Nelson & His World

Tony

I have printed copy of the NGSM roll here. When you look up a man under one action and he was awarded that bar it shows all the other bars awarded as well. So for Barney definitely just the Nile bar.

As regards online info for the Defence I can get into the library digital copy of the Times. The Times had regular info regarding ships entering and leaving the various ports. Hopefully won't take too long to see what is there between 1798 and 1801. I'll have a look in a bit.

MB

Below is an example of a Ship News section from the Times - this one is from March 6th 1800.

There may be others but the only other two I picked up which mention Defence are:

February 14th 1801 when Defence left Portsmouth and

March 14th 1801 when the majority of the Baltic Fleet (inc. Defence) left Yarmouth Roads.

Not sure if it is still up on the internet but this is some info about HMS Defence from "Ships of the Old Navy" - for the period between the Battles of the Nile and Copenhagen.

Hopefully it is accurate but I am very confused by the end bit which suggests that she wasn't at the Battle of Copenhagen - though she most certainly was.



MB

A final thought before I hit the sack.

It is probably not worth doing any more work before the musters have been checked to see how long Barney was on HMS Defence.

For all we know he might have just "hitched a ride" back to the U.K. - and joined another ship or no ship at all.

Shame my niece is tied up with her university finals.

When she is home from Uni she lives just 2 tube stops from the National Archive!!

MB

I've seen an image from a book 'Surviving men entitled to Naval General Service Medal clasps for actions between 1793 and 1827' and only the Nile clasp is listed for Barney. ie 'Other Clasps' column is blank.




I've also seen the 'Ships of the Old Navy' site, thanks

Cheers, MTS

MTS, here are some instructions on posting images: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=685

gotcha - thanks Tony - I was missing the step to 'place in line'

I've now gone back and uploded the image in the original post

Cheers, MTS

Before leaving this topic, it might be worth adding to the interesting info. Tony has already provided on Muster Books and their compilation.
One of the reasons that a study of the Georgian Navy is so fascinating lies in the comprehensive picture of life at sea that can be culled from the masses of adminstrative documents, returns, lists of stores, logs etc that officers were required to maintain and send to the authorities. Most (including Muster Books) had a financial purpose and officers were not paid until these returns were received and passed by the Navy Board.

The various isssues of the “Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea” made thoughout the 18th century carried comprehensive guidance to individual officiers and warrant officers on their obligations on this point and, out of interest, I give below one (only one) para from the section of the "Regulation" devoted to the returns the Captain was required to make. This is from the 1808 edition, but the para had remained identical in wording for 70 years before that date.

"XVII
He is regularly at the expiration of every two Months to
Send to the Navy Board a full and perfect Muster Book,
signed by himself and the other signing officers; which
Book is to contain every circumstance relating to the
Officers and Men as directed in Article 6th Chapter 3rd,
with entries of all the charges to be made against them for
slops, beds, tobacco &c. from the time of the Ship be-
ing commissioned, or of her being last paid; and the
times of mustering, the place where, and the person by
whom mustered, and muster letters are to be cor-
rectly inserted, with the Abstract of the number bourne,
mustered, and checked at each muster, and the alpha-
betical list of the Men’s names is to be sent with the
Muster Book. He is to receive from the officers who sign
the Muster Book a Certificate of their having signed for it,
and at what time; and he is to obtain a receipt from the
person to whom he delivers it to be transmitted to the Navy Board."

The implication in the final phrases is that officers were expected to send their returns back to England at set times and not to wait until the ship returned to England or was paid off. This often meant giving handing them over to other homeward bound ships for delivery and - the sea being what it is - some of these were inevitably lost or captured resulting in gaps in the archives. In the Navy Board records in the National Maritime Museum there are numerous examples of (ultimately successful, but lengthy) attempts of officers (or their widows) to get the Board to agree to pass their acccounts, and thus authorise pay, even though important returns were missing on the grounds that the documents had been put on board ships that had been subsequently lost at sea or in action.

Brian

Wow - what a logistical exercise it all was!

If it was the captain's responsibility to send the musters then I suppose it would be the captain of the forwarding ship who would have signed as having taken custody of them.

If a ship was captured I guess that any type of official documents it was carrying would automatically have gone "over the side."

When the ship arrived at the home port it must have been carrying all manner of post and other official documents. Some for London (Admiralty/Navy Board etc.), some to be dealt with at the home port and then all sorts of other correspondence to go into the normal postal system.

I wonder whose job it was to sort all that out. The Purser seems the obvious answer but I have no idea.

As Brian says - quite amazing how much information we have access to - but every question answered seems to lead to another one!!

MB

I made my first brief visit to the National Archives for about a year at the end of last week, and yet again was struck by how lucky we are to have the mass of documents that Brian describes.

While there, I couldn't resist taking a peek at the Orion musters. The second muster book (ADM 36/11857 Ship: ORION 1795 Mar - 1799 Jan) was of no help. I think it must be the 'Open List' because although recorded on monthly muster forms for two month periods, the columns for slops, tobacco, etc. were not completed. It was very incomplete with most of 1798 missing, and nothing in the 'whence from' column.

But in the first muster book (ADM 36/11860 Ship: ORION 1797 Oct - 1799 Jan) the entries are legible, including the entry on the CD, and it reads 'Rose in June Sloop in Lisbon'. I assume that must be a merchant vessel, as I haven't found any info on a RN vessel of that name at that time. Interestingly, the muster book is complete with the entries for August/September, so I am puzzled by the comments on the CD about them being missing. It is still in its original (and gently disintegrating) leather binding, with all the monthly (8 weekly) books in the right sequence, so it is not as though anything has been found and added in the last hundred years or so! The entries for the other months are even more legible (see below). It is also interesting to note that his age seems to have been mis-transcribed on the entry reproduced on the CD. All the other entries have his age recorded as 22.






I didn't have time for any further searches, I'm afraid.

Wow! Tony - that's brilliant - Thanks so much for taking the trouble to look those up. That last image (5) is so clear.

I've got details of Barney being baptised in August 1773, which would make him 24 yr old by 1797. It may be he wasn't sure exactly how old he was, or did the maths wrong, or at some point he's said he was younger than his real age (to try and avoid the Press?) and had to carry on with that figure. Anyway, 22's closer to his real age than 28 so I agree that must be a transcription error rather than a correction.

Those images also show the different use of Barn'd and Bernard that I've found on documents throughout his life. (as well as Barnard and Barney of course )

Interesting that you think it must have been a merchant ship - would that mean he was 'pressed'? or would there have been some other method of 'recruitment' used? I notice it doesn't say 'whether Pressed or not' in any of those musters.

A quick Google of 'Rose in June', found a 44 ton sloop wrecked off Youghal in Ireland in 1799. here - http://www.irishwrecksonline.net/Lists/ ... dListD.htm - but no real indication it was the same sloop.

Thanks again for those details, Tony

Cheers, MTS

Tony

Cracking result!

I still get a little shiver when I see these muster entries - imagining all the stories that lie behind them!!

I don't think in a million years we would have got "Rose in June" from that CD image.

I go with your notion that it was a merchant vessel. I checked the NA index and there are no musters/logs etc. for a "Rose in June" so almost certainly not a RN ship.

I took a quick look in the Ship News as before. Unfortunately I can only go back to 1800 but I found several references to that name shortly after that date.

Impossible to know if these, or indeed the one that sank off Ireland are the one referred to in the musters.

Here is just one example I found from September 1802 - describing ships coming and going from Margate.



I suppose there might be some mention in a contemporary Portugese/Lisbon newspaper! There's a challenge for MTS!!

MB

MTS

You can doubtless do plenty of Googling yourself now you have a name to go on.

But I just happened upon this one myself on a Genealogy website.

It looks as if there was a ship named Rose in June with connections to South Shields.

I bet there are some guys in that area who are very knowledgeable about local ships and shipping - so might be worth pursuing that line of enquiry. Could start with the Local History library/local archive/museums etc. etc.



MB

I vaguely recalled from my years at the old PRO that there was a huge archive of material concerning merchant shipping in the Board of Trade records, though these dated from about the 1830s so wouldn't be much help.

However, the NMM has some archive material useful for tracing people via crew lists:

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/librar ... ments-logs

Mark: yes, I agree: the bare entries all have a story to tell. It was even more interesting when you could meet the descendants - I remember the delight of a man who found copyright material registered by his ancestor in the 19th century, a ventriloquist who rejoiced in the name of Tootsie Sloper. Another man who came to get a copy of his deed poll was a Jewish refugee who had come to England from Germany on the last 'Kindertransport' out of Berlin and had lost 61 relations. And as for the Aussies! If you could find them a convict ancestor in the Goal Books you had to duck the kisses!

I think sometimes Navy ships 'asked' a merchant ship for volunteers, perhaps with an implied or explicit threat that they would press men if none were forthcoming. As you will have seen, there are a few entries for other men in the muster which do say 'Prest', and a few which specify 'Volunteer', but in my experience that information is omitted from many muster books altogether, and I don't think you can draw any conclusion either way when it is missing.

As well as the 'Rose in June' that Mark identified, there was another 'Rose in June' (or possibly the same one?) owned by Michael Henley & Son and involved in the coal trade between Newcastle and Gibraltar in 1796, but captured in November 1796. I wonder whether she was Barney's ship and had been recaptured, or whether his was another. Or if the 'Rose in June' had been re-captured, perhaps Barney was part of the prize crew, although unlikely as in that case his original RN ship should have been recorded in the Orion muster. His South Shields origin does seem to make the coal trade quite likely. There is some info on the 1796 'Rose in June' (and loads on Michael Henley & Son) at the National Maritime Museum Caird Library:
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/archiv ... %2F12%2F11
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/archiv ... %2F12%2F12
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/archiv ... cfm?ID=HNL

There is also a searchable index of the Lloyd's List shipping news here: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lloydsli ... d=&fd=&o=0
N.B. This just covers the news section (wrecks, captures, etc.) not the arrivals and departures section.

Another complication is that in some records, 'Rose in June' is probably just recorded as 'Rose'.

I will also PM you regarding the muster images.