The Executive Officer

Of the Royal Navy

This Naval History continues on from: "Early Naval Tactics"

There was nothing outstandingly strange about Nelson's professional rise. It was a fairly typical example of that of a successful late-eigteenth-century officer. John Rodney's success was by no means typical. It is probably unique, and, if so, will certainly remain so.

The reason for quoting it must be that it illustrates almost to perfection what "graft" could do for a man in the late eighteenth-century, and what stagnation could do for him in the early nineteenth.

John Rodney was the not very worthy son of one who may be described, as a great naval officer rather than a good man. Admiral Lord George Rodney was naturally a big figure in the Navy of his day, and his "interest" was such that it would seem almost boundless.

Thus he kept his son at home until the late age of 15. He then had him sent to sea as a Midshipman. This was quite illegal: but it is nothing to what follows. A day or two later, still aged 15, the lad was made a Lieutenant, and five weeks later a full Captain.

Early Naval Tactics

But the sting lies in the tail

Sixty years later he was still a Captain! Poor John Rodney's luck had failed to hold. He had very little ability: his father soon died, and, after a while, the wars stopped.

Then the terrible stagnation of the long post-Waterloo Peace period gripped him, as it did many thousands of better men. For the real problem was retirement, it had remained unfaced, though a few unsuccessful efforts had been made to deal with the age old problem; of old officers.

The unfortunates who headed the various lists in the early 1840s had grim records. The Captains then at the top of their grade were in their 70s who had been advanced to that rank in the year after Trafalgar.

The top of the Lieutenant's list in 1841, had last known the thrill of promotion in 1778, some 63 years ago. And that would be just as tragic, were there not something a little comic about it.

A life of stagnant promotion

As for the fate of some of the midshipmen, who somehow had failed to reach the first commissioned rung of the promotional ladder before the stagnation of peace-time set in. There was for instance, poor Billy Culmer, who in 1791 laid proud claim to be the senior Midshipman in the British Navy, having been one for 34 years.

There was Midshipman Vallack who aged 65, and quite white-haired where he was not bold, was still serving afloat in 1822. The remedy was simple: retirement at some stage. There really was nothing else or anything complex about how to sort it out?

In the case of that ancient Lieutenant, it must not be supposed that he had been serving as a Lieutenant for 63, years; in all probability an overwhelming proportion of that time he had been on half-pay ashore, and probably held up another job.

He was not starving, though half-pay was far from princely. And no doubt he had long since given up all idea of naval employment. And had probably lost the desire, since he must have been at least 83, years old. All he was doing was impeeding the promotion of everybody below him.

The remedy was for Authority to decide, how many, and which, officers of each grade it wanted to employ again; and remove the rest from the list altogether; by giving them retired pay in lieu of half-pay.

In 1870, "Retirement" came, the complete and final publication of a Navy List in which the "Active" and the "Retired" categories were quite separate.

Nelson was exceptionally brilliant

John Rodney was exceptionally backed

Michael Turner was quite an ordinary officer

Michael Turner possesed neither Nelson's great ability nor young Rodney's great patronage, yet he probably had at least an average share of both. He was born 1799, and went to sea as a First-Class Volunteer in 1811; like Nelson, one year before he ought to.

In 1813, he was appointed Midshipman in the "Hebrus", and stayed in her for three years, seeing much service; in a frigate fight in the Channel. He was in the 1812-1815, American War, and in the Navy's support of Wellingthon's drive into France and with "Exmouth" at Algiers.

In all this he did very well

By then peace had come. He was lucky at first. He got another ship in 1818, after two year's of waiting, then going in the "Conqueror" for two and a half years. During this time he passed his Lieutenant's examination, at the age of 19.

After he left the "Conqueror" in 1820, nothing happened until 1828, where he obtained his officer's commission, being appointed as a Lieutenant of the "Royal Adelaide", his promotion was because he had acquired a ship's commission. He was now 29.

Such a wait would seem terrible to a modern officer, but lady luck was going his way; for he might never have obtained a commission at all. However his stay in the "Royal Adelaide" ended in 1831, and another eight years elapsed in which he was completely shore-bound.

Then in 1839, when he was 41, he obtained another post as Lieutenant in one of the early steamers, the "Hydra". In her he went out to the Mediterranean and was present, in 1840, at the capture of "Acre".

This time, he was home within a year, and once more found himself beached. He procured one more post from, 1842 to 1847, as Admiralty Agent in the Mail Steam Vessel, but it was a very poor one which led nowhere.

He knew his fighting days were over

Upon leaving his mail ship, he did not try for another ship. He took up a civillian post as Bursar of Brighton College. He was still there in 1853; the first year of retirement. Because of naval reforms, he was placed on the new Reserved Half-Pay (Lieutenant's list) Retired.

He was now, quite out of the running for a naval appointment, but he was not retired, and was still receiving half-pay. Thirteen more years passed and, in the big "purge" of Lieutenants in 1864, he was put on the new "Retired List" with the rank of Commander R.N. Retired.

If we analyse his career, we will see he spent 2 years out of 2 years as a Volunteer, 5.5 years out of 15 as a Midshipman, 8.5 years out of 36 as a Lieutenant, we have a total of 16 years service out of 53.

If we measure the war years when he was needed, and leave out the Volunteer years, we will find that it is 6 years out of 48! And this was a perfectly good officer who devoted his whole life to the Naval Service. This at the time was quite a normal procedure.

There is no reason to suppose that Michael Turner was unlucky. the evidence is slightly the other way. His length of employment was probably a little above the average for that distressing period.

There were obviously two things wrong

There was no ordered retirement; so nobody knew when to retire. The other fault was also to do with the authorities, though it is much harder to blame them for it, since it involved a very difficult problem.

It is the problem of expanding the Navy for war and contracting it again for peace-time, without inflicting unnecessary hardship on the personnel concerned. The most modern way of all, is to do the expanding, not in the Royal Navy, but in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

No wonder the peace, when it came, found thousands of lieutenants, for whom there was little prospect of any more employment, not to mention the thousands who were still hoping to become lieutenants, waiting, with their exams, safely passed, for a day that would probably never dawn.

And none of the officers were ever removed from the list to clear he blockage by any circumstances other than death, but Peace-Contraction came in the end. It was in fact, correctly regulated Reirement for the whole-time officer, and the correct use of the "natural reserves" for expansion and contraction.

when at last it arrived it made the modern Royal Navy a regular profession, with prospects sufficiently rosy and a future sufficiently secured to make it worth a good man's while to follow in the foot-steps of Great Seamen of the past.

This is what happened

The Navy changed from a set of part-time Post-holders to a Corps of whole-time Rank-holders. In the process the very word "Officer" changed its meaning. In Pepys's time, and in all previous periods, it meant "office-holder."

If one held an "office" in the Navy, one was an officer: but otherwise one was not an officer.

That meaning of the word is still in use in many walks of life, though it is no longer the commonest one. For instance; the Solicitor General and the Attorney General are "Law Officers of the Crown": but not in their own persons.

They are by virtue of their posts, "officers" but, when they relinquish those posts they cease to be "officers" because, they no longer work for the Crown.

A chairman, Secretary and Treasurer are the "officers" of a Society or Organisation, but only so long as they occupy those posts. But in the modern Navy an "officer" is simply a "Rank-holder." He dose not forfeit his title when or if he is temporarily unemployed.

It was Samuel Pepys who began it

He, perhaps quite unconsciously, and perhaps without realising one half of the implications involved, started the ball rolling. It is of course a good example of the nature of his contributions to the Navy.

He did not create Rank, but he took those first steps without which it could have happened; steps which made its ultimate arrival inevitable.

What he did, was to take the various posts as he found them, and confine them by making various rules and regulations which governed their tenure. By making certain qualifications compulsory for would-be holders of those posts.

The fundamental result of such regulations is beyond doubt.

They created certain well-defined classes of persons who alone were qualified to hold those posts. These were not at the time, "ranks" but, they would eventually become so. Pepys had no clear idea of exactly what he was creating.

He began at the bottom. He was not satisfied with the whole business of entry into the naval service. He found that it was chaotic in its extreme. He realised, some ordered form of entry must be a prerequisite to any ordered service.

Those who are to control that service, must control the rate and the quality of those who enter into it, and this is just what, they did not do. Pepys did not like what he had discovered.

To his essentially tidy mind it was not tidy. It was not the State but the individual Captains who decided who were to be the officers of the next generation. Here promotion was open to unfair preference, by one means or another.

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It was here that Pepys dropped the guillotine

He ordered that no Volunteer should be above the age of sixteen. A minimum age-limit was imposed; the aspirant must be over thirteen, or, if an officer's son, over eleven.

These rules had the double effect of cutting out the dabblers and of encouraging the lad who seriously wanted to join the naval service. But this did not put the choosing of officers into Pepys hands. To secure that he introduced a new class, to be drawn from the same in-take.

This was indeed an important step in moulding the profession. But we must not expect things to move too fast. The Pepysian way was sensible and logical. The rest must follow in time, though he had been dead for over two-hundred years before they were completely implimented.

The continuation of this Naval History will be: "Sir George Rooke"

The Executive Officer Sir George Rooke

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