengthen Gibraltar's defences. They also participated in a highly successful sortie against the Spanish lines on 27 November 1781, though it is not known whether Ince himself participated. This led to them being praised in dispatches by the new Governor, General George Eliott.

Despite British counter-fire, the Spanish were able to advance slowly along the isthmus linking Gibraltar with Spain by extending their trenches towards the British lines. The closer they came, the more difficult it was for the British to aim their cannon down into the Spanish lines. The near-vertical cliff of the North Front of the Rock of Gibraltar greatly restricted the space in which the British cannon could be deployed. By May 1782 the Spanish had been able to knock out many of the British batteries on the North Front without the British being able to return fire adequately.

General Eliott offered a bounty of 1,000 Spanish dollars to "any one who can suggest how I am to get a flanking fire upon the enemy's works". In response, Henry Ince – who had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant-Major in September 1781 – proposed to tunnel a gallery through the Rock. It would start from a position above Farringdon's Battery to reach an outcrop called the Notch, so that a cannon could be mounted there to cover the entire North Front. His suggestion was immediately approved and Colonel Green issued an order on 22 May 1782: "A gallery 6 feet high, and 6 feet wide, through the rock, leading towards the notch nearly under the Royal Battery, to communicate with a proposed battery to be established at the said notch, is immediately to be undertaken and commenced upon by 12 miners, under the executive direction of Sergeant-major Ince."

The miners suffered from poor ventilation until the decision was taken to blast a small opening in the cliff face to provide them with a supply of fresh air. It was immediately realised that this would offer an excellent firing position. By the end of the siege, the newly created Upper Gallery housed four guns, mounted on specially developed "depressing carriages" to allow them to fire downwards into the Spanish positions. The Notch was not reached until after the siege had ended; instead of mounting a gun above it, the outcrop was hollowed out to create a broad firing position. visited the tunnels after a ceasefire had been declared, he is said to have exclaimed, "These works are worthy of the Romans."

The tunnelling continued after the end of the siege under Ince's supervision and by 1799 the tunnels had reached a total length of nearly . They were constructed in two tiers, known as the Upper (or Windsor) and Lower (or Union) Galleries, mounting around 40 heavy cannon and with magazines and bombproof shelters constructed adjoining them.

Later career and death

In January 1787 Ince was granted a plot of ground on the Queen's Road, some distance up the Rock of Gibraltar, which is still called Ince's Farm. During the siege he had turned it into a small cultivated plot with the permission of the Governor. The original grant still survives and states:

He was charged a rent of 12 reals a month for which he was required to fulfil certain conditions, including building a fence around the farm and planting as many lemon trees as possible.

Ince was discharged from the Company in 1791 but continued to work on the tunnels as "overseer of the mines", in charge of blasting, mining and battery construction. He was commissioned as an ensign on 2 February 1796. In March 1801 he was posted to the Channel Islands but the Governor intervened to prevent this and Ince was promoted to lieutenant on 24 March 1801.

Ince was married, though it is not known when or how many times. His wife's name is recorded variously as Jane in a baptismal record of August 1788, Joanna in another record of October 1792 and Fanny in his will of 8 August 1807, suggesting that he may have married at least twice. He may well have married before he came to Gibraltar, but this is unclear as the territory's marriage records do not start until 1771. The baptism of a son, Joseph Ince, is recorded on 5 February 1771 though no mother's name is given. Mrs Ince and a child are recorded as having left Gibraltar for England on 2 January 1782 aboard the Mercury, a transport ship. Another son, Robert, was baptised in Gibraltar in August 1788 and a second son, Henry, in October 1792. There were clearly other children whose births are not recorded; Thomas Ince, who worked as a clerk in the garrison's Commissariat, had three children baptised between 1795 and 1803 but died with his wife Eliza in the yellow fever epidemic of 1804. His eldest daughter Augusta married another lieutenant in the garrison.

Ince returned to England in 1804 and died on 9 October 1808 in Gittisham, Devon. His gravestone, which was later renovated by the Institution of Royal Engineers, bears the inscription: