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Action of 2 May 1707

1707 in France1707 in Great Britain18th-century military history of FranceConflicts in 1707Naval battles involving France
Naval battles involving Great BritainNaval battles of the War of the Spanish Succession
Attaque d'une Escadre Angloise dans la Manche
Attaque d'une Escadre Angloise dans la Manche

The action of 2 May 1707, also known as Beachy Head, was a naval battle of the War of the Spanish Succession in which a French squadron under Claude de Forbin intercepted a large British convoy escorted by three ships of the line, under Commodore Baron Wylde. The action began when three French ships, the Grifon, Blackoal and Dauphine, grappled HMS Hampton Court, killing her captain, George Clements, and taking her. Claude Forbin's 60-gun Mars next attacked HMS Grafton and, when joined by the French ships Blackoal and Fidèle, killed the Captain Edward Acton, and took her too. The convoy was scattered and the last British escort, HMS Royal Oak, badly hit and with 12 feet of water in her wells, managed to escape by running ashore near Dungeness, from where she was carried the next day into the Downs.The French took 21 merchant ships, besides the two 70-gun ships of the line, and carried them all into Dunkirk.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Action of 2 May 1707 (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Action of 2 May 1707
Beachy Head Road,

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Latitude Longitude
N 50.738969444444 ° E 0.24210555555556 °
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Beachy Head Road

Beachy Head Road
BN20 7YA , Holywell
England, United Kingdom
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Attaque d'une Escadre Angloise dans la Manche
Attaque d'une Escadre Angloise dans la Manche
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Murder of Jessie Earl
Murder of Jessie Earl

Jessie Earl (1957/1958 – sometime between 15 and 18 May 1980) was a 22-year-old student who disappeared from Eastbourne, England in May 1980. It was not until 1989 that her remains were discovered in thick undergrowth on Beachy Head, where she would regularly take walks. The inquest into her death was criticised and attracted considerable controversy in the long-term after it was concluded that there was "insufficient evidence" to determine whether she had been murdered, despite the fact that she had been found with her bra tied around her wrists and without any of her other clothes or belongings. Her parents insisted she must have been murdered, but the inquest into her death recorded an open verdict, leading to the key forensic evidence being destroyed in 1997 since the case had not been classed as murder. Despite this, in 2000 Sussex Police opened a murder investigation after further forensic, scene, witness and pathology inquiries, saying that they believed she was murdered. In 2020 her parents requested that the Attorney General open a new inquest into her death so as to formally re-classify her death as murder. This request was approved in December 2021, and a second inquest in May 2022 overturned the open verdict and concluded that she had been murdered. It was further noted that she had most likely been tied with her bra to a tree she was found next to, and that she had "possibly" been sexually assaulted. The coroner said that her parents had been "victims of substantial injustice". Serial killer and sex offender Peter Tobin, who lived in the area at the time, has been a suspect in Earl's murder and the case was investigated as part of Operation Anagram, which had been set up in the late 2000s to investigate links between Tobin and unsolved murders. Apparently related to Earl's disappearance and murder is the disappearance of another young woman from Beachy Head in 1988. 18-year-old Louise Kay vanished after saying she was going to sleep in her car on Beachy Head in June 1988 and neither she nor her car have ever been seen again. Earl's body was found on Beachy Head less than a year later. Tobin is also the prime suspect in Kay's presumed murder. Earl's parents believe Peter Tobin could be responsible for her murder.