“The Greatest Encouragement to Seamen”: Pay, Families, and the State in Britain during the French Wars, 1793–1815

Abstract

Abstract In 1795, Britain’s Parliament passed the “Seamen’s Families Bill” which enabled sailors to allot half of their monthly pay to either their mothers or wives for the duration of their service. This article examines the significance of the bill from a number of perspectives. First is the unprecedented level of national and local bureaucratic organization needed to implement pay allotments successfully. Second, and most extensively, the article examines the records produced by the bill’s implementation, which include such information as place of residence, number and gender of children, rank, wages, and relationship to the recipient. Drawing from a considerable sample of sailors who served from 1795 to the end of the French wars in 1815, the authors created a database of 7,514 sailors, who volunteered to allot half of their pay, as means to better understand the ordinary men who made up the rank and file of the Royal Navy. Among several findings is a strong challenge to the notion of the independent and irresponsible sailor who enlisted to escape an unhappy home life. Finally, the article considers the significance of the allotments within the British system of poor relief. Highly localized since its inception two centuries earlier, poor relief varied enormously across Britain. Equating annually to roughly one-quarter of poor relief expenditure across Britain, pay allotments to sailors’ families mark an unparalleled intervention by the British central government into social welfare.