Sealand News

Before Paddy Roy Bates proclaimed the deserted anti-aircraft platform Rough Towers to be the Principality of Sealand, he ran a pirate radio station.

In the early Sixties, pirate radio was bigger than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Daleks combined! Radio Caroline, England’s first pirate radio station, was started by Ronan O’Rahilly, who managed blues singer Alexis Korner and Georgie Fame. When he learned that neither the boring BBC nor the popular Radio Luxembourg would play the records of his artists, O’Rahilly decided that he would start his own radio station. Setting up an independent radio station in the UK was illegal, but O’Rahilly soon found out that it was technically legal to broadcast to the UK from international waters. Radio Caroline began broadcasting on Easter Sunday, 1964, from the MV Caroline, a ship anchored just outside the UK’s territorial waters and British radio was changed forever. By the autumn of 1964 Radio Caroline had more listeners than the three BBC stations combined.

The sensational success of Radio Caroline made imitation inevitable. In December 1964 Radio London arrived on the scene, Britain Radio and Swinging Radio England went on air, Radio 270 started off the Yorkshire coast and Radio Scotland anchored off the Scottish East coast. Abandoned wartime sea forts in the Thames Estuary made excellent transmitting platforms and were quickly claimed by Radio 390, Radio Invicta, Radio City, Radio King and others. The pirate radio stations rapidly won an enormous and enthusiastic audience and provided a non-stop pop music soundtrack to the swinging Sixties.

In November 1965, former British Army Major Paddy Roy Bates occupied the British naval defence platform Fort Knock John and started Radio Essex, that later changed its name to Britain’s Better Music Station. Bates discovered that Fort Knock John’s location was within British territorial waters and he was convicted of violating British broadcasting law. On Christmas Eve 1966 Bates moved his broadcasting equipment to the nearby Roughs Tower, another abandoned anti-aircraft platform further out beyond the boundary of the UK’s territorial waters.  His pirate radio station never began broadcasting from this new location but Paddy Roy Bates decided to stay on Roughs Tower and live there with his family.

The introduction of the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act on August 14, 1967, killed the pirate radio star and only Radio Caroline remained.

Not even a month later, on September 2, 1967, Roy Bates proclaimed HM Fort Roughs to be the Principality of Sealand, the smallest country in the world, and gave himself the title HRH Prince Roy of Sealand.

In 1967, former English major and pirate radio broadcaster Roy Bates occupied HM Fort Roughs Tower, proclaimed the artificial island to be the sovereign Principality of Sealand and transformed the inside of the deserted British naval defence platform into a luxurious palace for his family.

Fort Roughs existed long before there was Sealand. It was built by British civil engineer Guy Anson Maunsell (1884 – 1961) in 1942.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Port of London was the busiest port in the world. The Nazis sought to put a stranglehold on the route to London, by using magnetic influence mines which detonated when a steel hulled ship passed by in close proximity, without even having to make physical contact.

During the first months of the war, over one hundred ships were sunk by magnetic influence mines in the Thames Estuary alone. Immediate action was needed to stem these losses.

Guy Anson Maunsell, a civil engineer, submitted plans for offshore anti aircraft forts to deal with the laying of the mines.

Approval was given for the installation of four offshore forts. These were of mainly reinforced concrete construction, built on land, towed out to sea and then sunk onto the seabed.

The forts were placed in position in the Thames estuary in the first half of 1942. Each of these forts accommodated approximately 120 soldiers, housed within 7 floors of the 24’ diameter twin reinforced concrete legs. These forts were individually known as Sunk Head Tower, Tongue Sands, Knock John and Roughs Tower.

Maunsell also designed four naval sea forts in the Liverpool bay area of the Mersey and three additional forts in the Thames estuary in 1943.

The Thames forts shot down more than twenty planes, thirty flying bombs, and they were instrumental in the loss of one German submarine.

After the war, the naval sea forts in the Thames estuary were abandoned by the navy and were turned into pirate radio stations in the Sixties. Being outside of territorial waters at the time, Fort Roughs Towers even became a micro-nation in 1967: The sovereign Principality of Sealand, the smallest country in the world.

In 1955 Guy Anson Maunsell founded the firm of Maunsell & Partners in the UK, pioneering the use of pre-stressed concrete in major bridges. One of his projects, the Hammersmith Flyover, made revolutionary use of this groundbreaking construction method. In the Sixties Maunsell & Partners expanded to Hong Kong, Australia and the Middle East.

Guy Anson Maunsell is best known for his innovative and practical maritime engineering, as a pioneer in the development of pre-stressed concrete and as the man who designed Sealand.

Forget retiring like a king in a comfortable senior housing community and become a real king in Sealand instead.

Sealand is a small island in the North Sea and unlike other micro-nations that exist only in cyberspace, Sealand actually exists physically. Its own currency, stamps and a national anthem help make Sealand official.

Retiring in Sealand on paper can have some interesting tax advantages if you’re creative enough.

Read more here: Move Senior Living

The Principality of Sealand is an artificial island and a micronation located in the North Sea six miles off the coast of Suffolk, England.

Since 1967, the former Maunsell Sea Fort has been occupied by Paddy Roy Bates, a former British Army Major, claiming that it is a sovereign and independent state. The population of Sealand rarely exceeds 10, and the habitable area is 5920 sq ft.

Read more about the World’s Most Amazing Islands here: Wow! It’s an Amazing World