There can be no argument that a sailor’s life has always involved more than its fair share of hardship, especially during the age of sail. Unfortunately, even the best writers about this period have tended to let their imaginations dominate their thinking and so tales of iron-thewed men existing on weevil-ridden biscuits, rotten meat and drinking water alive with greenery are found throughout contemporary literature, obscuring the true facts, which, as usual, turn out to be far more interesting than any fictional account.

Be in no doubt: sailing a fully rigged sailing ship was very hard work. The men who did it were usually possessed of exceptional physical strength, although medical records of the time list many sailors forced into retirement from the sea as result of strained backs and other physical injuries, rupture being cited as one of the most common causes for ending a sailor’s working life, which was generally over by the time he turned thirty. Conditions aboard merchant vessels were bad enough but the need to not just sail but also fight the ship meant that the Royal Navy was forced to berth four or five men in space which the merchant service would think only sufficient for one. Twenty inches of hammock space per man was the sleeping area allotted aboard a warship and, quite naturally, this meant that service in the Navy was unpopular with seafarers. Consequently, the last of the Impressment Acts was passed in 1740, allowing the impressment of men up to a maximum age of 55 and, when the battle of Trafalgar began, over half the Royal Navy’s 120,000 sailors were pressed men.

Having entered the service, either as a pressed man or volunteer, the newcomer found himself in a harsh world, his every action regulated and punishment by flogging or some other form of brutality all too common. Accidents were also a recurring feature of shipboard life, especially during the early period of a man’s enlistment when he was learning to operate the ship’s cannon and might be caught in a gun’s recoil or have his foot run over by a wheeled gun truck. Estimates from captains’ diaries suggest that in the initial phase of a voyage one death every ten days was the expected rate of loss, although this was usually amongst the pressed landsmen rather than the more experienced able seamen.

However, there were compensations. The work was lighter than aboard a merchant ship, crew size being determined by the need to man the guns on a warship, which was approximately four times the number needed to sail her. Food was good and plentiful although it had to be, sailing a fully rigged ship being no job for a weakling and such men needed to consume over 5,000 calories each day to remain fit for work. Techniques for preserving food were still very primitive and consisted of drying, salting or pickling, the results being contained in a wooden cask or cloth bag and, of necessity, shipboard menus reflected this limited cuisine.

A Georgian seaman’s rations consisted of a pound of bread or biscuit and a gallon of ‘small’ beer every day with a pound of salt pork on Sunday and Thursday, along with two pounds of beef issued on Tuesday and Saturday, beer being preferred to water as it kept better in a cask. Half a pint of pease was issued four times a week and on the other days, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, seamen received a pint of oatmeal, two ounces of butter and ¼ lb of cheese. It seems possible that these meatless or ‘Banyan’ days may have been alternated, so that by combining their rations, two messes could concoct a good meal, even including a ‘plum’ duff, made with oatmeal and raisins, the latter either bought from the purser or issued in exchange for part of their beef ration. Anti-scorbutics, such as sauerkraut, were also issued, although the usual anti-scurvy treatment was lemon or lime juice, issued from 1795, and usually mixed with the men’s rum ration to produce a mixture known universally as ‘grog’. This diet supplied the required daily calorific intake, and although the meals were repetitive, fresh meat and vegetables were also issued when available. In addition, the lower deck had a number of ways of supplementing their food, particularly with fruit, which could be bought from the boats that invariably pulled alongside when any Royal Navy ship reached port or anchored off a friendly coast.

Life afloat
Sailors generally went to sea as boys. By the time they were 16 they were rated as seamen, and normally served at sea for another ten years before settling down ashore. A ship’s crew worked in two watches, port and starboard, the traditional watch system dividing the day into five four-hour watches and two ‘dog watches’ of two hours each, each watch working four hours on and four hours off, except during the dog watches.

While afloat, a seaman’s morning began at dawn, when the off-duty watch were roused out to wash and holystone the ship’s decks. At six bells in the morning watch (7.00am), he went down to the mess deck, where he was joined by his messmates for a breakfast of oatmeal or biscuit and small beer, the oatmeal being made by the man whose turn it was to act as cook for the week. The duty watch then returned to work, cleaning, polishing and repairing the ship’s fabric, these activities being regularly interspersed by periods devoted to sail and gun drill. Dinner was piped at seven bells in the forenoon watch (about 11.30am) and consisted of boiled salt beef or pork, boiled peas and biscuit. The daily rum ration was also usually served at this meal. Unless the ship was in action dinner lasted until about 1.30pm, when the men would return to their duties. Work continued until the evening meal, usually a duff mixed with fruit or meat left over from lunch and served at about 6.30pm. Shipboard routine was then resumed until the watch below was piped at 7.00am to begin the day’s routine all over again.

Officers followed the same watch-keeping routine, the living conditions of midshipmen and junior lieutenants being hardly better than the common sailors. They provided their own equipment, including a uniform, and only promotion from midshipman to lieutenant was by examination, all other appointments being made by the Admiralty. Lieutenants could expect to be paid £100 a year plus prize money, if they were lucky in time of war, while a captain received £400, depending upon the size or ‘rate’ of his ship. Senior sailors or petty officers were paid around £25 annually depending upon their rank, an able seaman received £15, while a trainee or landsman received about £10, equivalent to 20p weekly. This money was invariably paid after a voyage, a seaman’s family being obliged to get by on money saved from any period of previous employment. Royal Marines usually made up about 20% of a warship’s crew and the wives of officers and petty officers often sailed with them, serving as cooks or medical orderlies as the need arose.

The Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars is generally considered to have been the best service of its type during this period. Ships were kept scrupulously clean, to avoid the spread of disease, crews were well fed, disciplined and properly trained. However, although it was a fighting service, crews spent an enormous proportion of their time waiting for action. Blockade duty, preventing ships from entering French and Spanish ports, was their main occupation and many served their time aboard without ever seeing action or capturing an enemy merchant vessel.

Sadly, not everyone was a Russell Crowe!

Tracing a Royal Navy ancestor
First thing to try and find out is the individual’s rank as there are different registers for commissioned officers( officers who have received the King’s commission: lieutenants up to admirals), warrant officers (men in receipt of a naval warrant, midshipmen, gunners, surgeons, sail-makers, amongst others) and ratings (ordinary or able seamen and landsmen or ‘waisters’, literally; men who worked in the waist or deck of the ship).

Look first at the ship’s musters kept in the National Archives, the ADM 36 and ADM 37 series covering the years 1688 until 1842. These musters, which are actually pay records, list the names of all the crew serving on a ship during a specific period. They include a crew member’s place of birth and their age when joining the ship, although they do not usually include details of ship’s officers or Royal Marines.

Details of an officer’s service are included in The National Archives Royal Naval Officer’s service records in ADM 196 and they can be searched by name for a commissioned officer who entered the Royal Navy between 1756 and 1917, although, unfortunately, records for the Napoleonic period are incomplete. Steele’s Navy List is also available at Kew and includes details of rank, seniority, and the ship or establishment in which an officer was serving for individuals in the Navy between 1782 and 1814. The National Archives also publish exhaustive guides to using their archives to find Royal Navy personnel.

And don’t neglect newspapers. They were published extensively during this period and naval battles were a favourite topic, so an ancestor’s name may appear under the banner headline, giving a pleasant personal touch to your research.

TheGenealogist.co.uk has a useful collection of Navy Lists online, covering many years from 1822 to 1915. For more about how to research navy ancestors, look out for our extensive research feature in the next print edition, out in spring 2020.