Discussion Post: The Naval Treaty
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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Naval Treaty and the chosen topic is The Navy.
A few facts courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
garonne (source: The Victorians by AN Wilson):
🚢 The British Navy had 60,000 men in 1872 and 146,000 in 1914. For comparison, in the same period the British Army went from 197,000 to 247,000.
🚢 Increased industrialization and developments in technology during the Victorian period also affected the Navy. In 1860, HMS Warrior was built, the first all-metal battleship with an iron hull. The period 1860 to 1890 was when the wooden ships and broadside guns we associate with the Napoleonic Wars were replaced by modern armoured ships with gun turrets, modern machinery, hydraulics and so on.
🚢 Britain's position as a sea power was crucial for its trade with the empire, and that made the Navy (and the Army) hot political topics. For example, Gladstone ended up spending a lot of his first term in office on the question, and expenditure on the Army and the Navy was the critical factor in the decision to dissolve parliament in 1874. In 1884, a series of scaremongering articles by WT Stead called "The truth about the Navy by one who knows the facts" forced the government to spend money on a large expansion of the Navy (£5,000,000 and 46 new battleships).
Some more facts:
🚢 Apart from supplying Naval Brigades to assist the Army ashore... the occasions when the Victorian Navy actually fired its guns in anger between 1837 and 1914 were few.
To support the Turkish Government against Mehemet Ali of Egypt, it bombarded Acre in 1840.
In the Crimean War, it fought the Russian Navy… in the Black Sea… in the Baltic, the Arctic… and the Pacific.
Finally, in 1882 the Mediterranean Fleet bombarded Alexandria when forces opposing the pro-British ruler of Egypt would not disarm the forts guarding the harbour.
🚢 ...the Royal Navy's greatest fight, both in terms of numbers of ships and men involved and the sheer geographical area covered, was against the Slave Trade. Slavers operated on both on both the West and East Coasts of Africa - from which the tragic human "cargo" were sent to the plantations of America or the domestic slavery of the Persian Gulf. ...the Royal Navy put a major effort into what the Victorians rightly saw as a great humanitarian crusade.
🚢 In addition, the Royal Navy also carried on the... task of surveying the globe. Not only were navigational charts prepared but, more importantly, they were made freely available to seafarers of all nations. [The Victorian Military Society]
🚢 Early in the [Victorian] period, seamen were hired for a single voyage and discharged when it was over… The terms of naval service were reformed during the 1850s. Seamen were enlisted for ten years; if they served for twenty years they became eligible for a pension. [Daily Life in Victorian England by Sally Mitchell]
🚢 In 1856 Royal Navy officer insignia shifted to the use of rank sleeve stripes – a pattern which has endured to the present day. [Wikipedia]
🚢 While at sea, food could be stored without too much trouble. Here’s a list of supplies loaded onto the frigate Doris in the early 1800s: “…the Doris was loaded with beef, pork, bread, flour, tobacco, butter, raisins, sugar, cocoa, peas, oatmeal, lime juice, lemon juice, red wine, brandy, and rum.”
🚢 ...water was a different matter. After two months in a barrel, algae and slime will grow… But mix in rum and lime juice and you’ll hardly notice the horror you’re consuming. At least that’s the theory.
Grog was a combination of lemon or lime juice, water, rum, and cinnamon. It was served at noon every day as a 1/2 pint of rum mixed with a quart of water, for a 1:4 ratio. Lauchlin Rose (of Rose’s mixers) had patented preserving citrus juice in 1867, and the vitamin C in the juice was added to the grog to prevent scurvy….
Grog was for ordinary sailors and ratings… But the midshipman and officers had at least one drink peculiar to themselves. Pink gin was a mixture of Angostura bitters and gin. The bitters was a cure for seasickness. However the taste was, well, bitter. Mixing with gin makes an interesting pinky-orange drink with the bitter taste mostly submerged… [John Smythe on The Queen’s Scullery]
🚢 Sweet Fanny Adams is a phrase meaning ‘nothing at all’. Fanny Adams was a real person, a child who was murdered and dismembered in 1867; she was nicknamed "Sweet Fanny Adams" during her murderer's trial and execution because of her youth and innocence. Not long after, the Royal Navy introduced tinned meat rations, which the sailors referred to as Sweet Fanny Adams, a reference to the crime. [Mental Floss]
🚢 When William [Jefford] joined the navy [in 1872, aged 15 - see the link below], it was not compulsory to be able to swim… By the 1890s all recruits received swimming instruction and before passing this stage of their training, had to be able to swim at least 40 yards (36 metres) fully clothed - before this, many young sailors had drowned falling off gang planks and other parts of the vessels on which they lived and worked. [On Devon Heritage]
🚢 Naval surgeons – like army surgeons, but unlike their civilian counterparts – had the opportunity to observe fevers, like cholera, yellow fever, and malaria, in different parts of the world, in a variety of contexts, and to study their causes and behaviour. Again like the army surgeons, they had a strong tradition of pathological investigation and of correlating post-mortem findings with observations of the disease and its appearance in living patients. [Penny Bailey on The Wellcome Trust] “We hypothesize that a lot of surgeons in the navy [during the Victorian period] were at the cutting edge of sub disciplines of medicine.” [Professor Mark Harrison, quoted in Penny Bailey’s article]
🚢 In Victorian times, each ship would possess a drama group, the costumes usually controlled by the PT [petty] officer or Ship’s Padre (if carried.) It would be customary... at least once in a voyage, to hold a ship’s concert. Such concerts [would take] inspiration from... the music hall. [Navy Song]
Some useful resources:
The Victorian Navy On The Victorian Military Society.
HMS Warrior (1860) Modern photographs of the restored ship, plus facts and figures.
Queen Victoria’s Navy ‘a photographic tour of the pride of the Royal Navy from 1867 to 1897’. Images taken from ‘late 19th century editions of "The Navy and Army Illustrated" especially the issue of 25th June 1897 entitled "The Queen's Navy."’
William Jefford - The Life of a Victorian Sailor On Devon Heritage.
William Loney RN - Life and Career ‘This website documents [the] life and times [of William Loney RN - a surgeon in the British navy between 1839... and 1877…] as illustrated by his original documents and photos, extracts from ships' and medical logs, maps, period documents and background material concerning the officers, ships, fleets and campaigns of the mid-Victorian Royal Navy.’
Victorian Naval Medicine by Penny Bailey on The Wellcome Trust website.
The Victorian Era On The Dawlish Chronicles. Articles relating ‘to naval and other history in the Victorian period, strictly 1837-1901.’
Victorian Boat Drinks by John Smythe on The Queen’s Scullery.
Scott and Scurvy On Idle Words. An article on the history of scurvy - mentioning in part the Victorian period.
Royal Navy ranks, rates, and uniforms of the 18th and 19th centuries On Wikipedia.
Naval Social History - Circa 1793 - 1920+ A great many documents from the Victorian period transcribed.
Index of 19th Century Naval Vessels and some of their movements
Victorian Royal Navy Medals On Medals of England.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts courtesy of
garonne (source: The Victorians by AN Wilson): 🚢 The British Navy had 60,000 men in 1872 and 146,000 in 1914. For comparison, in the same period the British Army went from 197,000 to 247,000.
🚢 Increased industrialization and developments in technology during the Victorian period also affected the Navy. In 1860, HMS Warrior was built, the first all-metal battleship with an iron hull. The period 1860 to 1890 was when the wooden ships and broadside guns we associate with the Napoleonic Wars were replaced by modern armoured ships with gun turrets, modern machinery, hydraulics and so on.
🚢 Britain's position as a sea power was crucial for its trade with the empire, and that made the Navy (and the Army) hot political topics. For example, Gladstone ended up spending a lot of his first term in office on the question, and expenditure on the Army and the Navy was the critical factor in the decision to dissolve parliament in 1874. In 1884, a series of scaremongering articles by WT Stead called "The truth about the Navy by one who knows the facts" forced the government to spend money on a large expansion of the Navy (£5,000,000 and 46 new battleships).
Some more facts:
🚢 Apart from supplying Naval Brigades to assist the Army ashore... the occasions when the Victorian Navy actually fired its guns in anger between 1837 and 1914 were few.
To support the Turkish Government against Mehemet Ali of Egypt, it bombarded Acre in 1840.
In the Crimean War, it fought the Russian Navy… in the Black Sea… in the Baltic, the Arctic… and the Pacific.
Finally, in 1882 the Mediterranean Fleet bombarded Alexandria when forces opposing the pro-British ruler of Egypt would not disarm the forts guarding the harbour.
🚢 ...the Royal Navy's greatest fight, both in terms of numbers of ships and men involved and the sheer geographical area covered, was against the Slave Trade. Slavers operated on both on both the West and East Coasts of Africa - from which the tragic human "cargo" were sent to the plantations of America or the domestic slavery of the Persian Gulf. ...the Royal Navy put a major effort into what the Victorians rightly saw as a great humanitarian crusade.
🚢 In addition, the Royal Navy also carried on the... task of surveying the globe. Not only were navigational charts prepared but, more importantly, they were made freely available to seafarers of all nations. [The Victorian Military Society]
🚢 Early in the [Victorian] period, seamen were hired for a single voyage and discharged when it was over… The terms of naval service were reformed during the 1850s. Seamen were enlisted for ten years; if they served for twenty years they became eligible for a pension. [Daily Life in Victorian England by Sally Mitchell]
🚢 In 1856 Royal Navy officer insignia shifted to the use of rank sleeve stripes – a pattern which has endured to the present day. [Wikipedia]
🚢 While at sea, food could be stored without too much trouble. Here’s a list of supplies loaded onto the frigate Doris in the early 1800s: “…the Doris was loaded with beef, pork, bread, flour, tobacco, butter, raisins, sugar, cocoa, peas, oatmeal, lime juice, lemon juice, red wine, brandy, and rum.”
🚢 ...water was a different matter. After two months in a barrel, algae and slime will grow… But mix in rum and lime juice and you’ll hardly notice the horror you’re consuming. At least that’s the theory.
Grog was a combination of lemon or lime juice, water, rum, and cinnamon. It was served at noon every day as a 1/2 pint of rum mixed with a quart of water, for a 1:4 ratio. Lauchlin Rose (of Rose’s mixers) had patented preserving citrus juice in 1867, and the vitamin C in the juice was added to the grog to prevent scurvy….
Grog was for ordinary sailors and ratings… But the midshipman and officers had at least one drink peculiar to themselves. Pink gin was a mixture of Angostura bitters and gin. The bitters was a cure for seasickness. However the taste was, well, bitter. Mixing with gin makes an interesting pinky-orange drink with the bitter taste mostly submerged… [John Smythe on The Queen’s Scullery]
🚢 Sweet Fanny Adams is a phrase meaning ‘nothing at all’. Fanny Adams was a real person, a child who was murdered and dismembered in 1867; she was nicknamed "Sweet Fanny Adams" during her murderer's trial and execution because of her youth and innocence. Not long after, the Royal Navy introduced tinned meat rations, which the sailors referred to as Sweet Fanny Adams, a reference to the crime. [Mental Floss]
🚢 When William [Jefford] joined the navy [in 1872, aged 15 - see the link below], it was not compulsory to be able to swim… By the 1890s all recruits received swimming instruction and before passing this stage of their training, had to be able to swim at least 40 yards (36 metres) fully clothed - before this, many young sailors had drowned falling off gang planks and other parts of the vessels on which they lived and worked. [On Devon Heritage]
🚢 Naval surgeons – like army surgeons, but unlike their civilian counterparts – had the opportunity to observe fevers, like cholera, yellow fever, and malaria, in different parts of the world, in a variety of contexts, and to study their causes and behaviour. Again like the army surgeons, they had a strong tradition of pathological investigation and of correlating post-mortem findings with observations of the disease and its appearance in living patients. [Penny Bailey on The Wellcome Trust] “We hypothesize that a lot of surgeons in the navy [during the Victorian period] were at the cutting edge of sub disciplines of medicine.” [Professor Mark Harrison, quoted in Penny Bailey’s article]
🚢 In Victorian times, each ship would possess a drama group, the costumes usually controlled by the PT [petty] officer or Ship’s Padre (if carried.) It would be customary... at least once in a voyage, to hold a ship’s concert. Such concerts [would take] inspiration from... the music hall. [Navy Song]
Some useful resources:
The Victorian Navy On The Victorian Military Society.
HMS Warrior (1860) Modern photographs of the restored ship, plus facts and figures.
Queen Victoria’s Navy ‘a photographic tour of the pride of the Royal Navy from 1867 to 1897’. Images taken from ‘late 19th century editions of "The Navy and Army Illustrated" especially the issue of 25th June 1897 entitled "The Queen's Navy."’
William Jefford - The Life of a Victorian Sailor On Devon Heritage.
William Loney RN - Life and Career ‘This website documents [the] life and times [of William Loney RN - a surgeon in the British navy between 1839... and 1877…] as illustrated by his original documents and photos, extracts from ships' and medical logs, maps, period documents and background material concerning the officers, ships, fleets and campaigns of the mid-Victorian Royal Navy.’
Victorian Naval Medicine by Penny Bailey on The Wellcome Trust website.
The Victorian Era On The Dawlish Chronicles. Articles relating ‘to naval and other history in the Victorian period, strictly 1837-1901.’
Victorian Boat Drinks by John Smythe on The Queen’s Scullery.
Scott and Scurvy On Idle Words. An article on the history of scurvy - mentioning in part the Victorian period.
Royal Navy ranks, rates, and uniforms of the 18th and 19th centuries On Wikipedia.
Naval Social History - Circa 1793 - 1920+ A great many documents from the Victorian period transcribed.
Index of 19th Century Naval Vessels and some of their movements
Victorian Royal Navy Medals On Medals of England.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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