Nelson & His World

Here's an interesting link that covers a wide range of naval customs and traditions in the 18th century Royal Navy and afterwards.

I suppose nothing in it will be new to the experts here but I found it most informative. Would members care to give a rough indication of how much of this information was new to them - 5%, 10%, 20% or whatever?

http://www.hmsrichmond.org/avast/customs.htm

I find it difficult to respond to your question. Some of it was certainly new to me. But at least 5% of what I DID know was wrong, so what percentage of what I did not know was equally erroneous?
It is a pity the organisers of the website did not leave a space for corrections? Or do they? Some of this technology is beyond me

Brian

Brian: if you scroll to the bottom of the link and click on 'Site index Page' then scroll to the bottom of that page you will see a 'Contact Us' link to offer corrections.

I was about to reply in a similar vein to Brian. There is certainly some detail there which is new to me, but although much is probably correct, again there is some I know to be wrong, and some I suspect to be wrong.

It is curious that one of the effects of this new technology (this Interweb thingy) is that outdated information is propagated faster and further than ever before! I guess it is because so much on the Net is taken from old public domain material whose copyright has expired, and so little comes from recent books or journal articles. The result is that most of the last hundred years research is ignored on the web! That may be a slight exaggeration in this case, but most of the information comes word for word from an article by Lieutenant Commander A D Taylor (as acknowledged) written over 50 years ago. I am sure that the article was well researched and well respected then, but things move on. The site also contains a splendid bibliography of two or three hundred books and articles, but which includes nothing written in the last 10 years, and those written in the last 20 years can be counted on one hand.

It’s a shame because the site is a most valiant and laudable effort by an organisation in those rebellious colonies across the Atlantic to educate their countrymen about the Royal Navy during the American War of Independence.

But perhaps we should blame modern day historians? The learned societies shun technology and seem to be increasingly introspective. And I wonder what the age profile is of those who read history books? I suspect the current generation read Wikipedia. We should all vow to update at least one Wikipedia article per year!

Anna,

I haven't read the whole in detail, but from what I have read, I would agree with Brian and Tony in that is difficult to put a percentage on it. Much of it I have heard, but much of it I have also heard explained in another way! There is also the fact that some details are not explained too well, or ar incorrect.

For example, right at the top, the explanation regarding navigation lights is a little confusing, although the date for the introduction of coloured side lights is about right. From it one might get the impression that the side lights (red to port, green to starboard – and showing from dead ahead to 22.5 ° behind the beam – although this is not explained) were also used for a ship at anchor. This is certainly not the case (the correct illumination for this being an all round white light, on the forestay). There must be a distinct difference between a vessel at anchor, and one 'under way' or moving, thus coloured side navigation lights are only used for the latter. It defeats the whole concept otherwise, and the last thing you want is confusion at sea! I'll read on and see if I can find other 'gems'.

I suspect Tony is right re. lack of modern research and input.

I was probably too charitable in my earlier post. Take this: That simply flies in the face of the evidence, as everyone here knows. And it is not evidence that has only emerged in the last 50 years research - You only need to look as far as the naming of HMS Victory. It seems to me that in fact the Admiralty stubbornly refused to bow to superstition. Three RN ships named Stirling Castle were wrecked in the 18th century, and they still continued to use the name. The predecessors of HMS Invincible, scrapped this year, fared equally badly.

Are there other ship's names with equally bad - or worse - histories?

A lot of it seems to be more of the 'my old gran used to say' type of history so basically conjecture and old wives tales.

I noticed that he says Cook has one death from scurvy whereas it was five cases and no deaths (I think) plus Cook did not utilise limes for his voyages and it was Gilbert Blane who first managed to get such items officially passed out to the fleet.

It also states that the food was no low quantity and poor quality. This may be true with regard to current days (or even 50 years ago) but is also not true. Quantity was excellent and the quality was often far better than the equivalent on land. NAM Rodger has provided plenty of evidence both for this and for historians bringing this up as a factor. Incidentally has anyone read his collected essays and is it worth the £80 asking price?

I would also disagree with the comment that prayers were also said before engagements as that would depend on the captain concerned. Maybe after the Napoleonic wars and even then some engagements would be so sudden that the mere concept of 'always' is obviously invalid.

Some of it was interesting though - I had not considered the reasoning behind firing single salutes when entering a harbour and the explanation given there makes perfect sense (very similar to people shaking hands with their sword hand)

Joss

Tony,

Well, how about the original 'Ark', which was the later aircraft carrier's badge? She ended up stranded some way from the sea, on Mount Ararat - which I think would fall under the category of 'grounding'!

The saga about the delay in the naming of the Victory, and the reasons for it, are quite well known - which the compilers of the site could have found out quite easily.

If you go to the section on admiral's flags under 'More Customs', they seem to have their wires crossed there too - and there is no mention of the flags of each rank of admiral being flown from different masts. They also erroneously imply that the flags flown by admirals today are the same as those flown by admirals in Nelson's day, and which has some relevance to the lack of masts these days!

Later it says that 'the white ensign was assigned to the navy as Nelson had wished...' I had never heard that that was actually Nelson's wish. I had always thought that this decided in 1864, and that the white ensign went to the RN due to the fact that Nelson had been Vice Admiral of the white squadron?