Portsmouth anniversary in 2016. In literature, Portsmouth is the chief location for Jonathan Meades' 1993 novel "Pompey", in which it is inhabited largely by incestuous and necrophiliac criminals. Since the release of his novel, Meades has presented a TV programme documenting Victorian architecture in Portsmouth Dockyard. In Jane Austen's novel "Mansfield Park", Portsmouth is the hometown of the main character Fanny Price, and is the setting of most of the closing chapters of the novel. In Charles Dickens' novel "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", main protagonists Nicholas and Smike make their way to Portsmouth and get involved in a
HMS Childers (1812) HMS Childers (1812) HMS "Childers" was a Royal Navy 18-gun , built by Nicholas Diddams at Portsmouth Dockyard and launched in 1812. She was broken up in 1822. "Childers" was commissioned in July 1812 under Commander Buckland Bluett. When news of the outbreak of the War of 1812 reached Britain, the Royal Navy seized all American vessels then in British ports. "Childers" was among the 42 Royal Navy vessels then lying at Spithead or Portsmouth and so entitled to share in the grant for the American ships "Belleville", "Janus", "Aeos", "Ganges" and "Leonidas" seized there on 31 July 1812. Commander