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

Among all the changes, their Lordships made no attempt to absorb the old schoolmasters into the developing permanent career structure. Consequently, for a time, the old type of schoolmasters continued to serve under Queen Anne’s Bounty scheme of 1702, alongside their higher status brethren. The enlarged title and role of the new naval instructor and schoolmaster would survive only a handful of years, as there was a further delineation of the title:

Admiralty 10th Sept., 1842 Naval Instructors and Schoolmasters are hereafter to be designated “Naval Instructors” and Chaplains on being appointed to act as Naval Instructors are to be designated “Chaplains and Naval Instructors.” No person will be considered eligible for a Warrant as Naval Instructor who is under 20 years of age or more than 35.

The latter regulation was at times relaxed, as in the case of Robert Mills Inskip, who entered the navy as a naval instructor in December 1836, ‘although over the prescribed age’ and was appointed a chaplain in June 1853 (and afterwards received the Baltic Medal 1854-55).

The professional and social rise of the schoolmaster came at a time of falling enrolment at the Royal Naval College and this, along with government economies, led to the college closing in April 1837.

Meanwhile, the navy’s technological transformation was well under way; sail began giving way to steam (by 1840, over 70 steamships appeared on the Navy List), closely followed by wood to iron, and shot to shell the following decade. The return to the schoolmaster system meant the navy’s chance to enlighten its young officers during a time of tremendous change was frittered away.

The Admiralty’s decision to hold class only at sea for training young gentlemen (a philosophy surviving into the late 1850s), was the subject of a lively debate in the House of Lords on 12 February 1839. The exchange was between the Earl of Hardwicke and Earl of Minto: the former hammered at the government’s policy of shipboard education, while the latter pointed out the deficiencies of shore-based learning once youths joined the fleet. Extolling the virtues of the Royal Naval College, the Earl of Hardwicke (a former student of the institution) pointed out ‘that youths between the tender age of twelve and fifteen were educated on shore, almost under the parental eye . . . and they could not go outside the gates of the college without seeing something instructive to them for their profession’. By contrast, the earl continued, the ‘changes of situation the making and shortening of sail . . . the visiting of new ports . . . all would distract attention from study’ (Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates). Finally, the earl could not resist noting that in the two years since the college’s closure, a mere six gentlemen entered the navy as schoolmasters (two of whom, Alfred W. Lane and Michael T.S. Raimbach, went on to earn the China Medal 1840-42)

Jack Tars and Leathernecks not forgotten
Fortunately, sailors and marines were not forgotten. In 1837 the Admiralty extended basic education to all petty officers, seamen, marines and boys by authorising the 1st class petty officer rate of seamen’s schoolmaster in every ship of the navy (Admiralty Memorandum, 15 May 1837). Competency was required in teaching ‘Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, viz., the first four rules, the ‘Rule of Three’, Vulgar and Decimal Fractions, Logarithmic Arithmetic, Plane Trigonometry, and to keep a ship’s reckoning at sea’. The age range was a bit wider than that allotted for a naval a naval instructor – not younger than 21 or older than 40.

Although one seamen’s schoolmaster was designated for every vessel, there was the usual disparity between what was authorised and what materialised in the fleet. All ships having schools did at least receive an allowance for books, slates, and the like.

Ships’ captains selected seamen’s schoolmasters and the above memorandum directed that ‘vacancies occurring on board may be filled from the ship’s company, if a person properly qualified be found on board, if not one may be taken from another ship’. Notably, even though proposed seamen’s schoolmasters were supposed to be examined and certified by a naval instructor or ‘some other competent person’, they were not trained teachers, as no doubt their pupils were at times keenly aware. Initially there were no specific efforts to attract men for this rating.

The character of the schoolmaster employed was of particular importance to a school’s success, along with the level of interest shown by the captain and his first lieutenant, but as noted by Barnard:

[the] situation is too often filled by an old quartermaster, or sergeant of marines, who obtains the berth as kind of a retirement, or by some person who has a fancy for sea life, but who is fit for nothing on shore, much less for teaching under the difficulties of a ship at sea.