Nelson & His World

It is well known that Nelson spoke in defence of a Captain James MacNamara at his trial for murder after a duel. A full account is given here:

http://www.google.com/search?q=duel++ma ... -2,DVFA:en

Nelson also travelled in France with an officer named James MacNamara, though I believe he was not the MacNamara of the duel. Can anyone confirm this?

If there were indeed two James MacNamaras, I wonder which one wrote the letter below, now in the British Library, (ADM 34905 f211) to Lord Nelson. It makes rather sad reading:

Portsmouth, December 15th 1798

My Dear Lord,

I'm now for the first time in my Life - going to beg a favor from your Lordship, which is to request you would do me the honour to mention me to Lord Spencer - the First Lord of the Admiralty as a gentleman who once had the honor of being an old shipmate of yours. I've no interest.

The state of my health - your Lordship knows - and from the bad state of my Eyes, I'm not fit for much application & from the Complaints not calculated for an active employ. Others who may have been in a Similar Situation have had their flags (previous to a promotion - have been employed in port to give them a pretext for having been employed) this is what I wish for, or should a promotion not reach me A yacht (?) when any vacant, at any rate, my Dear Lord, to mention me in any manner Your Lordship may think proper, which will confer the greatest obligation on Your Lordship's

most devoted &
obedient servant,

Jas. MacNamara

PS Words cannot convey an adequate idea of your brilliand and decided Victory off the Nile.

Yes, there were two James MacNamaras. The Captain James MacNamara who travelled to France with Nelson had been a fellow lieutenant in the Bristol in 1778. He was about 20 years older than Nelson, and he wrote the letter in 1798 that you quote. The letter is not so sad – he was then about 60 years old, and his promotion to rear-admiral (retired) came through a couple of months later.

The other much younger Captain James MacNamara who fought the duel in 1803 had been a fellow captain with Nelson in the Mediterranean in the 1790s.

Many thanks for the clarification, Tony.

Can you, or anyone, say anything more about officers' pay? An officer not in active employment received half-pay, did he not? Was MacNamara afraid that he would not be considered fit for employment and forcibly retired and so lose even his half-pay? This must have been a worrying prospect. The Times front pages of the day frequently carried desperate pleas for help from penniless sick and wounded officers with families to support, which suggests that once retired they received nothing. Would the situation of a retired admiral be different?

I am pretty hazy on the details of half pay, so I hope somebody else can correct me if I am wrong, or point us to a more authoritative source of information as this is highly relevant to my own research too.

An officer could be removed from the half pay list if he actually declined an assignment. Otherwise, as far as I am aware, the Admiralty would usually allow an officer to remain on half pay indefinitely, although strictly an officer had to be available for service. I think the problem was that there was pretty universal dissatisfaction with the level of half pay, which was not considered sufficient for a gentleman to live on in the comfort he would have aspired to. Also, half pay was stopped if an officer took up any other public appointment. Half pay was not actually half of normal pay – on average it was more, but it did not relate directly to an individual’s previous full pay. There were set rates of half pay which varied according to seniority within the captain’s list, lieutenant’s list, etc.

Pensions were only awarded in very exceptional circumstances, except to widows of officers killed in service, or Greenwich Hospital pensions to invalided officers.

At some stage, promotion in lieu of superannuation was widened, which had started with yellow admirals in 1747, but around the end of the Napoleonic wars, for example, a number of lieutenants were also promoted to retired commander on the understanding they would not be offered further active service.

I think MacNamara was seeking an increase in half pay by promotion to rear-admiral, which might perhaps have nearly doubled (?) his half pay as captain. (In 1796, the top 50 captains were on 10/- per day half pay, and a rear-admiral’s half pay was 17/6 per day.) As he could not be promoted out of turn, he is also suggesting full pay by an appointment in port pending promotion, or to a yacht. He was made a superannuated rear-admiral (yellow admiral), which gave him a rear-admiral’s half pay, but I believe offered no further possibility of promotion.

Many thanks for those observations, Tony.

I'm not clear, though, about the terms of service. When a man joined the navy, was he free to leave at the end of every assignment? Nelson frequently threatened not to serve again, so am I assuming correctly that he, and any other officer, was free to go when he chose?

Regarding promotion, half-pay etc. James Anthony Gardner, who wrote the very amusing autobiography mentioned in the book reports, was one of those lieutenants who retired on a commander's half-pay. I've lent the book to a friend, so can't check the details, but I think I recall that, although a capable officer, he was not promoted beyond lieutenant, probably because he had chosen not to serve in the West Indies, fearful, ir is suggested, of the appallingly high risk there of dying of disease. This might have damaged his promotion prospects, but he continued to serve as lieutenant, until he was eventually retired on half-pay as a commander.

NB: I've added 'Pay and Pensions' to the title of the thread for ease of reference in the future.

Tycho!

The situation seems to have been that when an officer received the King's commission on being appointed as a lieutenant, he joined the state's payroll and was entitled to receive renumeration as long he lived. If employed, he received personal pay plus whatever additional allowances were permitted (those of a lieutenant or captain, for example, varied with the size of the ship on which they served.)

When he was not so employed, the officer was entitled to half pay. This was actually a retainer to ensure that he was available and could respond immediately to the call to arms if war was declared. He was allowed to take on additional employment (in the merchant service for example) without losing his entitlement to half pay, but it was forfeited if this was in the service of the crown or that of foreign states. An officer was perfectly entitled to decline an appointment if he wished without losing his half pay entitlement. However, it probably reduced his chances in a competitive service of ever being offered anything again and thus of being promoted further.

When the navy was demoblised in, for example 1815, the focus changed and half pay became regarded as a valuable form of pension and guarantee against falling into penury. We have all seen the cartoon of the Mid forced to black boots on Tower Hill because he had no half pay. Lieutenants did not have to resort to this because they received half pay. The admiralty recognised this and, in gratitude for their services in the late war, promoted hundreds of mids and masters mates as lieutenants in 1815 so that they would not be destitute in the peace. And in the years that followed, it continued to give priority to promoting elderly veterans to lieutenancies. Interestingly enough, once this promotion and the accompanying half pay had been secured, few ever served again.

This perk was very necessary as the post-war demobilisation was drastic. In 1820, 85% of those on the Navy List were unemployed. This run down, and the admiralty's generosity in terms of promotions, meant that the Navy Lists became clogged and that (since retirement was unknown and regarded a a dishonour) as time went on the majority became very elderly. To mitigate the problem and allow youth to have a chance, the admiralty began to 'bribe' officers to 'retire' by offering to promote them to the half pay list of the rank above as long as they effectively gave up all thought of serving further. Thus, the idea that James Anthony Gardner's final rank was that of commander is a fiction: he was actually a lieutenant who had accepted the bribe. Indeed in the List he, and others like him, were described as 'Retired Commanders' to make it clear.

Brian

Tycho!
Just a few corroborative details re my note of yesterday:
- Average annual promotions to lieutenant 1808-1813 = 180
- Promotions in 1815 = 950 of which 780 were in February and March

Immediate post war
- Sea Pay per lunar month: ave captain=£24.10; ave
commander=£14.14s; ave lieutenant=£8.8s
- Half pay per lunar month; captain=£17.10s;commander=£11.18s;
lieutenant=£8.15s
No wonder that many lieutenants were keen to become 'retired
commanders'.

As has been pointed put 'half pay' was very much a term of art and was quite innacurate in terms of real income. The anomaly whereby lieutenants half pay was greater than their full pay was partially rectified in the 1820s when average full pay went up to £10.7s

By means of comparison, average civilian monthly wages at the same time were reckoned to be:
farm labourer=£1.18s; miner=£4; cotton spinner=£5.8s; mason=£4.2s;
compositor (the highest paid artisan)=£8

Brian

Brian,

Tycho is having technical difficulties with a new computer at the moment and, unable to access the forum, has asked if I'll pass on thanks for your explanation re: half pay/retired officers, on her behalf.

Many thanks!