Chatham Dockyard (10 page)

The seat in the gallery of Chatham church appropriated to the use of the resident Commissioner and fitted up at the expense of the government, being extremely exposed to the opposite side, I am to request you will authorise me to give orders to the purveyors of this yard to purchase a rod and curtain to be put up in front of the seat, the estimate of which is about eleven pounds.
¹⁷

In general, the workforce had a great deal of respect for the Commissioner. It was normal, upon the retirement or departure of this superior officer of the yard, for those employed in the yard to offer some sort of farewell gesture. Even the elitist Hartwell, who remained at the yard for a mere twenty-two months, being appointed to the Navy Board in January 1801, was the subject of one such gesture. On 16 January, the
Kentish Chronicle
reported:

The officers and workmen were ranged from his house to the yard gates on both sides of the way, the young men took the horses from his carriage and insisted on drawing it, which they did through the gates, half way along the dock lane, and would have drawn it to Rochester, but he treated they would not.

As to the real centre of power within the dockyard, this was in the hands of the principal officers, of whom there were five: Master Shipwright, Master Attendant, Storekeeper, Clerk of the Cheque and Clerk of the Survey. However, to this group might be added the Clerk of the Ropeyard, a post that was sometimes viewed as being of principal officer status. As with the Commissioner, the respective duties of these officers were not written down, each new appointee having to review the work of his predecessor to discover the true nature of the duties they were to perform. One thing that was straightforward was their relationship with the Commissioner, receiving from him their instructions from the Navy Board. For this purpose, each officer attended a regular morning meeting with the Commissioner, during which the newly arrived orders and warrants from London would be distributed. This was a useful occasion as it was also followed by a discussion as to the best methods of coordinating any work that involved more than one department. For the Commissioner, it permitted him to be fully informed of the activities of the principal officers allowing him to report more accurately to the Navy Board on all matters relating to the work that they had instructed to be carried out in the dockyard.

Of the five principal officers, the Master Shipwright was undoubtedly the most important. Not only was he responsible for overall supervision of the shipwrights but also all those other trades connected with the repair and building of ships and which included caulkers, sawyers and house carpenters. Additionally, the general running of the yard was his responsibility and for this purpose both labourers and scavelmen were placed under his charge. Specifically, the Master Shipwright took responsibility for overseeing the building, repair and refitting of all ships together with the surveying of any newly arrived vessels. Launchings, dockings and undockings also fell within the Master Shipwright’s area of authority, with the codified instructions of 1806 calling upon the Master Shipwright as follows:

You are to be constant in your personal attendance at the launching, undocking, grounding, and graving of all ships, and diligently apply yourself to the execution and dispatch of all works carrying on in your department, whether in building or repairing of ships.
¹⁸

Sitting less comfortably on the shoulders of the Master Shipwright was the responsibility for all work performed in connection with the repair, replacement and construction of new buildings within the yard. Patently unsuited for such a task, the Master Shipwright had absolutely no training in these duties. Indeed, this situation had sometimes brought considerable financial loss to the Navy Board, Master Shipwrights often overestimating costs. However, it also explains why a number of the buildings of the dockyard have internal support structures that would appear more at home on a warship than in a dockside work area, with the wheelwright’s shop in the dockyard at Chatham employing deck beams to support the roof. To remove the Master Shipwright from this particular task, in 1777 the Admiralty, on the recommendation of the Navy Board, appointed John Marquand, a civil engineer, to supervise all naval civil building contracts. Although he was to hold office only until 1786, Marquand would have been involved with the design of the still extant Anchor Wharf Storehouse at Chatham, while another task given to him was that of overseeing all work connected with construction of the Marine Barracks built alongside Dock Road and immediately adjoining the dockyard. In May 1777 the Admiralty reported:

Judging that nothing is more likely to contribute to the well performance of the building intended for Marine Barracks at Chatham, than the appointing a person properly qualified to superintend and oversee the carrying on of the said work, and to give his constant attendance thereat.
¹⁹

However, the idea of separating the office of Surveyor from that of designing and constructing civil buildings within the dockyard was not totally abandoned. In 1796, the Admiralty established the post of Inspector General, with Samuel Bentham, the appointed holder of the office, heading the briefly existent department of Navy Works. Bentham’s instructions from the Admiralty were mainly guided by a desire to see increased use of steam machinery being brought into the yards. While the arrangement had much to commend it, the fact of it being an Admiralty imposition meant that it was greeted by considerable Navy Board resistance. Only upon the department being transferred to the Navy Board, with Bentham joining the Navy Board as Civil Architect and Engineer, did cohesion begin to be established. Undoubtedly, though, Bentham was still tainted by his earlier associations with the Admiralty, resulting in an early abolition of his post and the appointment of Edward Holl as Surveyor of Buildings, although without a seat on the actual Board. Both Bentham and Holl are significant in the progression of building works at Chatham, with Bentham initiating work on a revolutionary saw mill and Holl responsible for overseeing its completion, while providing designs for both the chapel and Admiral’s Office.

Returning to the post of Master Shipwright, promotion to this office was, theoretically, open to all shipwrights employed in the dockyard. In reality however, only shipwrights whose apprenticeship had been served under an existing Master Shipwright were likely to reach such an exalted position. Indeed, such a situation was akin to a type of eighteenth-century class barrier. Master Shipwrights tended to be selective in their choice of apprentices while they also expected to be paid a lump sum in the form of a fee, usually given by parents, which was in the area of twenty guineas. All of this effectively prevented long-range social mobility occurring through the dockyard promotion structure. Even given this, it would not be possible to acquire the rank of Master Shipwright at Chatham without having gained considerable experience in other yards, Master Shipwrights tending to have held office in several other yards before arriving at Chatham. In the case of Israel Pownall, who held the office from 1775–79, he had previously been an Assistant Master Shipwright at Chatham before going on to serve as Master Shipwright at Sheerness (1755), Woolwich (1755–62) and Plymouth (1762–75) prior to his return to Chatham.

Working in close cooperation with the Master Shipwright was the Master Attendant. He was the principal officer responsible for all vessels held in the Ordinary and had under his authority the sail makers and riggers of the dockyard. Another aspect of his work was that of maintaining all buoys and mooring points together with appointing the pilots who were responsible for moving vessels between the yard and the entrance of the Medway. It was essential that the Master Attendant and Master Shipwright worked in close cooperation, for they really shared two halves of the same job. While the Master Attendant maintained the vessels in the Ordinary and retained a gang of shipwrights for this very purpose, he also had to allow shipwright officers on board those ships to carry out exhaustive surveys. Additionally, when it was necessary to dock a vessel, both the Master Shipwright and the Master Attendant had to agree upon dates and times so that the officers under the Master Attendant might bring the vessel to the dock, with those workmen under the Master Shipwright actually bringing her through the dock gates. Instructions issued to the Master Attendant stated:

You are to attend to the docking, grounding, and graving of all ships, by day or night, and you are to take charge of them whilst transporting from and to their moorings, whether for docking or any other purpose, causing the proper officers and people of the ordinary, with the riggers if necessary, to give their attendance on all such occasions.
²⁰

Also, if a ship was refitting, it was necessary for the Master Shipwright and the Master Attendant to cooperate, with the latter instructed that:

When a ship is bringing forward to commission, you are to apply to the Master Shipwright, in order to obtain the probable time when she may be completed; and you are carefully to keep pace with him in providing and fitting the rigging stores, agreeably to the Establishment.
²¹

The remaining principal officers of the dockyard all headed clerical departments, taking responsibility for a wide range of administrative matters. None had any technical expertise, being appointed from among the senior clerks employed in either the Navy Board or Admiralty. Most senior was the Clerk of the Cheque, the officer charged specifically with keeping the yard pay and muster books:

All artificers, and workmen of every description employed in the yard are to be mustered by you or your clerks, every time they come into the yard to work, and also upon their leaving it at night.
²²

It was from the muster books that pay could be assessed, with the Clerk of the Cheque’s office carrying out the necessary calculations.

As for the Storekeeper and Clerk of the Survey, both were responsible for the distribution and safekeeping of stores: the Storekeeper only for items used within the area of the dockyard and the Clerk of the Survey for those destined for ships either in the Ordinary or being prepared for service. Neither was to release stores without a note signed by the respective officers under whom requisitioned material was to be used, and both were to accept returned unused items. Since the Instructions of 1662 the Storekeeper, in particular, was charged with the protection of all stores from such ‘waste as decay, stealth and embezzlement’.

Finally, the Clerk of the Rope House was technically not a principal officer but was often considered as such. In common with the principal officers he reported directly to the Commissioner, having a regular meeting that was separate from the other officers. Given entire responsibility for all matters associated with rope making, his domain, the ropeyard, was completely separate from the rest of the yard, with the Clerk of the Ropeyard also responsible for his own accounts, the mustering of the ropeyard workforce and all materials used by the rope makers.

As a group the principal officers, including the Clerk of the Rope House, were clearly set apart from the rest of the dockyard. Other than the Commissioner, they received higher salaries than anyone else in the yard, together with free accommodation. It was for them that a number of terraced houses were built, these close to the outer wall of the dockyard and near the Commissioner’s own house. As for salaries, these were all established in 1696 with each receiving £200 annually but with additional fees also allowed. The Master Shipwright, for instance, claimed a fee when taking on new apprentices and a premium on the appointment of a new clerk to his office. Also, as regards clerks, of whom the Master Shipwright at Chatham was allowed five, he was entitled to half of their received income. Finally, he received from the Navy Board a customary present upon the launching of each new ship, this in the form of a piece of plate ‘or money in lieu of’ and varying according to the size of the vessel. In all, therefore, during the year 1784, the Master Shipwright at Chatham, Nicholas Phillips, received the total sum of £508. Other principal officers also received total yearly incomes well in excess of their actual salaries. In 1801 all
fees and gratuities were abolished, but the principal officers at that time received a considerable salary increase as compensation.

The timber seasoning sheds that were constructed, by order of the Earl of Sandwich, during the 1770s and which still exist in the dockyard.

It has already been noted that the dockyard at Chatham had an overwhelming surplus of managers. Among the principal officers there was clearly room for a reduction; as has been shown, the Storekeeper and Clerk of the Survey had posts that were identical in nature, differing only as to whether the stores issued were destined for the dockyard or the Ordinary. In addition, the Clerk of the Ropeyard had duties that could easily be absorbed elsewhere, with both the Storekeeper and Master Shipwright well suited to dividing his tasks between them. However, in terms of the number of inferior officers (the name given to all managers in the dockyard below that of the Commissioner and principal officers), many of them undertook tasks that were fairly minor in nature. The number of tasks did not necessarily require the immensity of numbers actually carrying them out. Over time, and adding to the confusion as to who did what, more officers were introduced, with other levels of officer removed. As such, a detailed examination of each and every officer post would become tedious. To avoid this, a more brief reference will be given to that huge pool of personnel that existed at the inferior officer level.