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Jan. 24th, 2006 03:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quigonejinnOfficers
-- volunteers: could go to sea as young as eleven if they were the sons of officers. otherwise, minimum age of thirteen. new class instituted after 1794 -- after both Horatio and Bush joined before that and would have been "captain's servants." Did not formally wait on the servants, were not officers, but were expected to pass into midshipman-hood.
- midshipmen: and had to spend at least three years (accroding to Lavery, Wiki says two w/minimum of 4 years before sitting for the lieutenant exam) at sea before they could be called this. ranged in age from the age of 15-22. (note: this means that Bush could NOT have "begun life" in the Navy as a midshipman and that Horatio couldn't be brand-new to the sea. . . was the regulation not strictly followed? or did both Bush and HOratio get entered into the books three years before they went ot sea so that when they did go to sea, they could step on as midshipmen -- common practice?)
- lieutenants: must be at least nineteen with six years of service. severity of the lieutenant's exam varied substantially -- not usually as terrifying as indicated in both books and movies, particularly if you had connections. frequently knew the people who were examining you, esp. if your family was in the Navy. see ex. passing certificate p. 96
Lieutenant pay: 8.8.0 (eight pounds, eight shillings) per month in 1808. half-pay would therefore be 4.4.0, and each week, would be 1.1.0. Which accords with the scale that we're given in Lieutenant Hornblower -- Hornblower gets half a guinea (guinea = 21 shillings) or 10 shillings 6 pence, and Bush remarks that his half pay is more than double that. (22 shillings v. 10.6, so it's double but not ALL THAT MUCH MORE, BUSH, YOU FOOL)
- lieutenant pay constant across ships. NOT TRUE of captains.
- 1808: lt pay = half of what the captain of a sixth-rate got.
Lieutenant duties, on ships where enough for this kind of division:
- first lieutenant responsible for administration of ship, did not keep watch. (Consistent with what we hear Sawyer say to Buckland about his idle time)
- one lieutenant might be in charge of mess, one lieutenant might be in charge of signals, etc. Flexibility in arrangement according to captain's desires.
- during battle, first lieutenant stood with captain, ready to take over in case anything went wrong, and each subordinate lieutenant typically took responsiblity for half a deck of guns.
- appointment of acting lieutenants as necessary and under captain's discretion -- record of an acting lieutenant William Weiss on the Nereid in 1810 who hadn't even served out his time as a
- if shorthanded, captain or the lieutenant might take watch.
Advancing from lieutenant -> commanderThree ways:
- Patronage. (Not reserved forgreat lords -- if family had influence on election to Parliament, could exert pressure. Admiraly gneerally tried to resist. Note, just for fun, about how Edward Pellew <3 <3 <3 got his son promoted to captain at a v. early age <3 <3 <3 and that the son later proved to be v. capable. See also Historical Pellew notes below.)
Ships
- French generally considered better designed.
- HEBE -- the nam eof Lady B's maid -- one of the mostcopied seized French ships. XD
Book says that Pellew got one of his sons promoted v. early and book says that later proved to be v. capable (unlike this other admiral who got his son promoted, kid got court-martialled for losing ship)
Presumably NOT Pownell Bastard Pellew -- son no. 1 who rose to the rank of post-captain when he was thirty. Was, incidentally, born exactly three days before Horatio :D :D :D. Seemed to have remained a post-captain -- Pellew didn't die until 1833.
Presumably, INSTEAD, Pellew's second son, Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds Pellew who later became a Knight of the Order of Bath and of the Order of Hanover, as well as a Rear-Admiral. Born late in the same year that Pellew married a woman by the name of Susannah Frowde whose father came from Wiltshire. Possible scandal?
Definite scandal(ish)-- Pellew didn't marry, in fact, until 1789, thirteen years after birth of Pownell. No mother listed for Pownell no matter how I dig, and ;lgh;ldifj THUS EXPLAINING THE BASTARD APPELATION :D :D :D PELLEW DOESN'T HAVE COMPLETELY AWFUL TASTE IN NAMES AFTER ALL. Correlation of birth dates suggests fascinating son-replacement stuff to play out if you want to go with the relationship between movie!Pellew and Horatio.
Interestingly: Pownell becomes the second viscount Exmouth, though, NOT the first legitimately-born son. May be the regular thing, but interesting scope for postulating that Pellew skivvied son 2's career along a bit as recompense and dfjlkjgdf.
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help me out here because I can't do the math
Date: 2006-01-24 07:51 pm (UTC)Part of the problem is the age thing which CSF dickered with as he went along, but I tend to go with the 10 years older than HH that we get in the later books before CSF retooled things a bit. So ...
Bush is born in 1766.
Passes his Lt.'s Exam in 1796 which would make him THIRTY YEARS OLD??!!WTF?
Somewhere in the books (my memory fails me ONCE AGAIN) it's mentioned that he entered the RN in 1790, at 24!!! That's DAMN late for someone coming in on a midshipman's track.
So here's my crackpot theory *puts on tinfoil hat once again*
There were lieutenants who came up on a different track via the lower deck. Generally rising into the midshipman/lieutenant ranks after serving as a master's mate. These are the guys who came from working class backgrounds and didn't have the $$ or influence to come in as volunteers/midshipmen.
From the Peter Goodwin book referring to the master's mate track --
"Few officers entering from influential backgrounds could surpass the proficient abilities of these lower-deck men. However, experience and accumulated knowledge was not enough for further promotion: of this group only 13.5% reached post captain and a mere 2.5% reached flag rank. Of the remaining 84%, most of these men never achieved rank beyond lieutenant, mainly because of age. The other reason why promotion was limited was the patronage system .... "
Hello Mr. Bush and your Chichester background and your total and complete knowledge of how every spar and sail and piece of line operated on those ships. And didn't CSF make a point that Bush passed his exam based on seamanship alone? Which he would have known in spades if he had progressed up as a master's mate.
The only bit that doesn't quite fit the crackpot theory of the moment™ is the date he enters the RN, although I will be a silly bitch and just finesse that to mean that was the date he was entered into the midshipman's rank from master's mate. Amen.
And of course, this is probably just all crap on my part. XD
dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 09:40 pm (UTC)And I never caught the reference to Bush being born in 1766/entering in 1790 -- I mean, I'm sure they're there because there are giant portions of the books where I was just too @_@ to have picked up on things like that. I still can't read the last half of Lord at a go, in fact. Plus, it makes total sense for the humble beginnings, the not-being-well-read, the practical knowledge of how to build a boat, etc. The movie!canon about the blacksmith background (I'm right in thinking it's only movie, right?) fits super-well this.
*goes flipping through what she's got* Lavery tends to make it sound like if you couldn't get to being a Master's Mate without substantial experience of the sea already under your belt -- you could get to it from the lower decks or being one of the more senior midshipmen, so yeah. In this scenario, Bush would have had to work his way up to Master's Mate from being solid lower deck. That sort of process explains why the guys that Lavery talks about made Lieutenant at 43, 41, and 36 respectively. Bush getting his at 30 would have been almost unprecedentedly young, though I think the 41 year old dude had a decade long break in between during the 1890s.
Lewis is pretty interesting, too. He's got a whole lovely, anecdote and gossip-filled section on the topic which I'm going to have to go through carefully, but.
Quote from Cochrane who, I hear, was partially the basis for Horatio? Forester has Horatio joining the Navy at the same age and year or whatever, I know, and the whole Cochrane copying gets even better when we start to read about Jack Larmour, Chochrane's first lieutenant who rose from the lower decks and was And Larmour's "only idea. . . of relaxation" was "to throw off the lieutenant and resume the functions of Able Seamman.'" Lewis also notes that "Larmour became a captain in the end (perhaps through the Cochrane Interest)."
*coughs*
And more in the way of whatever I can dig up and think to mention by way of fleshing out the discussion. The 1766 birthdate. That also makes Bush 34 at the opening of LtH, where Forrester refers to Hornblower and Bush in a breath together as "the young lieutenants." 34 is fairly old in those times, right? And that stuff about how Bush "started life" as a midshipman.
*ponders, thinks, avoids work and bookmarks section to read later about how Horatio managed to squirrel his way into a midshipman's rank from the start*
Re: dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 09:52 pm (UTC)Re: dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 10:05 pm (UTC)And yeah. It's certainly possible that Forester changed his mind between books -- the characterization of the H/B relationship changes a whole hell of a lot as you move through the publication, and I think I read somewhere that he even givestwo different versions of Hornblower's career so wtf.
This's where I was pulling the stuff about young men fromin LtH:
Re: dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 10:01 pm (UTC)And then it gets wacky when CSF did LtH and retooled Bush's age to bring him closer in line to HH who was supposed to be somewhere in his 20's (I believe 26) as he was born in 1776, and he was commissioned Lt in 1797 at around 21.
And see, 'started life as a midshipman', makes my theory total crack. No lower deck origins based on that. LtH forces you to make Bush younger than he was claimed to be later on the books.
It's basically a great big WTF sort of thing unless you make Bush old for the midshipman ranks or young for a Lieutenant coming up from the alternative track of master's mate. And based on all the other stuff that fits his personality and experience and background I've always leaned towards the master's mate route even if he was a tad younger than usual. But ya know .... *readjusts that tin foil hat*
The blacksmith family background? That's book canon in LtH.
Lamour/Cochrane = Bush/HH *g*
Re: dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 10:13 pm (UTC)And yeah. The LtH relationship makes a lot less sense if you think of Bush being a full decade older than H.
Re: dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 10:48 pm (UTC)Near the end of the first paragraph in Chapter 2:
" Pitch -- roll -- heave -- roll; it was magnificent, rhythmic, majestic, and Bush, balancing on the deck with the practiced ease of ten years' experience, would have felt almost happy .... ".
And LtH starts up in 1800, so -- 1790.
Re: dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 11:00 pm (UTC)Re: dkjfg.
Date: 2006-01-24 09:59 pm (UTC)He talks about how it's not unprecedented for men to rise from the lower decks when he's thinking about Brown, does a bit of justifying to himself and citing of precedent, but he does not when he's thinking about Bush. I mean, it's entirely possible that Bush never told him about coming up that way or that Horatio thinks it doesn't matter because Bush is already a Lieutenant, but yeah.
omg I spam you so much. :/
Date: 2006-01-24 10:40 pm (UTC)<333333333333333333333333
Date: 2006-01-24 10:58 pm (UTC)There's a section in one of the books I've got about how, if you had influence, you could get your name listed as being on a ship for years and years and years without actually setting foot on deck. *_* So yeah, it'd be surprising if Hammond didn't come in as a midshipman, and Keane or some other patent of Horatio's father probably carried Horatio for a while, and well. Really, all I'm trying to say is <33333333333 yay, Archie. I haven't mentioned in the past 15 seconds how happy I am that you're writing Archie for
*tickles Obi-Wan, reminds self that she ought to finish up some of that SW stuff she's been working on*
gayest frenchman ever. <333333333333
Date: 2006-01-24 11:32 pm (UTC)Also, Bush's lusty appreciation of Horatio+water...there's that bit in Widow McCool that talks about the pure physical pleasure of clean water which just leads into Lt. so nicely. It's practically porn the way Forester describes it.
I've been thinking SW is in need of some love. :D I've been trying to pull together a little post on Rogue Planet, which continues to taunt me from my bookshelf.
Re: <333333333333333333333333
Date: 2006-01-24 11:53 pm (UTC)