‘Schoolies’: Teachers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines 1700-1914

Although the schoolmaster enjoyed autonomy on board in terms of his course structure and teaching, the pay and status of the naval teacher did not, as previously noted, always attract the best of people. One long-serving naval officer recalled his teacher:

We youngsters had a schoolmaster, a clever seedy looking creature,
whose besetting sin was love of grog; with very little trouble it floored him
and then, I don't like to record it, we used to grease his head and flour it.

Still, it would be nothing short of a crime to paint all schoolmasters as corrupt and idiotic. With pay equal to that of the lowest class of midshipmen, status of a petty officer and no career structure to point the way to higher rank, the whole presented a discouraging picture for even the most virtuous of individuals. The schoolmaster did not even possess a cabin on board so he often had to bunk with his students – hence the ease with which Boteler and his companions carried out their practical jokes.

Winds of (apparent) change
Since their appearance at the beginning of the 18th century, schoolmasters were not present in every ship, and the ones that had them were reliant on the abilities and morals of those individuals, so access to and quality of education was variable under the schoolmaster system.

Early on it was realised that a better approach was needed, and the Portsmouth Naval Academy opened in 1733, establishing the foundation of education, training and standards for young naval officers, and which the Admiralty hoped would eventually replace the schoolmaster system, though it never came close to doing this. The curriculum included navigation, geometry, arithmetic, English writing, French, drawing, fencing and (strangely) dancing. Practical learning was a key part of the routine, and ‘students in their second year[s] worked twice a week in the dockyard, under the direction of the master attendant, master shipwright and boatswain’. The academy was originally intended for 40 students, but for many years had accommodation for only around 30. Its capacity was eventually increased and by 1803 it could take 56 students.

But why did the naval academy never replace the schoolmaster system? For one thing, many senior officers resisted surrendering to the Admiralty their very long and deeply-entrenched powers and influence regarding who would be taken to sea.

However, the academy’s failure to fulfil its primary goal was due to more than a desire to retain power and a casual sneer. There was a sincere belief that the skills of a sailor could only truly be learned at sea. In fact, prejudice against academy students (and later those from the college) was so strong that some captains did not promote them to midshipmen, or even refused them altogether.

Despite ardent support for a seagoing education, the Admiralty continued to promote teaching ashore. In 1806 it was decided that the academy would be enlarged and altered to accommodate 70 students and be renamed the Royal Naval College. When the work was finished, the institution reopened in February 1808.

New rules and a new player
By 1806, after many decades of no change in the schoolie’s official duties or conditions of service and pay, the Regulations and Instructions of 1806 rewrote the schoolmaster’s role, adding more responsibility in the process:

1. The Admiralty now had complete control over appointments.
2. Students were ‘young gentlemen who may be put in his care’, thus virtually discarding all other youths on board, except those who (with the captain’s permission) were found to be qualified to receive instruction.
3. Teaching was confined only to the branches of mathematics needed for instruction in navigation.
4. The conduct and morals of the young gentlemen were an added responsibility, although this was in a disciplinary sense and not intended to intrude on the duties of the chaplain.
5. In a move that began to meld the schoolmaster into the navy’s combatant role, he was now tasked with assisting any required astronomical observations and calculations (as long as it did not interfere with regular instruction time).

Despite improvements in the schoolmaster’s pay, though not his social status, the influx of qualified applicants in the first four decades of the 19th century can be equated to the flow of molasses in wintertime. In 1812 their Lordships, approaching the problem from a different angle, authorised naval chaplains who passed the exam to do double-duty as schoolmasters. Those who took up both offices were entitled to the yearly £20 payment of Queen Anne’s Bounty, plus an annual £5 from every midshipman and first class volunteer under their tutelage. Still without sufficient candidates forthcoming, an Order in Council in 1816 (ADM 1/5228) finally boosted the schoolmaster’s pay from being the same as received by the lowest midshipman to a clerk’s pay.