Young Nelsons, Boy Sailors during the Napoleonic Wars

Some tidbits from the above mentioned book, not all have page numbers simply as for a part of the time, I didn't make that mark as well:

Young Nelsons, Boy Sailors during the Napoleonic Wars by D.A.B. Ronald, with foreward by Alexander Kent.

Women on board:

(p47) They, however, were destined not for their own cabins but, with any luck, for the gun room where, for a few days, they might be shielded from the stark realities of lower-deck life by the maternal ministrations of the gunner's wife.

(p 161) [...] but the young midshipman's ordeal continued down in the cockpit where a woman, Nancy Perriam, was assisting the surgeon in his gruesome task and recalled how 'the boy bore the operation without a murmur, and when it was over turned to me and said: ''Have I not borne it like a man?'' Having said this he immediately expired.

Naval Academy:

(Portsmouth Naval Academy) A standard certificate was issued, upon their graduation:
(p49) 'Whereas Mr. -- has been educated at the Royal Academy at Portsmouth and is well qualitifed to serve His Majesty at sea, you are hereby required and directed to receive him on board H.M. -- under your command and enter his name as one of her complement.'
(p 59) The Academy duly closed in 1806.
(p 60) In 1808 the Academy was replaced by the Royal Naval College, also at Portsmouth.

Medical on midshipmen and Young boys: (also has the small pox seems to be very common in them, especially those from poorer background)

'Upon Examination' in the advertisement referred to the medical checks undertaken to identify 'the various Distempers which are the Constant Consequences of Poverty and Nastyness' namely the 'trotts' and scurvy, both treatable. The 'pox' (smallpox), was an endemic condition and, again, no obstacle to entry. The 'itch' not a problem if the cause was the curable scabies, but a barrier to entry if it was symptomatic of the dreaded lice-borne disease known as ship fever (typhus), which could sweep away a whole ship's complement should just one new recruit come aboard infected with it.

Clothing:

A boy's kitbag typically included a felt hat, two worsted caps, a kersey pea jacket, waistcoat, shirts, up to three pairs of drawers, trousers and a couple of pairs of shoes. Bedding comprised a mattress, pillow and blanket.

2 uniforms, a short blue coat of the jacket make, with uniform buttons and waistcoat and breeches the same.
3 dozen of shirts and stocks - part of the latter black ones.
3 dozen pairs of stockings some silk, some cotton or thread and some worsted
six pairs of shoes and a pair of boots
2 hatts and 2 round ones / Hatts are liable to be lost overboard!
Mattrass, bolster and Pillows 3 blankets and a Quilt
Six pair of sheets and Pillow cases
2 Dozen of Hand Towels
Pocket handkerchiefs, night caps of netts.
Basons, washballs, brushes, combs etc.

(p 81) [...] where my attention was attracted towards two young gentlemen hard at work pipe-claying (cleaning with pipe-clay) their smalls by the light of a small tallow candle.

(p 253) Going to sea in 1809 aged 15 with 'a sea-chest, stuffed full of shirts, stockings, jackets, trousers, shoes, a Bible, pewter wash-stand, bason, soap, combs and brushes, before I was a month at sea, the spoons disappeared.

Sleeping quarters:

in the dank, dark nether region at the end of the lower gun deck and below the waterline, where the normal run of midshipmen and captain's servants relaxed, ate, slept, brawled... and played, which for William, who especially liked his theatricals, meant stage-managing an impromptu canvas theatre on the orlop deck, or burlesquing his favourite role of Prince Hal in Henry IV.

Obligations for midshimen:

(p106) [...] acting as one of the midshipmen of the watch to visit the lower part of the ship every half hour to see that there is no unauthorised light burning, and that all is quiet; he reports all well or otherwise, to the officer of the watch. Other responsibilities meant mustering the seamen at divisions and supervising their deck duties.

(p107) Other less controversial but still demanding duties for a midshipman included acting as signal-officer or as aide-de-camp to the captain on the quarterdeck, in which instance he was charged with carrying messages round the ship and also between ships. [...] The midshipman studies and lazes about, but also 'pretends' to cook, his pretensions to cookery most likely only brought on because the 'blackguardly, rascally son of a sea-cook' was the bane of the midshipmen's mess, his poor cooking the constant butt of insults, [...]

Cooking and other:

As the two newcomers on board ship, William and Majendie were expected to take turns cooking for the midshipman's mess.

Misbehaving Middies:

(p 41) Forgotten in all the euphoria, at least temporarily, by the king and queen, were the mounting signs of their son's wayward behavour, including reports filtering back of his brawling on the streets of Gibraltar, arrest by a military patrol and night spent in town jail.

(p106) [...] a mid-shipman on board our ship of a wickedly mischievous disposition, whose sole delight was to insult the feelings of the seamen, and furnish pretexts to get them punished. He was a youth not more than 12 or 13 yeas of age; but I have often seen him get on the carriage of a gun, cal la man to him, and kick him about the thighs and body, and with his fists would beat him about the head; and these, although prime seamen, at the same time dared not murmur.'

(p 126) David Casey, a lieutenant serving on the Ambuscade in the Caribbean in early 1797, but still only 18, fell foul of 'a certain young Midshipman of my watch ( a very ill conducted youth, highly connected and a great favourite of the Captain)'. As a result, David was court-martialled, demoted to midshipman and transferred out of the Ambuscade. He at least had some temporary satisfaction knowing, as he pointed out in the tract he wrote in 1839, that 'the young gentleman who caused my misfortune was soon found so ill conducted and troublesome as to oblige his quitting the Ship; the same evening of my trial he was heard to boast (and was complain'd for it) that he had broke one Lieutenant and would break others.

Punishment:

- (Mastheading) The misdemeanours deserving this punishment could be as trivial as Jeffrey Raigersfeld not being' quick and expert in my answers' on navigation, or being quarter of an hour late on the 4 o'lcock watch in William Dillon's case [...]

- (turned before the mast) [...] in the case of a midshipman court-martialled for robbing a Portuguese boat in 1798 'sentenced to be turned before the mast, to have his uniform stripped off him on the quarterdeck before all the ship's company, to have his head shaved, and to be rendered for ever incapable of serving as a petty officer.'

- (kissing the gunner's daughter - with various instruments of punishment) (p127) The ritual, graphically known as kissing the gunner's daughter, involved the culprit being strapped to a gun and flogged, the instrument of punishment graduating from the cane, through the cat of five tails - a boy's cat - to the cat of nine tails, the young miscreant often being obliged to prepare these for himself.

- (cat-o-nine-tails) Jeffrey Raigersfeld recalled how he and his fellow midshipman ran 'wild and riotous' and 'four of us were tied up one after the other to the breech of one of the guns and flogged upon our bare bottoms with a cat-o'-nine-tails, by the boatswain... No doubt we all deserved it' but, crucially, 'were thankful that we were punished in the cabin instead of upon the deck.

Midshipmen learning and books:

(These were to accompany the prince Middie)
Robertson's Elements of Navigation
Patoun's Navigation
Mariner's New Calendar
Nautical Almanac
Sherwin's Mathematical Tables.
Pens, ink powder and paper - Mem'd Books, Log Books and Journal Books - Slate and Pencil.

(p 197) Norwich and all the young gentlemen are making proficiency. We have got an excellent globe which we shall study occasionally; every morning ... a certain number of words. Learn English grammar once a week, and in the evening read geography, history, etc, and after pored over their navigation, French, arithmetic etc the greater part of the day.

Art and Young boys:

(p 53) For Francis Austen and, more especially, James Trevenen, learning how 'to draw the appearance of head lands, Coasts, Bays, Sans, Rocks and such like' was still a vital skill they would need at sea.

Preventing general desertion:

(p 172) ... a shark of great magnitude , in Port Royal, that swam round the shipping in the port at noon each day, receiving from the men the offal of their dinner, invariably taken at that time. As this shark was a complete check on desertion, the officers would not allow it to be fired at, or in any way molested. In consequence, it regularly at noon might be seen, its fin above water, rapidly making its way to the shipping. he was named Port Royal Lion, and quite domesticated among the mariners that frequented that port.

Marines n' mention:

Lieutenant George Moodie of the then much reviled Marines goaded the prince one time with: 'If it was not for your coat, I would give a basting.' to which the prince replied, 'Mz coat shall not stain my honour and, discarding his coat, prepared for fisticuffs. They did not come to blows, but a later confrontation with fellow midshipman, Mr Sturt, did.

(p98) [...] when we were under tuition of the Sergeant of Marines at the latter training, and noticing the slightness of my person, asked me if I did not feel the ship's musket too heavy. I replied that I was trying to make best of it.

(p 197) , our captain of marines, who is a very pleasant fellow, told me when I went down ot dine in the ward-room, that he seldom dreamt, but he could not resist telling me his dream of last night, that my son had arrived, and that he was taking him all over the ship to show it to him. So when Master Norwich made his appearance, the dream came into my head immediately.

(p 205) Royal Marine boys William Gill, John Hall and Francis Parish, whose task at battle stations would have been to keep the gangways clear of dead bodies and report any shirkers.

Meeting with Napoleon:

(p 258) Star-struck, George could only wonder at 'what an ineffable beauty there was in that smile, his teeth were finely set ... I marked his fine robust figure as he followed Captain Maitland into the cabin, and, boy as I was, I said to myself, ''Now Have I a tale for futurity.''

(p 258) [...] as Napoleon ' made the round of both decks, complimented Maitland, on the excellent order of the ship... asked questions at any of the men who came in his way, and a young middy who, boy-like, had got before the Emperor, and was gazing up in his face, he honoured with a tap on the head, and a pinch of the ear, and, smiling, put him to a side, which the youngster declared was the highest honour he had ever received in his life, viz. to have his ears pinched by the great Napoleon!!!'

(p 261) Goerge's last sight of Napoleon was him 'looking back to the ship [where] he saw every head, that could get stuck out of a port, gazing after him: even the rough countenances of the men bespoke a sympathy for his cruel fate, and apparently conscious of their feelings, the exiled chief again lifted his hat, and inclined his head to the gazing ship's company.' (upon leaving Bellerophon)