The Navy in Transition - A Social History 1814-1864

Hodder & Stoughton, 1965, 1st edition

In 1814 the Navy had all the highlights of its history behind it. It was, in all its essentials, not only the Navy of Nelson, Collingwood, St. Vincent and Howe, but also that of Rodney, or Hawke, of Vernon, of Rooke and even of Blake. In 1864 it was well on the road to becoming the Navy of Fisher, of Jellicoe and of Cunningham: a force as forward-looking as its predecessor had been backward-looking. This book begins with the Old Navy at the peak of its most glorious hour and ends with the Navy it its birth-throes. This fascinating story, which follows the officer and men of the Royal Navy through the period of the long peace up to and beyond the Crimean War is primarily a social history. Its facts, and the anecdotes which illuminate those facts, are drawn from contemporary documents, ranging from Navy Lists and Admiralty Orders to the journals and recollections of the men concerned: the illustrations of ships and men are contemporary too. Here in flesh and blood is the Navy in which, in the long peace, a man could wait for forty years to promotion to lieutenant; the Navy which fought at Navarino, charted the world and put down the slave trade; the Navy which began by subsisting on weevilly hardtack and nauseous salt-horse, but ended on self-raising flour, tasty pressed beef and tinned potatoes; the Navy, too, which cut its daily dose of rum by three-quarters, substituting civilised alternatives like tea, coffee and soft-drinks...