Stockwin's Maritime Miscellany (19 page)

The intended bride of the future Edward II set sail from Norway in 1290 but became seasick on the voyage. Although the ship made a stop at the Orkney Islands to allow her to recover, she died.

From ancient times ship handling and fighting has been affected by
mal de mer
, or seasickness. Martin Frobisher, in an attempt to counter its effects, took ginger along with him on his 1576 voyage to discover the Northwest Passage.

Nelson always suffered at the beginning of a voyage, and Sir John Franklin was never able to take charge of his ship until he had passed the Bay of Biscay. The current Prince of Wales, who himself served in the navy, has been known to try to lift a sufferer’s spirits by joking, ‘If you want a guaranteed cure for seasickness, take my advice and just lie under the nearest tree for an hour.’

The attitude of the Royal Navy has always been that seasickness is not a
malady
but something you just put up with – and you get on with your job. One rear admiral recently echoed this official lack of sympathy when he stated that the stabilisers fitted to today’s modern warships are not to prevent seasickness, but for the protection of the sensitive electronic equipment on board.

King Edward I appointed the first English admiral in 1297. He was William de Leyburn, given the splendid title of ‘Admiral of the sea of the King of England’. The Royal Navy has had admirals since at least as far back as the sixteenth century. At the time of Elizabeth I the fleet had become so large that it was organised into three colour-coded squadrons: red for the admiral’s, white for the vice-admiral’s and blue for the rear admiral’s.

Later, as the number of ships in the fleet grew further, and the three squadrons into which they were divided became larger, three admirals were allocated to each battle fleet (based on the line of battle) – a full admiral in command in the centre, a vice-admiral as his second in command taking the van (forward) and a rear admiral as third in command in the rear. These ranked in the order red, white and blue, and admirals took rank according to the colour of their squadron. Some officers were promoted rear admiral, but to no particular squadron. They were known colloquially as yellow admirals.

In 1864 the organisation of the British fleet into coloured squadrons was discarded. The red ensign was allocated to the merchant navy, the Royal Navy adopted the white ensign, and the blue ensign was used by the naval reserve and naval auxiliary vessels.

TOUCH AND GO – a precarious situation in which the slightest change could spell disaster.
DERIVATION
: sometimes a sailing vessel touched ground but then lifted off again quickly, thus avoiding disaster by a narrow margin.

The sailing navy’s biggest ship of the line could carry more than 100 great guns on three gun decks, making it an arsenal of destruction able to unleash as much firepower on the enemy as the mightiest fortress on land. The largest cannon weighed over three tons and could penetrate 2 feet of solid oak a mile away.

The production of cannon was a very skilled, time-consuming and expensive process – and there were never enough guns. To complicate matters, French and British guns had different calibres, so captured guns were of no use to the victor!

The Vergruggen family of Denmark established a gun foundry in Woolwich, England, which by 1780 had come to be regarded as the best in the world. Bronze guns (erroneously called brass cannon) were stronger and lighter, did not rust and could be polished to a high gleam, but with improvements in casting and the quality of iron they fell out of favour and during the French wars the typical navy gun was made of iron.

Count Rumford, the noted Georgian scientist, observing the extreme heat generated by the boring process during manufacture of cannon, developed theories of heat and energy that laid the basis for the modern science of thermodynamics.

British tactics were to try to get as close to the enemy ships as possible to shoot at the hull and sink the ship; most engagements were fought at less than 90 m. This made for a bloody encounter with murderous splinters of wood blasted from the timbers as well as the actual damage from the cannon balls.

Up to 20 men served each big gun during battle, led by the gun captain, a highly skilled sailor. Some of the gun crew had special duties such as boarding and sail-trimming and could be called away to these tasks even under enemy fire. A greatly feared hazard was an unsound cannon. Casting flaws could not be detected by the naked eye, and there was always the possibility that when fired a cannon could explode, with deadly consequences.

Life was hard for families of sailors who died at sea. Prize money was only distributed among survivors. The victim’s shipmates would auction his possessions for a few coins to pass on to his widow, paying well over the odds for the items, but this would not put food in mouths for very long.

By an act of King George II each Royal Navy ship carried on the books one or two widows’ men per 100 of her complement, depending on her circumstances. These men were purely fictitious and given ‘pusser’s tallies’, imaginary names. Their pay went toward a fund for the relief of the families of warrant and commissioned officers who were killed in service. This practice lasted from 1760 to 1832.

However, even as early as the sixteenth century there was some formal help for injured sailors and their families. From 1590, all seamen in the Royal Navy made contributions of six pence per month from their wages to support the Chatham Chest, which paid pensions to injured seamen. Two men were largely responsible for setting up the fund, the heroes of the Armada campaign Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake.

Payments were on a sliding scale, £6 13
s
. 4
d
. per annum for the loss of a limb, £12 for blindness. In addition each claimant received a lump sum, equal to one year’s entitlement. In effect this was the world’s first occupational pension. However, during the 224 years that it existed there were a number of difficulties with meeting the payments, and from 1670 the government took over the administration of the system, for which responsibility was assumed by Greenwich Hospital in 1814.

The assets of the fund were kept in an actual chest at Chatham dockyard and secured by five locks, which opened to five separate keys held by five different officers, an expedient intended to prevent misappropriation of funds. The chest exists to this day and may be seen at the Chatham Historic Dockyard museum.

Greenwich Hospital was established by royal charter in 1694 and the first batch of wounded veterans, known as Greenwich pensioners, arrived there in 1705, where they spent the rest of their days in relative comfort. At its peak the hospital was sheltering and caring for 2,800 men. The able-bodied could wander in the streets of Greenwich or enjoy the green slopes of the park. And life there was not without its lighter moments. In 1796 there was a famous cricket match between the pensioners with one arm and those with one leg. The one-leggeds won. The charity also provided support for seamen’s widows and education for their children
.

After each of the major naval battles of the 1790s a charitable subscription was started in the City of London to relieve the suffering of the wounded and bereaved. These were usually organised and managed by a committee of merchants at Lloyd’s Coffee House, later to become the famous insurance market. The first of these funds was raised in 1794 after Lord Howe’s victory over the French at the Glorious First of June. Howe donated his entire prize money from the battle.

Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund, established in 1803, helped both wounded seamen and officers and dependants of seamen killed in action with cash sums. It was one of the first charitable trusts of this nature to be established in the world and continues to this day.

In the rigid social system of the eighteenth century, the Royal Navy offered virtually the only path for someone of low birth, but blessed with talent and luck, to become a gentleman.

During the 22 years of the bitter wars with France probably 600,000 seamen served their king and country. Of those, some 200 or more made the incredible transition from lower deck to officer rank. The odds were huge – 1 in 2,500 – but it did happen. And of those who made the quarterdeck possibly 16 became captains of their own ship and six achieved flag rank.

We know very little about this tiny handful of men. We do know that after Admiral Nelson and Captain Hardy the two most important people in HMS
Victory
at the Battle of Trafalgar were both from the lower deck: John Quilliam, first lieutenant, and John Pascoe, signal lieutenant.

Among the other heroic figures from before the mast was Provo Wallis, who joined the navy as an able seaman in 1795 and died in 1892 an admiral of the fleet. There was also James Clepham, a pressed man who was promoted to the quarterdeck in recognition of his role in a desperate cutting-out expedition in 1801. And Admiral Benbow, Captain Cook and Captain Bligh all rose above lowly origins…