Portsmouth Royal Dockyard 4^th Year Upper School 1955

Shipwrights & Shipfitters

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For at least a generation, naval historians have argued that throughout the Napoleonic Wars British ships were inferior to the French. Well, French ships were certainly made according to the most modern scientific principles, and were designed and built by elegantly named maitres constructeurs. But the result was often a drawing board triumph and a seaborne horror: between 1793 and 1815 the French lost one major vessel every month to war and weather.

British vessels, on the other hand, were made by 'mere' shipwrights, who belonged to the rising class of self-made technologists that was changing the face of Britain. They were sound, practical men who weren't carried away by dazzling, abstract theory - as the French so often were - but who welcomed sensible innovation.

Source: Kevin Myers - Book review of The Command Of The Ocean by N A M Rodger