Peter Pett

Peter Pett, (6 August 1610 – 1672) was an English Master Shipwright, and Second Resident Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard. He is noted for the incident concerning the protection of his scale models and drawings of the King's Fleet during the Dutch Raid on the Medway, in Kent in June 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

Pett was the son of the King's Master Shipwright Captain Phineas Pett. He was introduced to King Charles I of England in 1634 and was ordered to construct a new Third Rate ship of 500 tons at Woolwich Dockyard, to be named HMS Leopard. With the construction of the Leopard underway, Charles decided that he would have a ship built larger and more ornate than any of her predecessors.

In June 1634 whilst at Woolwich and on the Leopard with the King, Phineas Pett, Peter's father, relates: "His Highness, calling me aside, privately acquainted me of his princely resolution for the building of a great new ship, which he would have me undertake...."

Under the watchful eye of his father Phineas, who had drawn up the plans for this great ship Peter Pett so built HMS Sovereign of the Seas at Woolwich Dockyard.

One of the largest in the world at that time, the Sovereign was a ship of 1,637 tons and was launched on 12 October 1637, after about two years in construction.

John Evelyn wrote in his Diary on 19 July 1641 "We rode to Rochester and Chatham to see the Soveraigne, a monstrous vessel so called, being for burthen, defence, and ornament, the richest that ever spread cloth before the wind. She carried 100 brass cannon, and was 1,600 tons, a rare sailer, the work of the famous Phineas Pett."

Pett became Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard in 1648. Despite his contracts from the King, Peter Pett sided with Parliament during the English Civil War and was consequently retained as Commissioner at Chatham Dockyard during the Commonwealth (1649–60).

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