THE SEVEN SEAS MAGAZINE

1 1 The Official Organ of the Seven Seas Club wq : J £ep i

Traditional 16th Century Pub

Volume 79, No 7 Lunches & Evening Meals

Genuine Home Made Food

1 Minute from J4 of M25- Signposted 'We11 Hill' September 2002

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EDITORIAL:

I hope all members saw the Stop Press slip inserted into the June edition of

the Magazine congratulating Jim Ellard on his admission as a Member to the Order of the British Empire. This gives me the opportunity to acknowledge Jim's quiet, behind the scenes work on our behalf. He is one of a small and BARKING DEVELOPMENTS CO. LTDa devoted band of movers and shakers who keep momentum rolling under the FRESH WHARF, HIGHBRIDGE ROAD BARKING, feet of your President and he has recently acquired a Trafalgar Medal on the ESSEX IG11 7BP Club's behalf and I hope this will join our Table Silver and Trophies for our forthcoming Trafalgar Dinner. T!>1:+44 {0)20 8594 2408 ' Faxl:+44 (0)20 8594 5105

This is, of necessity, a short edition as Ihave been much pressed for time during the summer months and preparation has had to be undertaken early in t f ' order that Icould get away to sea. Iapologise for any shortfall in your

: expectations occasioned by this, but hope that all of you have enjoyed the .. .. >==• - . ... \ summer recess one way or another.

Richard Woodman FOR ALL TYPES OF PUMPS E-mail: [email protected] Honorary Editor

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coast of South Australia on 8 April 1802, the respective countries of these two explorers, Britain and France, were at war. Actually the temporary Peace of Amiens was in force, though it was to break down the following year, and CLUB NEWS & NEWS OF MEMBERS neither of the two men knew of this break in hostilities. Both had passports from their respective governments proclaiming their voyages were scientific We have received a reply from Buckingham Palace in response to our and non-belligerent. Flinders named the place of their meeting Encounter message to HM The Queen, congratulating her on her Golden Jubilee. This Bay. The two sets of stamps, a 45 cent one with Baudin and the Geographe, will be framed and displayed at our dinners. and a $1.50 one with Flinders and the Investigator, are available from me to Dr Colin Dawson has had a triple by-pass operation and is apparently making the first two philatelists who send me a donation for the Laristan fund - and good progress, but Bertie Booker, the Rev Chris Studd and John Smith have thanks to Rowley King! been reported as unwell. We hope they are both on the mend by now. The National Arboretum have not properly recorded our donation. It was SUMMER FUNCTION done properly in the Merchant Navy Book of Remembrance at Trinity House, but not at the Arboretum itself and matters are in hand to rectify this. Our September speaker is to be Club Member Keith Hanson who is going to reveal some of the dark secrets of the Tower of London. Keith is also arranging the details for the Club's Church Service at the Chapel Royal in the Tower on Sunday 29 September at 1030 for 1100. He is anxious to hear from all members wishing to attend the buffet lunch to be held in the Tower of London Club after the service. As this event follows hard on the heels of our September Dinner (on the 26th), members should get in touch with Keith or Frank. See DATES FOR YOUR DIARY.

Club Funds were reported to the Club Committee Meeting held on 2 July by our Treasurer, Cdr John Mankerty, as follows: Current Account £2,227.27p with the bill from HMS President outstanding. Business Reserve Account £1,022.86p Capital Account £16,652.52p Laristan Fund £1,589.51p We shall shortly be able to produce for members' use, a List of Club Members for our private use.

9eorge Kingston was unable to get to St Malo to present the new Trophy to the Association of Small Sail Training Ships, but he attended a church service The President presents flowers to Annie Scoones (other pictures on rear pages) at Southampton before their departure and contacted Col Ron Dadswell who will be one of our speakers this winter. The winner of the Seven Seas Trophy For those of you not able to attend this year's Summer Function, it was held out of nineteen participants was the Ocean Venturer. at the 's stone HMS President on the evening of Friday 14 June. The venue, just downstream on the north bank ofthe river And finally, during his visit to our AGM and Dinner in May, Rowley King donated a couple of pairs of Australian stamps commemorating the Flinders - Baudin Bicentenary. You will recall that at the time of their meeting on the 3 2

As you will recall this is one of our Black-Tie-with-miniatures occasions and from Tower Bridge, overlooks the Thames. Sixty-one members and their this year members who wish to wear the mess-kit of any branch of the naval, guests attended and enjoyed a convivial evening enlivened by several guests military or public services to which they belong or have belonged are invited from down-under, including Charlie Scoones. Much help and support was to do so to add a touch of colour to the ceremonial. I recall once attending a provided in looking after our guests by Mike Pinner and his wife, also Jeremy Trafalgar Night dinner at HMS Dryad at which there were a number of army Miller and Frank Whymark. Exchange presentations of Club pennants were officers, including some hussar officers. The guest of honour, a retired vice made and all hands thought the food and wine excellent. .,I!, ·,.,- . admiral, in welcoming the company, remarked how nice it was to see some of The caterers have been warmly thanked for their hard work and our gratitude their colleagues from the other services in their pyjamas. I know some of us in to the Commanding Officer of President has been passed on. the Seven Seas Club are getting on, but... No, perhaps I'd better not say it. Possessing a terrace overlooking its own landing stage, along with a fme drill• hall, HMS President provided us with a very suitable place to gather and it FEATURE would not have mattered what the weather did, though on the 14 June it was a fine, if breezy evening. A BRIEF IDSTORY OF THE BRITISH MERCHANT MARINE

HMS Victory OFFICER drawn by Tony Fernandes During the long wars of the French Revolution and Empire, Great Britain's had been compelled to adopt an all-weather, world strategy in order both to defeat France and her allies, and to protect her own, immense trade. This was essential not only for the preservation of herself, but for the funding of her own war-effort and the subsidies paid to her allies. The legacy of this was to leave Britain the mistress of the seas and while this mastery was not unchallenged in theory, it was unchallenged in fact until the outbreak of war with Germany in 1914. This largely peaceful century therefore became a period of unparalleled opportunity for trade and enterprise, of scientific advances of which the most notable at sea were the introduction of steam and adoption of first iron and then steel as ship-building materials, and of general social progress. In 1815 Britain still relied upon the highly restrictive Navigation Acts to protect her shipping, still allowed the Honourable East India Company the greater part of its monopoly on trade with India and China, and still maintained archaic tonnage regulations which inhibited the development of ships's hulls. But all these shibboleths were under threat and being eroded by expedience, opportunity and a quickening pace in technological change.

During this period, although steam ships were to progress from experimental TRAFALGAR DINNER, 2002 eccentricities to fast and reliable providers of long-range transportation and vast numbers of people were be relocated in America and Australia, the This year our Trafalgar Dinner takes place on Thursday 31 October. The sailing vessel co-existed and participated in this enormous diaspora.

President is to be the speaker and I understand, in my capacity as magazine Editor, that we are to be exposed to his rather unorthodox views on Nelson's great victory.

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She carried low-freight cargoes 'Yell into the 20th Century and continued to Almost by definition, ship-owners are an exploitative breed whose watch• undergo her own evolutionary process. words were essentially to keep freight-rates high and running costs low. In the However, as far as the British were concerned the shipping slump of the 18th century, standards of ship-board safety were largely a matter of 1920s which affected world trade after the immediate post-war boom, individual judgement on the part of a merchant master, and qualifications for effectively killed the British merchant sailing fleet. At this period too, were promotion often relied more upon blood-relationships and nepotism, than any sown the first seeds of British maritime decline, though the long twilight really proven skills on the part of the commanders of ship. This was generally period of empire and the vital role of merchant shipping during the Second true of both warships and merchantmen, but the stern rigors of a prolonged World War ensured a brief, final flowering of British mercantile shipping in and demanding war were to change this and there were exceptions. For the three decades following 1945. instance, the coal-trade of the east coast of England, by its very nature, put The full repeal of the British Navigation Acts did not take place until 1849 demands on men and ships which swiftly promoted competence. Similarly the and followed a period of erosion during which a policy of reciprocal removal long, valuable voyages of the East Indiamen, were subject to regulation and of preferential duties had been adopted with those countries which would play promotion for officers wishing to serve the Honourable Company was subject ball. This privilege was actively pursued by the whose ships to experience, competence and recommendation. In general, it is probably were soon carrying cargoes between American and British ports, to ports true to say that merchant shipmasters and mates were thoroughly competent within the British Empire, while the East India Company's monopoly had seamen and ship-handlers, but less able technical navigators, partly through began to be loosened as early as 1813. Moreover the newly independent lack of training, partly on occasion through lack of education, but also republics of South America were flooding the markets of the world with because nautical instruments were expensive and were not provided by the produce rivalling that of the British West Indies. Smuggling and economic owner. To this must be added the highly significant fact that there were depression at the end of the war resulted in a shipping slump which badly simply no charts of many areas, and local knowledge was considered the affected British shipping interests, but the reciprocity policy of William requisite arcana of a master. In the matter of the provision of charts lay a Huskisson, introduced in 1824 began to reverse the trend and was helped by problem: whose responsibility was it? Many early charts were provided by advances in the performance of sailing ships brought in by innovative design skilled, often self-taught hydrographers from merchant ships and it was not and the new tonnage regulations which enabled new hull design to proceed until the very end of the 18th Century that the British Admiralty considered apace. the matter might fall under its own remit. The picture, so often unjustly By 1861, British merchant shipping, both sail and steam, had recovered and painted by commentators, of the drunken oafish mercantile officer may be had increased its overall tonnage by fifty per cent of its 1849 level. This had ,. true in the particular, just as was that of the naval tyrant, but it is not in part been helped by a demand for tonnage during the otherwise disastrous acceptable as a generality. There was plenty of individual talent and expertise, , and the removal of American competition due to the Civil War but being unregulated, history had largely ignored it through ignorance. in that country. However, competition from other European countries like In fact, the late 18th Century Royal Navy drew its navigating specialists Norway and the newly unified German and Italian states, where construction largely from the merchant service which was the only school for the basic costs were lower, posed a new threat to British mercantile supremacy. skills of navigation. These sailing masters and mates were obliged to submit Nevertheless, with Britain the workshop of the world, controlling a fifth of themselves for examination before the elder brethren of Trinity House in the world's population within its empire, with the need to maintain strategic London and armed with a certificate, could then approach the Navy Board at forces abroad, to promote trade and to ferry hundreds of people displaced Somerset House for a warrant to act in that capacity in one of His Majesty's from the traditional agricultural way of life in the face of mechanisation and ships of war. The elder brethren had long acted as mercantile nautical the migration to the industrial towns, the demand for merchant shipping consultants to the government and therefore formed a natural body of remained enormous. expertise outside the Admiralty. Since the 17ili Century, forty poor boys maintained by Christ's Hospital in London who had proved themselves good at mathematics, had been examined by Trinity House and if successful, were afterwards bound apprentices to either the King's ships or to the master of

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empowered the Board of Trade and Plantations to 'undertake the of 'any other ship'. Thus early provision of trainees was for both sea-services. Later, naval officers were trained to be proficient in all branches of superintendence of matters relating to the British Mercantile Marine'. This navigation, but no comparable regulation was enforced upon merchant did not secure either rights or justice for seafarers, but it cleared a plethora of shipping generally. arcane and archaic odds and ends of legislation and set standards and

This is not to say that by 1815 merchant officers, known traditionally as structure for the future. It also brought a large measure of control of merchant 'mates', were incompetent, but they learned their skills on the hoof as shipping into the hands of the state. apprentices, from the bottom up and the method, while it produced some (,>;, But shipping losses continued, a cause celebre being the wreck of the Royal splendid navigators, was at best hit-or-miss. At the time government did not Charter in 1859. Five hundred passengers returning from the gold-fields of consider that its business lay in interfering with the private activities of its Ballarat were lost on the north coast of Wales in terrible weather and between citizens and wrecks of merchant ships only concerned ministers if specie, 1867 and 1882, no less than 5,987 passengers were drowned at sea. The main troops, or revenue was lost thereby! It is important to realise that the concept cause was thought to be over-loading and Samuel Plimsoll adopted the idea of 'a Merchant Navy' is a largely spurious one, conceived after the First proposed by a Newcastle ship-owner named James Hall, to restrict the depth World War when it was truly realised that without the supplies brought to to which a ship could be loaded. The introduction of the Plimsoll Line was them in its merchant ships, the British came perilously close to being starved but one of a number of reforming acts which included the provision of out of the war by unrestricted U-boat warfare. In fact the so-called, and in anchors and cables, the conduct of formal enquiries into shipping losses and peace-time misnamed, British merchant navy is a disparate collection of the certification of marine engineers. These were ultimately consolidated into privately-owned ships built and operated for profit. Its masters, mates and the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, the act under which the British Merchant crews were, and are, employed by private companies as servants solely for the Marine effectively operated for the rest of its existence. benefit of those companies. This mattered little while the majority of By the last quarter of the 19th Century, British merchant shipping was largely merchant ships carried cargo, and while there were enough of them for under• controlled by a number of major, well-established shipping 'lines' which were writers to accept an attrition rate from the extremity of the weather, poor taking an increasing interest in the standards of their officers, not least to navigation and the misconduct of masters and mates. But when increasingly breed company loyalty. Generally, these 'liner companies' preferred officers large numbers of people began to travel by sea, either as poor emigrants or the trained in the tough school of sail, but had earned a bad name in terms of grander servants of empire, losses appeared in a different light. making its young men drudges who were better fitted to polish brass than Competition among shipping companies to attract even the low fares of navigate. This failed the apprentice and his parents, for the latter put up a unfortunate immigrants, or trying to seduce a more lucrative trade into their preniium and the aspirants received a portion of this sum back on a monthly new-fangled steam-packets, often wished to imply greater speed, efficiency basis against their good behaviour, but most important, it failed the industry. and safety standards accrued to their own ships. One method of this was to 1890 Lord Brassey and Mr Devitt, the first a yachtsman and Liberal politician follow the Royal Navy's example and have their officers certificated by the of distinction, the second a ship-owner of note, conceived a scheme to train a Trinity House, but this was not widespread. As is usually the case, proper larger number of apprentices than the customary four per vessel, and fitted out certification of professional competence followed a number of marine the iron ships Hesperus and Harbinger for this purpose. These two ships disasters. served until being sold to the Russians in 1899 and 1897 respectively, In all this period of change, the lot of the common sailor and that of the whereupon they were replaced by the Macquarie and the Illawarra, replacing aster and mates commanding him had, in fact, altered very little. However, the latter ship in 1907 by the barque Port Jackson. a number of wrecks which had resulted in the loss of the lives of passengers At the turn of the century there were two ways in which a young man might and a growing awareness that some government intervention in merchant become an officer in a steam-ship company. He could join direct from school shipping was increasingly necessary, resulted in the British government on an indenture to a steam-ship company for four years, providing that four• passing the seminal Merchant Shipping Act of 1854. This regulated the fifths of that time was spent away from a home port. Alternatively, a training examination of masters and mates, manning levels, scales of pay and period in either the statically moored ships Conway in the Mersey (later the conditions and sought to correct a number of abuses. Significantly, it set Menai Strait), or Worcester in the Thames, could earn a cadet some remission minima, to which with some zeal many ship-owners adhered, but it

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from this extreme stricture. Later, other sea-training establishments were cadets and apprentices (there was a technical, not a functional difference) founded both afloat and ashore, but in 1909 Devitt and Moore extended their were released for college tuition and a syllabus of 'nautical studies' became a training scheme by setting up a separate company solely for sea-training and recognised route to a BSc, reducing the amount of sea-time it was necessary therefore providing a pool of sail-trained young men for the British shipping to serve prior to sitting for one's 'tickets'. industry generally. The two barques involved, the Port Jackson and Medway The successive examinations as First Mate and Master relied upon further were intended to be self-supporting and operated on the Australian run. The sea-time and hence experience. The subjects studied carried high pass-marks former continued as cadet ship until September 1916 and was sunk by aU• and written papers were accompanied by oral examinations. Under normal boat the following year, the latter suspended training in 1916 and later conditions in a liner or a major oil-tanker company, with the exception of a became an oil tanker, the Myr Shell and went to the breakers in 1933. After ship's master, an officer always held a certificate superior to his rank. With the war, the fashion for sail-training waned and Devitt and Moore set up a the decline of the sailing-ship the Board of Trade had divided deck officers' nautical college on the banks of the Thames, at Pangboume. Like other such certification into steam and sail and a similar division in engineering establishments, Pangboume sent boys to sea until long after the Second qualifications had followed the introduction of the diesel engine so that an World War, each earning a degree of remission of the sea-time necessary to engineer was either a 'steam' or a 'motor' man, unless he had passed for a sit for a certificate of competency as Second Mate. 'combined' certificate. But by the end of the 1960s the golden age of British merchant shipping was over and a thirty year haemorrhage had begun. Today there are only 344 commercial merchant ships on the British register with 58 more registered in

Crown Dependencies, 32 in dependent territories and a further 160 vessels under foreign flags. This amounts to a combined tonnage of 11 millions, a tonnage still leaching away at about 700,000 tonnes per annum. In September 1997 there were about 15,400 British merchant officers at sea, but less than

6,000 of them were in British ships flying the red ensign, 7,495 were earning their living in foreign-flagged vessels. The individual histories of gallantry by masters, mates, engineers and radio officers during two world wars are a story in themselves. So too are those

whose lives have been involved in incidents of a less bellicose nature, but for the most part the merchant seaman's existence has been unremarkable. This is not to say that it has not been of the utmost importance, for, as Joseph Conrad remarked, seafaring was 'a useful calling'. The British merchant officer, whether employed on deck or in the engine room, has all but passed into history, superseded by cheaper substitutes, a victim of so-called progress, The Cunard White Star Liner Britannic caught up in 'a sunset industry'. But what is perhaps the saddest aspect of this 'progress' is that his passing, along with that of his ships and his fellow 'It was not the death of the training ship, and many companies continued to seamen, stewards, greasers, firemen and the whole infrastructure of which he operate steam and motor vessels in this role. Some, such as the British India was a part, has gone almost without notice. Steam Navigation Company's Chantala and Chindwara, the Federal Steamship Company's Durham, the New Zealand Shipping Company's

Rakaia and Otaio, Ellerman's City of Lucknow and Blue Funnel's Calchas and her successor Diomede. By this time training was regulated by the © Richard Woodman Merchant Navy Training Board and an individual's progress was monitored. In 1962, recognising the increased influence of technology, 10 11

CLUB NOTICES THE SLOP-CHEST The Millennium Dinner photographs are still available from Julian Yeardley. They are offered at £7.50 each for an 8 x 6 print in a card folder. Julian's 1. Club Tie Single Motif (New Design) address is: £6.50 If posted 116 Portsmouth Road, Lee-on-the-Solent, Hants P013 9AF £7.00

Shep Woolley who has entertained us at our last two AGMs has provided us 2. Ten Year Tie Roman Numeral X under Club Motif with copies of 3 of his CDs. " Overboard", "Chips off the Old Bloke" Nos 1 £6.50 & 2. These are available from the Hon. Treasurer @ £10:00 with profits going If posted to the Laristan Fund. (01322 442265) £7.00

3. Wallet Dark brown leather, rolled gold metal corners with Club Crest blocked in gold on front CLUB DINNERS DATES FOR YOUR DIARY, 2002 £6.50

4. Enamelled Shield The Club Crest in enamel, mounted on a wooden Thursday 26 September Club Dinner shield, an excellent production £20.00 Sunday 29 September Club Church Service (St Peter ad Vincula, The Tower of London) 5. Invitation Cards For ten, including envelopes £0.75 Wednesday 16 October Annual National Service for Seafarers (St

Paul's) 6. Club Burgee 18 inches, 12 inches on truck Thursday 31 October Trafalgar Night Dinner £15.00

Thursday 21 November Club Dinner -Note early date. 7. Cufflinks Bearing Club Crest, per pair £9.50 Friday 6 December Christmas Party

All items are available from the Hon General Secretary:

Frank Whymark Esq 42 Broxbourne Road Orpington KentBR60BA

(01689 820484)

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Seven Seas Sweatshirts

Members are also reminded that Club Sweatshirts in Navy, Grey and Red are available in standard Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large, and Double Extra Large sizes from Jeremy Miller (to whom cheques should be made payable) at a price of £18.50

For Correspondence: Captain Richard Woodman MNI THS (Retd) Horsford Lees

73 Fronks Road Dovercourt Harwich Essex C012 3RS Fax:01255 506957 E-mail: [email protected]

The President presents a Burgee to Charlie Scoones

The President and Hon. Secretary

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,JRINT SERVICE$ 16 Picordg Rood email: [email protected] Belvedere Kent D/322 447445 PA17 SQN

H.M.S. President lies to Starboard just downstream of Tower Bridge

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