Chatham Dockyard (9 page)

As the representative of the Navy Board, he soon quarrelled with Lord St Vincent, and this representative of routine and circumlocution equally disliked the proceedings of the junior lords. With a character deteriorated, and judgement warped and dwarfed by years passed in public office, the jobbing old Comptroller was a very different man compared with the dashing captain of the
Roebuck
.
³

In an attempt to bring pressure to bear on the Navy Board, the Admiralty would occasionally resort to the use of official inspections, known as visitations, with the First Lord or his secretary writing up the findings. During these visitations the First Lord, accompanied by members of the Navy Board, would inspect each yard. In theory, these inspections were supposed to be conducted annually, but in reality they were very infrequent. One particular visitation, carried out in 1749 and falling hard on the heels of a previous visitation held a mere sixty-three years earlier, concentrated on the failings of the various officers of the yards. Numerous shortcomings were uncovered, these including the employment of too many aged workers, allowing of underage apprentices, failing to properly oversee repair and building works and deliberate fraud. One issue remarked on was that of Storekeepers and the irregularity with which they were submitting their accounts to the Navy Board:

The general neglect of the storekeepers in not transmitting their accounts to your office [the Navy Board], surprised us, and requires immediate redress; and we cannot help observing that you should have represented this failure in the execution of their duty to us, that we might have removed those who had been most negligent, which we are now determined to do unless they immediately transmit their accounts to you that are in arrears.
⁴

At Chatham, members of the visitation enquired as to when the Storekeeper had last submitted his accounts and were informed that they ‘were three years and a half in arrears’.
⁵

Under the Earl of Sandwich, who held the post of First Lord from 1771–82, a more systematic series of visitations were undertaken, with these also giving attention to the work of the officers. It seems that the Storekeepers, despite the observations of 1749, were still no better at presenting their accounts, with Sandwich requiring that Standing Order 569 should be circulated, this to the Storekeeper at Chatham together with those at the other yards. The standing order referred to the earlier visitation and reminded the Storekeepers that they were still not submitting their quarterly accounts:

These are to direct and require you to complete your accounts, abstracts and balances to 31 December last … and to continue sending them at the expiration of each quarter.

Sandwich was to note that the shipwright officers, both at Chatham and the other yards, operated as if they were independent of the Navy Board and often countermanded the instructions of that Board:

Esteeming themselves better judges and being solicitous to be considered among the men as their advocates and patrons against the Navy Board; hence they have ever exercised a power of granting many undue indulgences, particularly taking in, and continuing many unfit persons under pretext of charity, or for other reasons. They also misemploy many of the men, excusing their favourites from the most laborious work, conniving at the negligence and indolence of the people [workforce] in general, in order to make themselves popular among them.
⁶

Of one particular officer at Chatham it was noted:

It does not appear that the chaplain of this yard has done any duty for several years past, though he receives his pay and four pence from the ordinary and had two of the guard ships.
⁷

The visitations led by Sandwich also gave attention to the supply and storage of timber. It seems that the methods adopted for storing this vital and expensive commodity had changed little since Ollivier’s spying mission some thirty years earlier. In May 1771, Sandwich and the other members of the Board of Visitation, while at Chatham:

Took a view of the timber, plank and thick stuff in the yard, observing all the plank to be laid on the flat and in high piles which is the worst method for seasoning and preserving it; that great party of the rough timber is laid in 2 and 3 tiers high; although there are many vacant spaces in the yard.
⁸

As a direct result proposals were made for a number of seasoning sheds, designed with interior racks and louvred gables, which admitted a free circulation of air while keeping out the rain. The Navy Board, however, failed to cooperate; pointing out that insufficient space within the yards precluded the erection of such new structures. Sandwich, though, was able to counter this argument, pointing out the most obvious locations. At Chatham, the original seasoning shed was to have been 500ft in length, but eventually consisted of four smaller sheds, the largest of which measured 100ft. A map of the dockyard dated 1772 indicates three to have been completed by this particular date, with only the site of a fourth marked out.
⁹
The final shed was to be completed in 1774:

The foundation of the new seasoning shed, which completes the proportion of sheds, that are deemed sufficient for use of this yard, is now just finished, and the whole building will be erected, and filled in [during] the course of this summer.
¹⁰

Despite these new sheds, the older method of storing timber was by no means abandoned. A point noted during the 1773 visitation to Chatham:

As we have observed that the seasoning sheds are in great forwardness, and some of them completed and fit for the reception of thick stuff, planks and knees we are very sorry to find that several parcels still lye abroad exposed to the weather, we direct you to cause the whole to be collected and put into the sheds as far as they are now and may hereafter be ready to receive them.
¹¹

In addition to the timber seasoning sheds, a series of standing orders was also issued in order to ensure the better use of timbers. One, in particular, also affected the storage of timber, with it being declared that two thirds of the timber should, in future, be stored in a sawn state, while knees should be shaped as soon as they arrived in the yard.
¹²

The resident Commissioner was often caught in the crossfire between the two Boards. Appointed by the Navy Board, and also a member of that same Board, it was from this body that all his instructions and orders were supposed to emanate. Yet this did not prevent him receiving direct correspondence from the superior Board of Admiralty, this either seeking information or making suggestions as to a course of action to be followed. Adding to his difficulties was that of not undergoing any induction procedure upon first being appointed, with only a set of standing orders and the past correspondence of his predecessor to guide him.

It was this vagueness as to the duties of a newly appointed Commissioner that prompted Francis Hartwell, appointed to Chatham as Commissioner in April 1799, to communicate the following to his colleagues at the Navy Board:

Never having received any particular instructions for my guidance as resident Commissioner of the Navy, I have endeavoured in every case, to conduct myself according to the records of my predecessors.
¹³

Frequently the Admiralty urged the Navy Board to draw up more specific instructions, but nothing appears to have been done until June 1801. At that time a series of draft instructions were prepared, which were eventually distributed to each yard Commissioner and subsequently published as part of a more general report into the operation of the dockyards.
¹⁴

One thing of which a Commissioner was certainly aware was his general lack of authority within the dockyard. He was unable to issue any instructions without the authority of the Navy Board, having to seek permission for even the most mundane matters. Thus agreeing to a local contract, the entering of additional workers, and even the docking and undocking of ships all had to be approved by the London office. Not surprisingly, it led to an immense degree of correspondence, with this sample letter, written by Charles Proby, Commissioner at Chatham from 1771 until 1799, indicative of just how little authority he actually possessed:

Gentlemen – I have received your warrant to this yard to carry out the scheme of works for the present month as proposed; two warrants and a letter to supply a main and foretop to the
Arrogant
, to dispense with the absence of the
Meleager
for three months and not to send the new canvas and kersey therein mentioned to Sheerness, with a warrant to the latter to receive a main and foretop from Chatham for the
Arrogant
.
¹⁵

In fact, the major function of the Commissioner was that of keeping the Navy Board informed of all events occurring within the dockyard, this through a regular stream of letters to the Navy Office that contained information as to the progress of vessels repairing or under construction, notice of petitions submitted and reference to incidents such as theft of stores, reported grievances or local fires, when a dockyard engine might have been in attendance. According to the codified instructions of 1801:

He [the Commissioner] is to make his constant residence in the dockyard in order to his always being in readiness to receive and see executed all orders from the Admiralty and Commissioners of the navy relating to the service of the navy and not to absent himself from the post without permission first had to that purpose in writing from the Admiralty.
¹⁶

If the Commissioner had authority in any one area, this was with regard to his supervision of the workmen within the yard, where he had the right to appoint, discharge and chastise labourers and artisans. However, with respect to the officers, this same level of authority simply did not exist. Instead, his only recourse with an officer was that of issuing a severe reprimand. To this, however, should be added the right of a Commissioner to recommend any officer for promotion and this, in itself, might encourage a greater level of efficiency among those beneath the rank of Commissioner.

The officers’ offices. Now known as the Admiral’s Office and constructed in 1795, this was the building set aside for the various administrators of the yard with rooms also being used by the various clerks attached to each of the principal officers.

Despite his seeming lack of authority, the Commissioner was well rewarded. Apart from anything else, he was accommodated, at no cost to himself, in the attractive three-storey house that stood slightly back from the main working area of the yard, but close enough for him to observe the general comings and goings of the yard in general. Helping to secure his privacy within the yard was that of it having an extensive walled garden. As to his overall income, a parliamentary enquiry found that Commissioner Proby, in the year 1784, received the grand sum of £624. The bulk of this was an annual salary of £500 with the rest coming from various allowances and permitted expenses. In addition, all coal and candles consumed by his family were funded by the Navy Office as also were any alterations and repairs to the house.

As to how successful a Commissioner was in the carrying out of his duties, confused as they were, this often depended on the character of the man. Charles Proby showed himself to be reasonably enlightened in that he allowed £50 annually to the poor of Chatham and made numerous other charitable donations, while also attempting both to understand the workforce and not cocoon himself within that grand dockyard house. When meting out punishments to those caught in acts of theft Proby did not always seek out the harshest form of punishment, while he would also help diffuse tension during a dockyard dispute. His successor, Francis Hartwell, was much more elitist, removing himself from undue closeness to those of lower status. Within a few months of his arrival in Chatham in 1799, he requested a small railing outside the Commissioner’s House, this to prevent artisans from assembling too close. As regards the parish church, he made one further request: