Ex Warrant Officers

Of the Royal Navy

This Naval History continues on from: "Drake"

The story of Warrant Officers cannot be allowed to end where we left it at "Family Likenesses," if we follow the genealogical method of tracing descendents.

There are several more "branches" worthy of a mention here, four are of sufficient importance to find a place with us; which spring historically from the same stock. They are essentially "non-military," "non-combatant," "civilian" and "non-executive."

They represent four general professions which exist, and have for ages existed, outside the naval service, but whose representatives are quite necessary to the efficiency and well-being of that service. They are all "Professions within a profession."

Their representatives in the Navy of the Second World War were called Paymasters, Surgeons, chaplins and Instructor Officers, but if they were ordinary civilians they would be called Business Men, Doctors, Parsons and School Masters.

It may cause some surprise that such distinguished people, some of whom can now reach the exalted rank of Vice-Admiral, should appear in a chapter headed "Warrant Officers." Such a treatment is right, and historically logical. The most exalted ancestor of any of them was, in the Old Navy, a Warrant Officer.

Drake

The Purser

The man we now call the Paymaster-or, since 1944, Captain (S), Lieutenant (S), etc.-first appears in the King's Ships in the fourteenth century under the name of "The Clerk"; soon to be the "The Burser," and then, by easy stages, he acquired the best known of all his names "The Purser."

It is a much more realistic name than the modern one, and describes his activities far better. He was the man who had charge of such moneys as were necessary on board ship, and he "disbursed" them.

The word "Purser" thus implied a much wider set of activities than does "Paymaster," whose duties, if taken at their face value, will be confined to one particular sort of disbursement-the distribution of Pay.

But that is a monstrous under-statement of the Paymaster's duties in our own day; it is one of them, but it is only one of many. It must be admitted that it is more justifiable to call the modern naval "Man of Business" a Paymaster than it would have been to call the old one by that name. That would, quite simply, not have been true.

The one strictly monetary function which the old Purser did not fulfil was the issuing of pay. He was many other things, but he was not a Paymaster. The modern Paymaster is a Paymaster; and many other thing as well.

The principal among the old purser's many pre-occupations were two; his duties as the ship's "Man of Business," and his activities as the ship's privileged "shop-keeper"; they were by no means the same. Towards the end of his "Purser" career, that is, he became a Paymaster; he acquired a third set of duties-those of Secretary.

As "Man of Business" he was in charge of such money as the authorities were compelled to entrust to him, to meet the incidental expenses of the ship. This of course he had to account for, and he was even empowered, to run up bills in their name. But they did not trust him, for from earlier times he had to find sureties for the money advanced.

Man of Business

This meant that he had to be a man of a certain substance; and the very nature of his work meant that he had to have some rudiments of education-to be able to write, to "do sums," and to have an understanding of accounts.

This section of his duties, he retained throughout, but it was by no means the most important one; from his own point of view. For from an early period he was gradually appearing in another role-that of shop-keeper.

In a place like a ship, there would always be the possibilities for quite a "nice little business." And the Purser acquired it. As it was a monopoly, he had to pay for it, and as early as Elizabeth's reign he had to purchase his place. In James I's time a "pursery" sometimes cost over a hundred pounds.

In 1623, the opportunities for a quick and safe turn-over suddenly increased greatly, for it was then that the famous "slop-stores" were officially introduced. Here, and here only, the mariner could replenish his wardrobe when at sea; there were no rivals.

And not only did the Purser run his "haberdashery department," and take the profits; all other ship's stores that did not come under certain departments, he was entitled to profit from.

It was understood that he should take a "rake-off" on the ordinary provisions on board, which he kept the bulk, and of which he checked the issue. No wonder the "pursery" was a prize to be dearly bought; it was no wonder too, that, from very early days, the "purser began to be the target of wide-spread criticism from every quarter.

Samual Pepys, greatest of naval administrators, put his finger on the root of the evil. "A purser without professed cheating," he said, "Is a professed loser." For, throughout his "purser" days, he was renumerated, not with a fixed salary, but on a "commission" basis; and this applied, not only to his "shop-keeper" activities but to his "business man's" dealings as well.

During all this time, he remained a warrant officer, though like the master, he was rising in ship-status through the eignteenth century; and like him, was finding his was slowly into the Ward-room and acquiring the "Ward-room Rank" status; and like all other Warrant Officers, was given a common uniform in 1787. Then in 1814, the third of his greater activities-that of Secretary-was put on a more regular footing.

The Purser was selected for his intellect

From time to time an admirals would pick his own "Purser," a particually well educated man like a purser who could read and write, and had a known knowledge not only of figures and accounts, but also, of "the world" would be an obvious choice for selection.

But, up to 1814, only a Purser whose ship was laid up could serve as Secretay, so there was not much chance of any continuity in the secretarial service. Thereafter, he having at last become "mobile," he could make a whole-time career from it, when not actually serving as a paymaster; he could draw half-pay in addition to his secretary's salary when employed in the latter capacity.

He remained unpopular; so he petitioned to change his name which still carried harsh criticism or scorn. This was in 1842, when his title was changed to "Purser and Paymaster." The additional word was due mainly to the fact that he had begun to come one. In 1825, it had been ordained that a small proportion of the men's pay could, on their request, be handed out to them by the Purser.

In 1843, like the master, he became a Commissioned Officer, but it was not until 1852, that he became anything like his modern form. For then he became the modern Paymaster in that he now handled and paid out all of the wages. He also began to be paid for the very first time.

By 1918, a boy could enter as Paymaster Cadet and rise by a series of ranks to the height of Paymaster Rear-Admiral. In 1944, the branch-name was further changed to "Supply and Secretariat," the letter (S) after the rank-title, being substituted for the word Paymaster in the front of it. There have been, many other changes both in the nature of his work and his titles.

The "Man of Business" in a good-sized warship has graduated from "Clerk," via the stages of "Burser," "Purser," "Purser and Paymaster," "Paymaster," "Fleet Paymaster" and "Paymaster-Commander" to the "Commander (S)" of today.

The Surgeon

The Doctor comes next, and the Parson will follow. They have different histories, but certain observations may be made that cover both. They both serve in any community, especially one in which wounds and violent death must be regarded as unavoidable.

So it was very early in the Navy's history, that they appeared on ship, and thereafter they would always be present. Though heavily involved in fighting they are not "fighters"; nor are they "seamen."

The Surgeon's pay was exceedingly poor-he was paid one pound a month-in Armada-Year, and his propects of betterment were negligible, the more ambitious did not serve afloat. The Surgeon was also faced with a hopeless professional task owing to the terrible conditions of life afloat.

"There are," wrote Pennington in Charles I's reign, "no stores, no surgeons, no drugs, and the men stink as they go, and the poor rags they have are rotten and ready to fall off."

That was in the days of the Great Slump, but things could not have been much better in the "golden age" of Charles II's navy, or Parson Teonge could never have made that dreadful entry in his diary on 22nd March 1679, "I buried Francis Forrest, as tis said eaten to death with lice."

The man expected to cope with such things was nominated not by the naval authority but by the company of Barber-Surgeons, and was often pressed against his will, so it is not unknown to find surgeons deserting like common seamen.

In the bad times, he would find that the ship's medical chest was empty and drugs unobtainable, in the biggest ships he was entitled to draw drugs up to as much as ten pounds a month.

Many of these men, were so conscientious, that they succeeded in inspiring some confidence in the men is clear from the frequency with which desrtions, and even mutinies, occurred in surgeonless ships. The belief in "the expert" is deep-seated in man, and the simpler the man the deeper the belief.

A Surgeon was a necessity

The presence of a surgeon on board, even if he were "a foreigner, a careless arogant fellow, or the existence of a medicine chest, even if empty, was a strong morale-maker, and a great deal better than nothing.

In 1626, there began a practice which was destined greatly to improve the Surgeon's Position. It was ordained that two-pence per month be deducted from the pay of everyone on board ship, and given to the surgeon in addition to his wages.

The Surgeon had established himself, by Charles II's time, amongst the Warrant Officers, and had a regular department of his own complete, with a very humble assistant called the Surgeon's Mate. His pay had risen rapidly, from thirty-shillings a month in 1675, in addition to his two-pence to five-pounds at the end of the century.

He was on the rise all through the eighteenth century, both professionally and socially. Men like James Lind, 1712 to 1794, the first distillor of sea-water, and the first scientific fighter against the plague of sailormen, the scurvey, and Sir Gilbert Blane 1749 to 1834, to whom the Navy owes an emmense debt in a dozen directions, and though they were exceptions, known far beyond the Service, there is every indication that the ordinary Surgeon was improving too.

He "reached the Ward-room" at much the same time as the Master and the Purser, and went into uniform with the other Warrant Officers in 1767, but he was the first of them all, in 1805, to be given a distinctive uniform of his own.

Finally, he reached commissioned rank with Master and Purser in 1843. The head of the branch is a Vice-Admiral. The red "distinctive band" was acquired in 1864, at the same time as the Paymaster received his white one.

The continuation of this Naval History will be: "Hawkins Family"

Ex Warrant Officers Hawkins Family

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