Royal Naval Academy Portsmouth
In 1733 a Royal Naval Academy was established at Portsmouth
Dockyard as a facility to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders'
intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to
provide standardized training, education and admission for 40 recruits.
A comprehensive syllabus provided theoretical and practical experience
in the dockyard and at sea. Graduates of the Academy could earn two years of
sea time as part of their studies, and would be able to take the lieutenant's
examination after four years at sea instead of six. The Academy did not,
however, achieve the objective of becoming the preferred path to becoming naval
officers. The traditional means of a sea-going "apprenticeship" remained the
preferred alternative. The vast majority of the officer class was still
recruited in this manner based on family ties, and patronage. Family
connections, "interest" and a sincere belief in the superiority of practical
experience learned on the quarterdeck ensured that the officer class favoured
the traditional model. William IV summed up this view when he remarked that
"there was no place superior to the quarterdeck of a British man of war for the
education of a gentleman".
In 1806 the Academy was reconstituted as the
"Royal Navy College" and in 1816 was amalgamated with the School of Naval
Architecture.
Masters 1733-1740 Thomas Haselden, FRS 1740-1755
John Walton 1755-1766 John Robertson, FRS 1766-1785 George Witchell,
FRS 1785-1807 William Bayly 1807-1838 James Inman as Professor of the
Royal Naval College
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org
The first School of Naval Architecture opened in 1811 in
Portsmouth and closed in 1832. The Royal School of Naval Architecture or Royal
School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering were an institution founded
in South Kensington in 1864 to train naval architects. It was founded by Joseph
Woolley, who had been Principal of the short-lived School of Mathematics and
Naval Construction in Portsmouth (1848-1853).
In 1873 the School moved
to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, then in 1967 to University College
London. Many of its graduates entered the Royal Corps of Naval
Constructors.
The School of
Mathematics and Naval Construction was intended as a finishing school for a
select number of shipwright apprentices, to prepare them as officers in the
dockyards. They were sent to the school for the final three years of their
seven-year apprenticeship, to be taught mathematics by Wooley and shipbuilding
by the master shipwright of the dockyard. Unusually, they were also taught
chemistry in a laboratory created at the back of the school for the use of W.J.
Hay, the chemical assistant of the dockyard.
|