William Robinson, whose pseudonym may well have been his lower-deck nickname, volunteered for naval service in May 1805. This was in itself unusual by this time, but, rather more true to form, he eventually deserted in 1811. However, in his six years as an ordinary seaman he saw much action, including fighting at Trafalgar in the 74-gun Revenge - and less gloriously at the controversial Basque Roads attack, and the disastrous invasion of Walcheren in 1809. His experiences were probably typical of a Channel Fleet sailor of those years, and Robinson's descriptions are particularly valuable because, while he was an intelligent observer, he never became embittered by the harsh conditions, so his account is balanced and credible.
The definitive biography of the British naval officer who found the Antarctic shoreline in the early nineteeth century. Captain Cook claimed the honor of being the first man to sail into the Antarctic Ocean in 1773, which he circumnavigated the following year. Cook, though, did not see any land, and declared that there was no such thing as the Southern Continent. Fifty years later, an Irishman who’d been impressed into the Royal Navy at eighteen, and risen through the ranks to the position of master, proved Cook wrong, discovering and charting parts of the Antarctic shoreline. He also discovered Elephant Island and Clarence Island, claiming them for the British Crown. Edward Bransfield’s naval career included taking part in the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816 onboard the 50-gun warship HMS Severn. Then, in 1817, he was posted to the Royal Navy’s Pacific Squadron off Valparaíso in Chile, and it was while he served there that the skipper of an English whaling ship, the Williams, was driven south by adverse winds and discovered what came to be known as the South Shetland Islands where Cook had said there was no land. Bransfield’s superior officer, Captain Sherriff, decided to investigate further. He chartered Williams and sent Bransfield with two midshipmen and a ship’s surgeon into the Antarctic—and the Irishman sailed into history. Despite many parts of Antarctica and an Antarctic survey vessel being named after him, and a Royal Mail commemorative stamp issued in his name, the full story of this remarkable man and his historic journey, have never been told—until now. Following decades of research, Sheila Bransfield MA, a member of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, has produced the definitive biography of one of Britain’s greatest maritime explorers. The book also includes a foreword by the Trust’s patron the Princess Royal. “Bransfield’s meticulous research gives us a detailed account of the daily routines of the Navy and the immense amount of maintenance required of a large wooden warship in the Age of Sail.” —Historical Novel Society
Explores the lived experiences of the women of lower deck seamen in the nineteenth century British navy. This book explores the lived experiences of the women - the mothers, sisters, foster-mothers of motherless children, but above all the wives - of lower deck seamen in the nineteenth century British navy. It makes extensive use of the "allotment" scheme, a system which enabled men to convey portions of their pay to dependants at home. The scheme had been devised by a Royal Navy worried by the adverse effect on naval manpower caused by experienced and mature sailors quitting the service in order to support loved ones suffering poverty on shore. Drawing also on civil, parish and local data, the book reveals hitherto unknown differences between naval and civilian patterns of nuptiality, family life, occupation and household structure. It illustrates the impact of naval breadwinners' long-term absence in analyses of local migration, mutual support networks, and clusterings of "same ship" families, and to bring the picture to life it includes microhistories and stories of individual women. The book concludes that while the sailor's woman's "allotted place" in the popular imagination shifted with changing perceptions of sailors' reputation and standing, a constant "otherness" attached to women who chose marriage to long-absent men, and a life of necessary self-reliance.
A brilliant telling of the history of the common seaman in the age of sail, and his role in Britain’s trade, exploration, and warfare British maritime history in the age of sail is full of the deeds of officers like Nelson but has given little voice to plain, "illiterate" seamen. Now Stephen Taylor draws on published and unpublished memoirs, letters, and naval records, including court-martials and petitions, to present these men in their own words. In this exhilarating account, ordinary seamen are far from the hapless sufferers of the press gangs. Proud and spirited, learned in their own fashion, with robust opinions and the courage to challenge overweening authority, they stand out from their less adventurous compatriots. Taylor demonstrates how the sailor was the engine of British prosperity and expansion up to the Industrial Revolution. From exploring the South Seas with Cook to establishing the East India Company as a global corporation, from the sea battles that made Britain a superpower to the crisis of the 1797 mutinies, these "sons of the waves" held the nation’s destiny in their calloused hands.
Traces Melville's life from his childhood in New York, through his adventures abroad as a sailor, to his creation of "Moby-Dick," and forty years later, to his death, in obscurity.
Traces Melville's life from his childhood in New York, through his adventures abroad as a sailor, to his creation of "Moby-Dick," and forty years later, to his death, in obscurity.
A fundamental component of Britain's early success, naval impressment not only kept the Royal Navy afloat--it helped to make an empire. In total numbers, impressed seamen were second only to enslaved Africans as the largest group of forced laborers in the eighteenth century. In The Evil Necessity, Denver Brunsman describes in vivid detail the experience of impressment for Atlantic seafarers and their families. Brunsman reveals how forced service robbed approximately 250,000 mariners of their livelihoods, and, not infrequently, their lives, while also devastating Atlantic seaport communities and the loved ones who were left behind. Press gangs, consisting of a navy officer backed by sailors and occasionally local toughs, often used violence or the threat of violence to supply the skilled manpower necessary to establish and maintain British naval supremacy. Moreover, impressments helped to unite Britain and its Atlantic coastal territories in a common system of maritime defense unmatched by any other European empire. Drawing on ships' logs, merchants' papers, personal letters and diaries, as well as engravings, political texts, and sea ballads, Brunsman shows how ultimately the controversy over impressment contributed to the American Revolution and served as a leading cause of the War of 1812. Early American HistoriesWinner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Work of Scholarship in Eighteenth-Century Studies
Generations of readers have enjoyed the adventures of Jim Hawkins, the young protagonist and narrator in Robert Louis Stevensons Treasure Island, but little is known of the real Jim Hawkins and the thousands of poor boys who went to sea in the eighteenth century to man the ships of the Royal Navy. This groundbreaking new work is a study of the origins, life and culture of the boys of the Georgian navy, not of the upper-class children training to become officers, but of the orphaned, delinquent or just plain adventurous youths whose prospects on land were bleak and miserable. Many had no adult at all taking care of them; others were failed apprentices; many were troublesome youths for whom communities could not provide so that the Navy represented a form of floating workhouse. Some, with restless and roving minds, like Defoes Robinson Crusoe, saw deep sea life as one of adventure, interspersed with raucous periods ashore drinking, singing and womanizing. The author explains how they were recruited; describes the distinctive subculture of the young sailor the dress, hair, tattoos and language and their life and training as servants of captains and officers.More than 5,000 boys were recruited during the Seven Years War alone and without them the Royal Navy could not have fought its wars. This is a fascinating tribute to a forgotten band of sailors.
