Family Likenesses

Their decendents were Warrant Officers

This continuation of Naval History follows on from: "Fighters and Seamen"

There is something oddly fascinating about this queer collection of Englishmen on board the "Mary of Bristol" (now of the tower) as she drops down river on the ebb, and sallies forth on her naval voyage.

There is also something even faintly accurately predictive about them. They seem so unlike our modern officers and men, and yet there is something strangely familiar. Can it be, a Family Likeness? That, in truth, is exactly what it is. They are not the familiar men that we know. Because they are their ancestors.

There are four distinct groups in the "Mary"; Seamen Officers and Fighting Officers, and Sailor Men and Fighting Men. And they are the ancestors of all who in our own day still go down to the sea in ships; more, they are also the ancestors of all who take up the fight on land.

They are the forebears of all who now practice the basic professions of the Merchant Navy and the Army, as well as of those new breed who come into existence when Fighting and Seamanship united, whom we now call men of the Royal Navy. No wonder there is something famliar about them.

It is not easy to follow the story of any evolutionary process, and still harder to explain it with any consice and exact use of words. Yet the descents from those "Old Navy" officers and men to these contemporaries of our own are all evolutions in the strictest sense, but the task, however difficult must be attemped.

One way to tackle it would be to follow those descents as best as may through the generations which led from the old to the new; and that is how the story will be conducted here.

Fighter and Seaman

An evolutionary process

The extent of the enquiry must first be charted. The four groups in the "Mary" have ten separate surviving descendents today. But, fortunately, by no means all demand equal extensive treatment.

Some may be dismissed in very few words, others with comparative brevity; not, because they are unimportant-none of them is that-but because they are not all of equal concern to this history of the Navy. The ten modern descendents may be assigned to their respective ancestors; but only five as follows:

(1) The Seaman Officer has three-the Officer of the Merchant Navy, the Warrent Officer of the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Reserve Officer.

(2) The Fighting Officer also has three-the Army Officer, the Royal Naval Reserve Officer, and-when his time comes, and with restrictions and qualifications to be hereinafter mentioned-the Commissioned Executive Officer of the Royal Navy.

(3) From the old Seaman are sprung, in direct line, all the professional seamen of our time, whether Merchant Navy or Fishermen "hands" or "Long-Service Naval Ratings."

(4) The old Fighting Man, whom, we called "The Ordinary Man," has also two-the modern "private soldier," and all those temporary fighting men, soldiers and sailors-all "Hostilities Only" men, as the Navy calls them-who turn out upon that Great Emergency known as Total War.

Royal Navy's Seaman Officer

Here the ancestor is that particular ship officer who found himself employed by the king to undertake the task of making the king's ship go. Such folk existed, whenever monarchs possessed ships of their own, since a King's ship was just as much in need of a Master or a Boatswain. The only difference was, the King and owner were the same person.

The King's ships gradually became more and more specialized for war, and more and more "permanent" in their nature; there have always been some permanently, though not highly specialized Crown ships ever since Henry VIII's time.

This means that there has been a certain number of more or less permanent ship officers running the seamanship departments in those ships ever since that same period.

Here we must interpret the term "seamanship departments" very widely, for what is really involved is all departments necessary to the running, the working and the well-being of the warship with the single exception of the fighting of it; with all branches on board, save the one called-the "Military Branch."

Here is the dividing line which has been the really important one through most of the Navy's history-the line between the Military Branch, and all the other branches. For a very long time, members of the Military Branch, and that one alone, were appointed "by Commission"; the rest were appointed merely "by Warrant." In fact "Commissioned" and "Military" remained closely associated up to around 1840.

We have noted how the Military Branch in the Old Navy won, the battle for Command, an became "executive" officers, and so remianed with few exceptions, to this day. But though "military" and "executive" are more often than not similar in our story, they are not always necessarily so.

For one means "the branch which fights" while the other means "the branch which commands"; a branch whose duties are fighting duties; can not be selected for the command of a fighting ship.

With the Engineering branch, in modern times speed and mobility are, such vital factors of naval warfare that it is unrealistic to pretend that the Engineer is non-military. But he need not be "executive"; he does not command ships, mainly because he cannot be in two places at once!

The opposite, too, is possible; a man whose duties are concerned with the "make-her-go" side of a ship's business may be allowed, under certain circumstances, to command her or be "executive." Such is the case with Masters, Boatswains Carpenters and Cooks, and still is today with Boatswains and Gunners.

Executive Branch

The name "Warrant Officer" has its own history. It was Henry VIII who, having acquired a large private fleet of his own, found it necessary to appoint a body of trustworthy men to look after it. Hence there came into existence his "Four Principal Officers," soon to be known as the "Navy Board."

They were to be responsible for the material; not the personnel. For when there was requisitioning to be done, the charter party was a very exclusive affair. The "Mary" when she arrived at the Tower she was complete with her Master, Boatswaine Carpenter and Cook. They could all be taken for granted, so when the Navy Board issued a warrant for a Master they got the whole ship.

Their warrants lasted for many years. They were "Standing Officers"; the rigging and gear used for sailing was recognized as standing rigging, as were other permanent portions of the ship's furniture, who also remained until they were old and worn out, just like the "Standing Officers."

For that is what they were-more permanent than any other part of the personnel on board. The men were hired for the trip, usually, and dismissed as soon as it was over. Only the Standing Officers remained; and they stayed with the ship even if she was laid up. They remained on board as "Ship Keepers," and made the ship their permanent home, even with wives and families. The Warrant Officers were the first "whole-timers."

The Warrant Officer has ceased to be "standing" and has now become movable. This began to happen at about the turn of the eighteenth century. When the great Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars were putting a heavy strain upon our "warrant" personnel, the authorities found it would be more convenient, to be able to move these important people from ship to ship.

Quite early in our story, these worthy men lost their individual independence, and their "commands," when they came under the Captain and the Lieutenant. Yet they remained-as they still are, and always have been-the firm and indispensible foundations of the "Ship's Company."

They were not all of equal account on board; they never were. As time moved on some maintained and even added to their status; others remained at much the same level throughout, others fell lower, and even lost "warrant" status altogether; while some completely new ones appeared.

The Master and his Mate

The master had always been the most important Ship Officer, and remains in a class distinctly above the rest. This was bound to be so long as he retained his grasp on his duty-which even a Captain was not allowed to interfere-the navigation of the ship. But in the end-he did achieve his appointment by Commission in (1843).

He gradually improved his social status, developing under the Stuarts from a merchant skipper of Tudor times into something of a specialist and often; after 1675 a quite well educated man.

It was in that year that the foundation at Christ's Hospital for training of "poor boys" in the art of navigation was established, and most of the "Navigators" produced under this scheme became Masters. His close connection with the Trinity House, from whom he acquired his qualifying certificate, gave him a stronger backing than any other ship officer could hope for.

It would seem, his education did not affect his seamanlike qualities. Ned Ward in 1707 said: "The Master is a Seaman every bit of him, and can no more live any while on dry land than a lobster; and but for that he is obliged sometimes to make a step ashore, to new-rigg, and to lay cargo of fresh Peck and Tipple, he cares not that he never see it."

By the end of the eighteenth century he had attained the status of "Warrant Officer of Ward-room rank," while not a Lieutenant, he messed with them. It was the specialization of the nineteenth that killed him. He went out when the Spcialist Officer came in.

He had in one sense been too successful in keeping his grip on "navigation." The master was too old and set in his ways; and when the new specialist navigator, the modern Lieutenant (N), made his appearance, the old Master had to go. They faded him out decently. They appointed him "by commission" in 1843. Next they advanced him, so that the chief of his branch wore the marks of a Captain in 1864, and received the title of Staff Captain.

Then in 1867, they deprived him of his rank and called him "Navigating-lieutenant," A member of the complete Navigation Branch, so he died a lingering death. The last Navigating officer of the old school retired in 1931. So vanished the officer with the longest continuous Naval record.

The Master's mate had before him a brighter future than his fellow mates. He secured a permanent place in the hierarchy of commissioned executive officers. He became a the Sub-Lieutenant. Quite early in the day, his post had become, like the Midshipman's, a stepping-stone from "Lower" to "Quarter" deck; and it remained for a long time, even after the whole-time Royal Navy.

The Mate survives to this day, though he has changed his name, a new rank with appointment "by Commission" was "Sub-Lieutenant," which was done in 1861. Meanwhile the old sort of master's mate, the understudy of the Master, continued alongside the new sort. in the early 1800s, it became customary to drop the word "Master's" when referring to the new kind, but to retain it when referring to the old.

The latter merged with an officer, newly invented in 1764, called the "Second Master" who, when his chief became "Navigating Lieutenant," he soon faded out. Unfortunately the "Master's Mate," as a naval title is now as dead as "Master."

The Boatswain

The old Second-in-Command, though still with us, has suffered worse than his superior. He had begun to experience decline; from centuries earlier, when he had been in command of his ship.

This was so long ago as the later days of the Saxon Kings, who maintained an interesting sea-force called "Buscarles," or "Butsecarles" that is "Boat-Carls." These men were, the "opposite numbers" of the better known and long-lived "Huscarles," or Royal Bodyguard.

The exact scope of their duties is not very clear, their chief was the "Batsuen," so that the Boatswain may claim, to hold the earliest of the surviving naval titles.

Since the Boatswain became a Warrant Officer, he has lost ground through the years because he has lost several of the various duties that were once his. The main two being-he was responsible for the apparatus of sail-propulsion, which include the sailors, and also the discipline of the ship.

Then he began to lose his disciplinary juristriction. First the Corporal of the gangway appeared, in Charles I's time, as a sort of assistant ship's policeman, and then, in 1731, the Master-at-Arms blossomed forth as a full Warrant Officer to perform his part of the late boatswain's late duties.

For though it was the task of the Master-at-Arms's department to apprehend the cultrip, they could not carry out all punishments. Rope was the Boatswain's responsibility; therefore he not only furnished the neatly made, nine-tailed hempen article, he had the duty of the wielding of it.

It was the coming of steam that dealt the Boastwain his severest blow. As the nineteenth century progressed, those new Warrant Officers, the Engineers, came aboard in ever increasing strength to take over what had been his principal function-making the ship go. They reached commissioned rank 1847; but though he did not, he remained "executive," and is still so.

The Carpenter

He too changed with the times, in a downward spiral. His job of taking care of the Ship's Hull, Masts, Yard-arms, Bulkheads and Cabins. In an engagement he frequently had to pass up and down the Hold with his Crew, and to be watchful against all leaks from shot underwater. While the Boatswain "made her go," he "kept her going" and "made her tight."

His "keep her going" activities had been gradually and steadily eroded by the Engineers, and as for "keeping her tight," his plugs of wood and his shot-boards-or even the modern equivalents-cannot compete with the holes now made by mine, torpedo and armour-piercing shell.

In 1878, he ceased to be an "executive," forming a non-military or civilian branch of his own, and receiving on his sleeve the distinction stripe of silver-grey. One other change was; he changed his name. Because of progress, it was inevitable, when everywhere around him the wood was giving way to metal. In 1918, he became a "Shipwright."

The Cook

His fall has been great. He was once a full Warrant Officer and head of his own department. People began to think in terms of combatants and non-combatants "military" and "civilian" branches; he was classed as the later. An order in 1704, further sealed his doom. It stated; appointments to the post of Cook was to be given "to crippled and maimed; in action persons."

By the 1740s, he had lost so much ground, when the "Rank of the officers was settled" and when, the order of precedence and of taking command, he found himself omitted altogether, and in the same regulations, he was relegatted to the list of "inferior Officers" status. He has never recovered.

The Gunner

We have placed this officer fifth, not because of his importance; in World War II, the modern Navy List of the day placed him first among surviving Warrant Officers. Our reasoning is because he appeared on board ship after the preceeding four.

The mighty cannon produced the Gunner, it was the Great Gun, the ship-killing contribution introduced by Henry VIII. In Spain the Gun was quickly dismissed as an unhonourable arm; with many trying to pretend there was no such weapon.

The Gunner was an important figure. It has been shown how Standing Officers, all of them, may be called whole-timers in the naval service. The Gunner can claim to go a stage further. He is also the first product of Fighting and Seamanship; he is really our first Fighting-Seaman Officer.

He was a fighter controlling a fighting weapon and fighting men. And he had to be a seaman too. That makes him different to the gunner on land whose platform is quite stable. His has the habit of rolling and pitching all of the time. Nor can he become a good sea-gunner until he understands the nature of those rolls, pitches, and the gusty winds.

It was said; a principal thing in an olden gunner at sea; was to be a good helmsman, and to call him at helm to loof or bear up, to have his better level, and to observe the heaving and setting of the sea, before he takes his aim at the enemy.

Here then is the first "fighter-cum-seaman," the first true combination of the two functions, and perhaps the first living proof that the complete Fighting Seaman was a practical possibility.

The "Fighting Seaman" is very largely an English invention, because the putting of the great cannons on board ships was an English idea.

As the great gun increased in importance, and as it came gradually to dominate the whole battle-scene, the man in charge of it increased in importance too. He even acquired certain other responsibilities.

Partly because the nature of his main job demanded a particularly steady man; and anyone in charge of the gunpowder in the old wooden ship had to be that. He was put in charge of the very "Young Gentlemen" in the ship-the Volunteers-who shared with him and his mates the after part of the Lower Deck called the Gun-room. There, in his own domain, he was a very important man indeed.

Yet he too lost much of his independence in the nineteenth century, when the day of the specialist officer arrived. When gunnery specialization began in earnest with the establishment of H.M.S. Excellent and Whale Island in 1830, he found no difficulty in adjusting. He even remained "executive" and of course, "military."

The Gunner, the Boatswain and the Carpenter formed the "hard-core of Warrant Officers. Their responsibilities especially in the eighteenth century, were emmense. Not only were they the heads of their departments on board, they also had a never-ending duty which involved even greater responsibility. They were the trainers of the hands in their departments.

They were more responsible than anyone else for the details of ship-efficiency. Such men deserved well for their country, and they were not badly paid by the standards of the day. But it was a long time before they were given the chance of bettering themselves.

That day came in the end, for in 1864, the titles of Chief Gunner, Chief Boatswain and Chief Carpenter were instituted, and from then they could achieve the status of "Quarterdeck Rank." All Commissioned Warrant Officers can, rise to Commander's rank or even higher.

The continuation of this Naval History will be: "Drake"

Family Likenesses Drake

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