Nelson & His World

Discussion on the life and times of Admiral Lord Nelson
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 Post subject: Royal Naval Academy
PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:39 pm 
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I am currently reading 'Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers' by J.H. & E.C. Hubback, published in 1906.

The book mentions that both Francis and Charles attended the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth before joining their ships. The date of the foundation of the Academy is given in the book as 1775, though other websites say 1733.

Was it usual for a boy in the Georgian era to have some formal education in naval matters prior to going to sea? I had always assumed that boys at this period went to sea straight from home or school and received their entire sea-education through 'hands-on' experience aboard ship. The Hubbacks do point out that experience at sea was a part of the training at the academy; but I wonder what proportion of 'young gentlemen' had this preliminary experience there. Was it a fee-paying establishment? Were places competed for? Did attendance enhance promotion chances?


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:35 am 
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It was founded in 1733 in Portsmouth Dockyard, with the intent of training about 40 boys "sons of the Nobility and Gentry" in the arts of seamanship before being sent to sea, but became the Royal Naval Academy in 1773 after a visit by King George. I am uncertain whether a fee was demanded, but there was no competition, as the 40 places were evidently rarely filled.

It does not seem to have been over-popular, and most boys did go straight to sea; historian Michael Lewis wrote "...many of the senior officers, not having had the advange themselves of much theoretical schooling, tended (being human like other people) to ask 'Whats the use of book-learning to sea-officers?'" St. Vincent dismissed the Naval Academy as "a sink of vice and abomination". What exactly he meant is uncertain, but James Trevenen (a naval officer who left us his memoirs) was an 'Academite' and stated that there were some "confirmed drunkards, some practiced blasphemy and some both" (...binge drinking teenagers are not new then!).


There were some who attended the Academy who went on to have a distinguished career; Philip Vere Broke (of the Shannon) and Thomas Byam Martin (a frigate captain and later Admiral of the Fleet) were both former pupils.

During the early years of the 19th century, it seems to have perked up, probably as the demand for officer candidates increased with the long French war; it was enlarged in 1806 and numbers allowed in expanded to cope with the demand - doubling to 80. It changed its name at the same time to become the Naval College.

Lewis also analysed the backgrounds of over 3,000 officers who featured in O'Byne's Naval Biography (1849); he found that just under 3 percent had either been to the Academy or its replacement, the Royal Naval College (1806).


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 11:23 am 
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Many thanks, PN, for that interesting reply.

The improvement in standards that occurred there in the nineteenth century seems to have been mirrored in the public schools which had earlier, like the Naval Academy, been mired in vice and corruption. Perhaps the pressures and demands of empire had something to do with the change in the ethos of such establishments, creating a more focused aim of producing men of manners and character who were, as one headmaster put it, 'acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.'


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:17 pm 
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Michael Lewis also suggests that many felt the best education for a sea officer was from a schoolmaster on board ship, combined with the practical training received there, but points out that it was very rare to find schoolmasters in ships.

A quick check of the Ayshford Trafalgar Roll and the National Archives Trafalgar Ancestors database suggests there was only one schoolmaster in the whole British fleet at Trafalgar (in the Defence). However, Lewis also says that schoolmasters were rated as midshipmen and also that chaplains might act as schoolmasters (13 ships had chaplains). Were schoolmasters really that rare, or is it that they cannot be distinguished from other midshipmen (or chaplains) in ships' musters?

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:25 pm 
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You may recall that I mentioned on other threads 'The Young Midhsipman's Instructor', a handbook for ships' schoolmasters by David Morrice. The fact that he wrote a handbook to help schoolmasters suggests that they were not all that rare. Christ's Hospital sent a regular supply of young men straight from the school to the navy as schoolmasters.

The problem seems to have been finding ones that were worthwhile. Morrice comments that the Christ's Hospital boys were ill-equipped by youth and inexperience to manage their young charges; others who were employed were often drunkards who taught only the basics of navigation rather than the broad curriculum he advocates.

As you point out, Tony, schoolmasters appeared in ships' musters as midshipmen, and it appears that for them there was little chance of advancement through promotion. Why, one wonders would anyone in their right mind, and not pressed by circumstance or escaping pressures ashore, choose such a dangerous profession, totally devoid of prospects?

But what of the teachers in the Naval Academy? It sounds as if they were just as ineffectual - but at least a bit safer. Wasn't it Dr Johnson who commented that 'being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned'?


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