by Roy Adkins
However much they might protest, there were not enough seafaring jobs for all the laid-off sailors, and wages were kept low. Most of the men had no other skills and stood no chance in competition with all the returning soldiers for a dwindling number of labouring jobs that were being gradually replaced by machines. With no pensions or social security systems, and faced with starvation, many sailors turned either to begging or to crime – a situation summed up in two terse verses of a contemporary song:
Says Jack, ‘There is very good news;
There is peace both by land and by sea;
Great guns no more shall be used
For we all disbanded must be.’
Says Jack, ‘I will take to the road,
For I’d better do that than do worse;
And everyone that comes by, I’ll cry:
“Damn you, deliver your purse!”’20
Since many of the men had no experience of crime but were forced to steal to support themselves, they were more likely to be caught, and exceptional cases were reported in the newspapers:
SOUTHWARK SESSIONS. GEORGE NICHOLA was indicted for stealing a pair of pantaloons, the property of Saml. Knight, on the 25th of February last [1815]. The prisoner, who is Portuguese, and could not be understood but through the medium of an interpreter, pleaded guilty, and said it was distress, and absolute want of food, which had induced him to commit the offence with which he was charged. He had served his Majesty in the navy for ten years, but was discharged in October last, since which time he had subsisted almost entirely on the bounty of a poor Irish woman; he had made repeated applications for a passport to return to his own country; but all his efforts had been unsuccessful. He threw himself on the mercy of the Court; at the same time expressing his readiness again to enter the navy, if they would receive him. Papers were produced by the prisoner which proved the truth of his statement, and the Court sentenced him to be imprisoned one month. Sir Wm. Leighton, the presiding Alderman, humanely declaring that he would, during that time, make inquiries as to what could be done to assist him.21
Others fared little better when begging:
MANSIONHOUSE. – Tuesday John Sanderson, a sailor, was charged with stopping passengers in the street, and abruptly demanding of them to supply his wants. One of the complainants, a young man, stated, that on Monday last, between ten and eleven at night, he was stopped by the prisoner in Fenchurch street, on pretence of begging, but in a manner that surprised him much, it resembling the conduct of a foot-pad: he called the watchman, and gave him in charge. The prisoner stated, that he had been paid off from a King’s ship about two months, when he was possessed of 59l. [£59] of which he was robbed the same night at a house where he slept in Little Russell-street, Bloomsbury: he was in great distress, and afflicted with disease, and had no place of abode ever since. He had a brother in Liverpool, whom he wished to join, and had repeatedly applied for a pass, which he now solicited. Another complainant stated, that he had frequently seen the prisoner commit the same offence, and in particular towards a lady and gentleman, whom he undertook to bring forward. The LORD MAYOR observed, that if it should be clearly made out against the prisoner that he had obtained money under the influence of compulsion, it would amount to highway robbery. – Remanded for further examination.22
Inevitably many of the destitute seamen congregated around the ports, and in 1821, when Acheson was lamenting the fate of half-pay officers, the port of Hull put the ‘Hull Sailor Poor Bill’ before Parliament. The shipowners resisted the proposed tax, arguing it was unprecedented, but as a letter to The Times pointed out, ‘the Sunderland sailor poor acts, the decisions of the courts of law in various cases which have come before them, and the fact that shipping is now directly assessed in many places to the relief of the poor, completely contradict this statement’.23
Thousands of officers and seamen alike never returned home, but were lost or buried at sea, and there were established charities for widows and dependants of officers who were killed in action. For famous battles like the Nile and Trafalgar public charities were organised to make payments to the wounded, widows and orphans. For distressed ex-seamen, though, it was only the long-standing charity called the Chatham Chest and Greenwich Hospital that provided help. The Chatham Chest was moved to Greenwich in 1803, and the two funds were amalgamated in 1814. Greenwich Hospital, whose proper title was The Royal Hospital, Greenwich, was not a medical hospital but a retirement home or almshouse for naval seamen and marines with sea service, in operation since 1705. For those considered eligible the fund paid a fixed sum as compensation for a wound or disability or a pension to enable an ex-seaman to live in his own accommodation, perhaps with his wife and children. Alternatively, it could provide a place for him to live as a Greenwich Pensioner at the hospital, complete with distinctive blue uniform. As the amount of money was limited, there were always more applicants for funds and hospital places than could be supported.
Even for the men who managed to stay on in the navy after 1815, life was not easy when they did eventually leave the service. George King was finally invalided out in 1831 with a small pension, and rather than stay in Britain he sailed to America, where he obtained a post as a teacher. He did not settle and soon returned to Britain, where he tried various jobs, but competition for work was fierce. He found he could not survive, and as his pension entitled him to apply for a place in Greenwich Hospital, he attempted to gain admittance:
I now began to turn my thoughts towards making an application to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and accordingly I went to their office on the following Board day, there being upwards of three hundred applicants waiting for Admission. I tendered my Pension Ticket to the porter and my name was taken down and sent in but the number admitted into Greenwich Hospital that day was thirteen. The rest was ordered to attend on a future day so that I was obliged to trust again to St. Katharines Dock where I had several days [work] afterwards, now and then trying the London and West India Dock, then turning again to St. Katharines and got two or three days work just before Christmas Eve.24
After many years of service, King had prize-money owing to him from various battles and skirmishes, the payment of which was a trickle rather than a stream, but he ‘once more visited Somerset House if haply there might be any proportion of prize money become due, but I was on my application answered in the negative’.25 Without work and income, he tried for Greenwich Hospital once more:
It being Board day at the Admiralty Office [I] produced my pension ticket with a hundred more [men]. We had to wait out in the court yard till our names was called to appear in the inner office. At eleven their lordships arrived and the number called in was about fifty but only nine vacancies. I did not expect to be admitted but one of the lords asked me my service and also my pension to which I answered him twenty four years and sixteen pounds pension when he ordered my ticket to be taken away and I was ordered into the outer office to sit down. When the nine was accepted the remainder went away and each of us received a note to repair down to Greenwich Hospital and produce that note to the Regulating Boatswain at the main guard of Greenwich hospital. I immediately set off accompanied [by] another man and arrived there at four o’clock and went to the main guard, produced the note and [was] placed on the books upwards of seven years since.26
In April 1844, to coincide with the Easter holidays, the Illustrated London News presented a patriotic yet naive portrayal of some of the Greenwich seamen. ‘“The Old Pensioners,” as they are somewhat irreverendly termed by light-hearted holiday folks,’ the reporter commented,
are great personages in the amusements of Easter Week at Greenwich … Hurrah for the sons of the ocean, the old boys who are fond of their jacket to the last! hurrah for the gallant heroes who led them on from victory to victory! and hurrah for our naval fame, that stands pre-eminent over that of all the nations of the earth … And who more nobly performed this duty than our gallant tars, who with the flag that they loved, were ever ready to brave �
�the battle and the breeze?’ A time-honoured band are the veteran pensioners of Greenwich, who fought and shed their blood to maintain inviolate the freedom of their native land against foreign aggressors, and vindictive foes. Three cheers in remembrance of our naval chiefs of other days, and one cheer more for the living memorials of our proud achievements on the ocean! Hurrah for Lord Nelson and his glorious deeds!27
Seven veterans were next likened to living memorials:
Hurrah for Greenwich Hospital! Monuments have been erected to the memory of departed greatness – statues dedicated to dead heroes hold a prominent situation in the great temples of the land – but the proudest testimonial of national gratitude to the living, stands on the Thames Bank, at Greenwich … Nelson’s name is imperishable. Cape Trafalgar will always occupy a prominent page in the records of naval history; and now be it our task to rescue humbler, though not less brave individuals, from obscurity, by presenting the portraits of seven who fought on the memorable occasion (when England triumphed, but Nelson fell).28
Descriptions, with pen-and-ink sketches, were given of seven seamen, and although George King was still alive (he died in 1857 at the age of seventy), those chosen for the feature were veterans who had fought at Trafalgar. They included Joseph Burgin,
about sixty years of age, first drew his breath at Bishop Stortford, and believes himself to be the senior pensioner in the hospital, which he entered in the year 1806. He served in the Vanguard, Nelson’s flag ship, in the battle of the Nile – was paid off at the peace of Amiens, but subsequently impressed, and again served with Nelson in the Victory in the battle of Trafalgar. He was stationed at the 13th gun on the middle deck, and lost his left leg in the middle of the fight through a shot from the Bucentaur. Enjoys a pension of £14 per annum. He is a fine specimen of the sturdy class, and could tell many a tale of war by flood and field.29
When Burgin was serving in the Vanguard, as a landsman, he used the false name of James Coxhead. He was laid off at the Peace of Amiens, but was taken during the hot press of May 1803 and served on board the Victory as an ordinary seaman until severely injured at Trafalgar in 1805. He died at Greenwich Hospital in 1862, almost ninety years old, after being resident there for over half a century.
Another of the veterans was David Fearall, who had enlisted with the marines in 1799. ‘This gallant veteran,’ it was stated,
now seventy-two years of age, is a native of Lewes in Sussex, was sergeant of marines in the Victory at Trafalgar, and nobly responded to the last telegraphic signal of her chief; he afterwards served in the Milford at Trieste; has been engaged in numerous boat actions and cutting-out the enemy’s vessels from under batteries; but though repeatedly in the thickest of the fight never received a wound. After fifteen years in various ships he retired upon a pension of £17 4s. per annum; is still hale and hearty, and well remembers incidents in which he bore a prominent share.30
Although not luxurious, Greenwich Hospital provided the basics for retired seamen and marines, with a higher standard of living and greater freedom than the average parish workhouse, where so many of Nelson’s seamen ended their days. In most cases the plight of such men went unnoticed, but those who had served at the most famous battles occasionally came to public attention, as in a letter to The Times of 1872: ‘When visiting the Chorley Union workhouse last week, I found an inmate named Joseph Swindlehurst, who was a sailor in the Victory at Trafalgar, and who is now 89 years. I merely venture to lay his case before the public, hoping that some means may be found to help this old sailor pass his last days out of “the house”.’31 Nobody by the name of Joseph Swindlehurst is recorded as having fought at Trafalgar, but like Burgin he may have used an alias, or he was simply an old seaman embellishing his tales of the sea. Certainly his life in retirement was not one of leisure, as the medical officer of the workhouse attested: ‘Joseph Swindlehurst, aged 89, is … an inmate of the Chorley (Lancashire) Union Workhouse … He is at present more than earning the cost of his maintenance by working as a tailor.’32
However they fared in the peace, the thousands of men and women who were caught up in the navy during the wars with France and America could not be robbed of their experiences and their memories – people like Mary Sperring, who ‘never tired of telling that she washed the blood from the shirt which the gallant Admiral [Nelson] wore when he received his fatal wound’.33 There were also many men like the marine David Newton, who died in 1878 at the age of ninety-two, who were fond of reliving the past. A few years before he died the vicar of Cholesbury, Buckinghamshire, where Newton retired after his sea service managed to obtain a Greenwich pension for him. The vicar later related one of the stories that the old man had told him:
In one of our chats I happened to ask in what way his ship went into action at Trafalgar. His reply was, ‘You see, Sir the enemy was drawn up in a kind of half moon shape, two deep, and close together; so we went spank into them’ – the old man’s countenance brightened at the thought – ‘and broke their line, But just as we had done so, were getting into position, our tiller rope was shot away, and four ships at once set upon us, two taking us fore and aft.’ ‘It was very hot work, Sir’ he added, ‘while it lasted, and our second lieutenant, Mr. Little, came down between decks and ordered all the men to lie down flat on the decks. Fortunately the “Billyruffian,” (the old sailor will persist in so styling her; he knows the Bellerophon by no other name) and another ship came to our aid, and it ended in two or three. I forget which of the captains that had attacked us having to deliver up their swords on our deck to Captain Moresom [Moorsom]’.34
Such stories, sometimes written down, sometimes dictated to newspaper reporters, and sometimes passed on from generation to generation, form the building blocks of family history – and it is the sum of the histories of all the families that forms the history of the nation.
Ordinary people generally favoured the Jack Tars, not least because the Royal Navy remained Britain’s main defence, and as the seaman William Robinson commented, ‘a British seaman has a right to be proud, for he is incomparable when placed alongside those of any other nation. Great Britain can truly boast of her hearts of oak, the floating sinews of her existence, and the high station she holds in the political world’.35 The monarch and the British government were always less sympathetic than the people, though, and Nelson’s words, written in 1797, would ring true for seamen and marines for a very long time: ‘We are a neglected set, and, when peace comes, are shamefully treated.’36
NOTES
Abbreviations
BL – British Library
NMM – National Maritime Museum
RMM – Royal Marines Museum
RNM – Royal Naval Museum
TNA – The National Archives
INTRODUCTION: SCUM OF THE EARTH
1 Watson 1827, p. v
2 Wathen 1814, p. 5
3 Wellington 1838, p. 496. In a letter to Earl Bathurst he said, ‘We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers’
4 Petrides and Downs 2000, p. 38
5 The tune was by William Boyce
6 Many thanks to Dr Mike Duffy for this lead
7 Gentleman 1770, p. 209; he was reviewing a comedy called The Provok’d Husband
8 Firth 1908, p. 235
9 Watson 1827, p. 120
10 Goodall 1860, p. 59
11 Watson 1827, p. 156
12 Hall 1846, series 2, pp. 152–3
13 Hawker 1821, pp. 6–7
A FEW FACTS AND FIGURES
1 Watson 1827, p. viii
2 Dillon 1953, vol. 1, p. 18
3 Tiverton Library manuscript GM/1805/1128/86
4 Price 1984, p. 28
ONE: LEARNING THE ROPES
1 Watson 1827, p. 114
2 Dibdin 1844, p. 108 – from ‘The True English Sailor’ by Charles Dibdin
3 Goodall 1860, p. 5
4 National Maritime Museum manuscript SPB/15
5 Scott 1834, vol. 2, p. 296
&n
bsp; 6 Hall 1846, series 1, p. 7
7 Moody 1959, p. 230
8 Moody 1961–2, p. 248
9 Thomas 1968, p. 45
10 Thursfield 1951, pp. 243–4
11 Wheeler 1951, p. 25
12 Gardner 1906, pp. 124–5
13 Thursfield 1951, pp. 23–4
14 Royal Naval Museum manuscript 1986/537/50
15 The National Archives ADM 1/2507
16 NMM manuscript LBK/38
17 Hay 1953, p. 72
18 Thursfield 1951, p. 35. This was July 1812
19 Analysed by David Cordingly (2003, p. 209)
20 Oxford Archaeology 2007, p. 47
21 Aaron Thomas Papers, Special Collections, University of Miami Libraries
22 Aaron Thomas Papers
23 Aaron Thomas Papers, written in 1799
24 Aaron Thomas Papers, written in September 1798
25 Thomas 1968, p. 115
26 Royal Marines Museum manuscript 11/12/41: letter dated 13 February 1799
27 Raigersfeld 1929, p. 14
28 Raigersfeld 1929, p. 14
29 Aaron Thomas Papers
30 Aaron Thomas Papers, written in 1799