Nelson & His World

There has been wide reporting recently of the plans to preserve HMS Victory which faces new dangers. Here's a link to one of the many reports:


http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defenc ... -1-6500146

Anna,

Thanks for posting that. Very interesting, and very worrying at the same time, but its obviously better to take the slow approach to get it right.

It's also good to know that money is not a problem, since she has come under the MRN's care!

Today's Times has a double spread pull-out of a cross-section of HMS Victory showing all sections of the ship and the details of life on board.

Andrew Baines, the director of conservation, says the ship is 'fundamentally strong' but is slowly falling in on herself at the rate of 4mm a year.

Fortunately, there are funds for the restoration - £55 million - though more will be needed.

Incidentally, the cut-out shows a midshipman being punished by 'seizing to the shrouds'. Is this the same as 'mast-heading?

There was also a 'carpenter's walk' - a narrow corridor running around the ship just below the waterline that allowed the ship's carpenter to check for leaks.

Anna

As far as I know mastheading was a totally different punishment. Literally being banished to the masthead and to remain there until allowed to come down.

You will be aware that Nelson's Column was not well received when it was first erected. Amongst the criticisms one wag said it looked as if Nelson had been mastheaded.

Now I am sure my brain is playing tricks with me here but were midshipmen actually lashed to the shrouds as punishment? They were the "young gentlemen" of the ship. I am sure they committed misdemeanors that required punishment but I never pictured anything as severe as lashing to the shrouds. I am making this post without referring to any of my books - so if I am talking rubbish please say.

Anna

Only read your post today so too late to get a copy of the paper. Even B'ham Library's copy had been nicked! I can get the text on line - but without pictures - but there was reference to Stephen Biesty's Cross Section book which I do have. So I can see exactly what you mean about the "midshipman being seized to the shrouds". It's got me curious now. If time allows I'll dig a bit deeper.

OK I just dipped into a couple of my books and unsurprisingly there is no one definitive answer on this.

Firstly "Young Nelsons - Boy Sailors during the Napoleonic Wars."

It states in there "The approved form of summary punishment for a young gentleman be he Captain's Servant/Volunteer 1st Class or a midshipman was mastheading: to go to or stand at the masthead as a punishment."

After all the midshipmen were the next generation of officers. It would not seem particularly good form for them to be demeaned and punished right under the watching eye of men they might later have to command." I think mastheading, although far from pleasant, would have been seen as a much more benign form of punishment

Then lo and behold Brian Lavery's Nelson's Navy actually has a contemporary drawing of a midshipman being seized to the shrouds!! This looks to have been the inspiration for the drawing in Stephen Biesty's book. My gut instinct still tells me that this was probably a fairly uncommon occurrence.

Many thanks for all that interesting information, Mark. It wouldn't surprise me if the newspaper had got it wrong - there's usually a howler somewhere in these kinds of reports. Remember 'Hardy V.C.'?

I'll pop the piece from the Times in the post to you.

Thanks Anna that would be much appreciated.

I think that what might have happened here is that the contemporary line drawing in Brian Lavery's book has been picked up by Stephen Biesty and from there it has found its way into the Times.

It may well be 100% true in the way it has been presented.

But the original picture appears to be 4 midshipmen seizing another midshipman to the shrouds. This might just be me trying to justify my own line of thought here but I am wondering if this is actually just a "prank" or a disagreement amongst themselves rather than an official punishment.

If anyone has come across punishments meted out to midshipmen other than say mastheading I would be interested to know.

Apologies for one more post.

I am always a bit intrigued about charities, and foundations, and trusts which have millions if not billions of pounds at their disposal and yet the normal person in the street has never even heard of them.

And so I was interested to see that nearly half of the money (£25 million) for this restoration is coming from the Gosling Foundation Ltd. Now you may have, but I had never heard of the Gosling Foundation Ltd. After first being a bit confused by a Gosling Foundation in Canada I learned that GFL was founded by Rear Admiral Si Frederick Donald Gosling. There is a bit about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Gosling

Should probably point out here that most of the remainder of the money is coming from the Ministry of Defence with a smaller amount fro the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Anna

Thank you for forwarding on the pull-out from the Times.

As I expected the illustrations come from Stephen Biesty's "Cross Sections" book. I think it was first published in the early 90s so this will have been a nice little bonus after more than 20 years.

There is another thing I noticed for the first time and this time in relation, not to the midshipman seized to the shrouds, but the seaman being flogged. It states that "the victim made the whip himself by unravelling a length of rope into a cat o' nine tails. That may well be correct but it's not something I have come across before.

Glad the Times piece arrived safely, Mark.

There has been further correspondence in The Times about the restoration of Victory. One suggestion is that Victory should be housed in a museum such as the Vasa Museum in Stockholm which has the ship's masts poking through the roof. (Any comments, Kester?)

http://tinyurl.com/ofq7kwq

I must say I do enjoy the sight of Victory, masts against the sky, when I visit Portsmouth. If she remains outdoors, I wonder if the restorers could emulate the
technique used on the ss Great Britain in Bristol. There is glass sheeting around the ship and the restorers have contrived to give the impression that she is in water.

One correspondent today notes that the deck timbers of Victory were problematic during World War II when his father, RNVR rating, was billetted in Victory. 'If any rating was slow to leave his hammock when eight bells sounded, his colleagues would lift a cannon ball and place it on is stomach. The offending rating was faced with three choices: try to lift it without swinging, then throw it over the side and risk damaging the deck timbers; swing out of the hammock, cannon ball in both hands, and risk damaging both himself and the deck timbers; or stay in the hammock and risk the wrath of the Petty Officer.

Not surprisingly, without exception, they opted for the latter.'