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Paucity of Shipwrights in British Royal Naval Dockyards During World War II and the Royal Dockyard Schools and Their Education System by F

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Paucity of Shipwrights in British Royal Naval Dockyards During World War II and the Royal Dockyard Schools and Their Education System by F Paucity of Shipwrights in British Royal Naval Dockyards During World War II and The Royal Dockyard Schools and their Education System by F. E. King Introduction Early in the 1840s, the Admiralty, recognizing the need to improve the technical educa- tion of Shipwrights in the Naval Dockyards, approved the establishment of apprentice schools. The first Dockyard School opened in Chatham Dockyard in 1843, followed by schools in Ports- mouth and Devonport in 1844, and Sheerness, Pembroke, Deptford and Woolwich by 1846. At first, the purpose of the schools was to improve the technical competence of Shipwright Appren- tices and to identify those that showed the most academic aptitude for further education in order to qualify as Naval Constructors. Later, as the Royal Navy went from wooden ships with sails to steel, electricity and steam propulsion, the mission of the schools expanded to include the tech- nical education of apprentices in all the trades. Over the years, the Dockyard Schools at Chatham, Devonport, Portsmouth, Rosyth (re- established in 1940) and Sheerness developed a four-year education program for the most aca- demically qualified students that lasted until 1958 when the last traditional classes of Fourth- Years graduated. After the War, with countries of the Empire gaining independence, Britannia no longer needed to rule the waves. Overseas dockyards were closed, and the number of apprentices greatly reduced. The Dockyard Schools were phased out completely by 1971. The intent of this article is to supplement the accounts of the Dockyard Schools presented by Allen1 and Luscombe2, with details derived from archival documents from the period 1936 through 19453 while they are still available and somewhat readable, and to capture some of the history of an unusual, perhaps unique, education system. Number and Quality of Shipwrights Prior to and During WW II In March of 1942, Stephen Payne, the Manager, Construction Department, H.M. Dock- yard Devonport, raised his concerns about the number and academic quality of candidates choos- ing Shipwright Apprenticeships in H. M. Dockyards in recent years. He did this in a memoran- dum to his Admiral Superintendent, with distribution to the superintendents of the other Dock- yards, managers of the other Construction Departments and headmasters of the Dockyard Schools. His opening paragraph states the quality problem succinctly. The quality of Shipwright Apprentices has steadily worsened for the last ten years and unless the causes can be found and remedied shipbuilding and ship-repairing in H.M. Dockyards will be very much less well done in the future than at present. Not only will Dockyards suffer but the Drawing Offices and the staff of the Direc- tor of Naval Construction at Admiralty will become less efficient because Ship- 1 Allen K. H., 1993, The Royal Dockyard Schools. IEE Engineering Science and Education Journal. 2 Luscombe E. W., 2005, The Devonport Royal Dockyard School: Apprentice Education, 1844–1971. The Devonshire Association for the Advancements of Science, Literature and the Arts. 3 British Archives ADM 116/4722 (Admiralty dockyards) -1- wrights forming the backbone of constructive work form also the principal source of recruitment of the Drawing Offices and Design Sections4. The number of Shipwrights and the percentage of Shipwrights of all workers in Devon- port Dockyard, for example, had decreased over the prior 30 years, as the following table shows. Year All Workers Number of Percentage In Yard Shipwrights Shipwrights 1909 8,524 1,752 20.0 1917 14,000 2,476 17.7 1920 13,630 1,955 14.3 1941 17,000 1,413 8.4 It can be seen that the number of Shipwrights in 1941, near the height of the War, was less than it was in 1909, when the Navy was much smaller and the ships far less complex. The problem, then, was both the quality and quantity of Shipwright Apprentices. Payne’s memorandum provoked a discussion of the causes of the problem and generated suggestions for its correction in minutes, letters and notes through to March 1945. The Apprenticeship Qualifying and Trade Choosing Process5 Early each year, the home dockyards (Chatham, Devonport, Portsmouth, Rosyth and Sheerness) and the Royal Naval Torpedo Depots assessed the numbers of apprentices they need- ed in the trades: Electrical Station Fitter, Electrical Fitter, Engine Fitter, Shipwright, Ship Fitter, Armament Fitter, Boilermaker, Coppersmith, Founder, Joiner, Patternmaker, Plumber, Ropemaker, Sailmaker, Smith and Torpedo Fitter. The Admiralty also specified the number of Artificer and Air Apprentices it needed and the number of Naval Shipwright Apprentices to be trained and educated in the Chatham, Devonport and Portsmouth Dockyards. For example, in 19416 the Admiralty identified the need for 155 Artificer and 170 Air Ap- prentices and the following dockyard positions were approved: Chatham Devonport Portsmouth Rosyth Sheerness Apprentices 173 285 354 80 57 Naval Shipwrights 18 18 18 191 303 372 80 57 There were also 37 apprenticeships open in the Royal Naval Torpedo Depots for a total 1,365 open positions. Then in the spring of each year, the vacancies were open for public competition via a two-day examination held in London, Edinburgh, Belfast, Leeds, Cardiff, Ipswich, Pembroke 4 Payne S., 1942, Dockyard Schools: Examination Results and Paucity of Shipwright Apprentices 1941–1945. Contained in British Archives ADM 116/4722 (hereafter referred to as the archives). 5 Regulations for the entry of Apprentices to the various Trades in His Majesty’s Dockyards at Home. October, 1941 6 1941 is the only year for which somewhat complete data is given in British Archives ADM 116/4722. -2- Dock, Weymouth, Chester, Durham, Preston, Salisbury, Cambridge, Lincoln, Taunton and the dockyard cities of Chatham, Plymouth (Devonport), Portsmouth and Sheerness. (In 1941, 1,553 candidates competed for the 1,365 open positions.) The subjects in the examination and the max- imum marks were: Arithmetic 300 Mathematics 300 English 300 History and Geography 300 Science 300 Total 1,500 Applicants had to be age fifteen or over but less than seventeen on the first day of August of the year in which they wished to take the examination. (This meant that each successful can- didate was age fifteen or sixteen in the September he started his apprenticeship.) The application for permission to sit the qualifying examination also required the candidate to indicate his inter- est in a Naval Apprenticeship, a Dockyard Apprenticeship, or both, and where applicable, to which Dockyard he was seeking an apprenticeship. The examination results were listed in order of aggregate marks and a level established below which, in the judgment of the Civil Service Commission, candidates had not demonstrated sufficient proficiency to be offered apprenticeships7. (In 1941, the passing level was set at 600 for Naval Artificer and Air Apprentices and 400 for Dockyard and Naval Shipwright Apprentic- es, out of a possible 1,500 marks.) The ordered list of all candidates (the combined list) also indi- cated whether the candidate had applied for a Naval Artificer and Air Apprenticeship, a Dock- yard Apprenticeship (in which yard), or both. In 1941, 665 candidates who expressed an interest in a Naval Artificer or Air Apprentice- ship scored 600 or more on the entrance examination for 379 open positions. Some of the 665 decided not to accept Naval Apprenticeships, preferring Dockyard Apprenticeships, or did not pass the physical examination; and some decided not to accept an apprenticeship. From this combined list, individual dockyard lists were derived. Each dockyard list was of particular importance: it established the order in which a candidate could select a trade from the openings still available in his particular Dockyard when his turn came to choose. The follow- ing table shows, by Dockyard, the number of Dockyard Apprenticeship positions approved and the number actually filled by qualified candidates in 1941. Chatham Devonport Portsmouth Rosyth Sheerness Approved 173 285 354 80 57 Filled 127 246 217 23 50 Deficit 46 39 137 57 7 Some of the deficit in each yard was filled by Yard Boys (boys who left school at age 14 to take unskilled dockyard jobs). 7 The number of Naval Apprenticeships available by trade, number of Dockyard Apprenticeships approved in each Dockyard and the Entrance Examination results, can be found (for most years) in British Archives CSC 10. -3- The table below shows the positions in the dockyard lists (as distinct from the combined list) of candidates who chose Shipwright for apprenticeship in 1940 and 1941 (the 1940 entry and 1941 entry, respectively). Positions in the Dockyard Lists of Candidates who Chose Shipwright Apprenticeships Position Portsmouth Devonport Chatham Sheerness Rosyth Choosing 1940 1941 1940 1941 1940 1941 1940 1941 1940 1941 Shipwr’t Highest 13 3 19 114 26 1 9 30 2 12 2nd 19 19 34 148 33 2 32 32 8 19 3rd 39 48 62 168 35 48 35 9 4th 65 114 75 171 52 72 37 20 5th 93 119 82 173 63 76 38 21 6th 121 134 100 174 70 98 39 25 7th 131 153 101 202 107 100 41 27 8th 147 165 124 204 122 108 43 28 9th 148 193 135 207 131 115 47 10th 162 201 139 208 135 130 48 . Lowest 417 353 310 377 182 195 32 57 28 19 Payne observes that: The job of Shipwright has become very unpopular with boys and their parents, and that while a few years ago it was usual to find that more boys in the first twenty on the examination list took the trade of Shipwright than any other trade, it has now degenerated to such an extent that [in 1941] the first boy at Devonport Dockyard who would accept the trade of Shipwright was 114th on the [Devonport] list and before the hundredth boy could be found to take the trade [make the quo- ta], the list had to be extended to the 377th place.
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