Royal Naval Engineering College
By the 1860s there was an increasing gulf between the status of
engineers and military officers of supposedly similar rank. Not only were the
engineers seen as workmen in uniform, they were not accorded wardroom
status.
Uniforms of this period for non-military officers were less
elaborate than those on the bridge. While the military officer wore
double-breasted coats, the civil officers wore theirs single-breasted with
buttons in distinctive groupings. Engineers, for instance, had eight buttons in
two groups of four and all non-military uniforms lacked the curled upper
stripe. Even the introduction of engine-room artificers in 1868 as skilled
tradesmen and the abandonment of separate wardrooms in 1875 did not eradicate
the disparities. In the 1890s, when 50 per cent of the complement of a warship
might be the engineering department, military officers continued to view
engineers as lascars with oilcans. Until 1910 engineers trained quite
separately from their anchor-clanking colleagues.
During the 1890s
recruitment of engineer students fell markedly and in 1903 the First Lord of
the Admiralty and the First Sea Lord, the Earl of Selbourne and Admiral Fisher,
introduced the Fisher-Selbourne scheme to see the complete coalescence of
officers. Cadet midshipmen aged 13 would enter the new Royal Naval College at
Osborne then progress to Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth for common
training until promoted to lieutenant at age 22 when they would specialise in
navigation, gunnery, torpedo or engineering. Engineer officers were no longer
known as Engineer Lieutenants, but Lieutenants (E) and were deemed military
officers. The purple stripe disappeared but they could wear the executive curl.
Engineering became a major part of basic training and the two colleges
incorporated big laboratories and workshops.
Few
Volunteers
The first engineering specialists entered the Royal Naval
College, Keyham, in 1913. Special entry cadets, aged 18, supplemented the
dangerously thinned ranks of engineer officers. The Fisher-Selbourne scheme
ended in failure. The average officer could not cover the scope of the training
and in any event only six per cent volunteered for engineering.
Even at
the time of introduction of the Fisher-Selbourne scheme, engineers were
advising that the study and practice of engineering demanded the lifetime
devotion of an officer. The scheme was abandoned in 1921 and the following year
the Long Engineering Course of four years started. In addition to meeting naval
requirements, this course conferred full exemption from the corporate
membership examinations of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. The course
was taken by officers who had been selected for engineering when promoted to
midshipman after a year as a cadet in the training ship. It was concerned
almost entirely with the theoretical and practical aspects of marine
engineering. The course evolved into one of the longest-running courses in
modern naval history. Apart from some modification in detail and a slight
reduction in time in 1935, it continued running until early 1951.
In
1925 the question of non-executive officers was reviewed in some detail and
from this came 12 categories of officer that saw, at last, the abandonment of
the 18th and 19th century concept of civil officer. With this, the
distinguishing colours were reintroduced and all officers wore the curl.
Engineers continued to be classified as Lieutenant (E); nevertheless they
claimed betrayal, alleging the new purple to be more maroon than the former
purple.
During the 1920s and -30s Keyham developed a formidable
reputation as an engineering college. Space limitations kept student numbers to
about 120 but by 1936 it was clear that Keyham was far too cramped for the
increases envisaged as war loomed. In 1938 Manadon House and 43 ha of the
estate were purchased and in May 1940 Manadon was opened as the extension of
the college.
In 1937 there were 112 officers under instruction. By 1941
there were 322 and in 1945 there were 771. Every available piece of property
was put to use accommodating these extra students. For much of WW II and
afterwards they lived mostly at Manadon in dormitory huts and messed in four
converted tin-roofed Nissen huts.
The transfer from Keyham to Manadon
progressed slowly but was virtually completed during the 1950s. It was not,
however, finished until 1962 when the electrical laboratory and the Jock
Russell were finally closed down. The Keyham buildings stayed unused until the
Devonport Dockyard Technical College moved in about 1959, but all the remaining
buildings were finally demolished in 1985.
In 1956 ADML Mountbatten
introduced the General List of officers that coincidentally saw the
disappearance of distinguishing colours for non-seaman officers. He also laid
the foundation stone for the new wardroom at Manadon and the Duke of Edinburgh
opened the buildings two years later.
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