Manxmen at Sea in the Age of Nelson, 1760-1815

176 pages

M. K. BARRITT

Captain, RN

This slim volume offers a narrative of a very familiar span of the story-line of British maritime history. It provides, however, a valuable perspective from one of our proudest and most independent offshore islands. Geographical position, and administrative history at least up to the mid-18th century, made the Isle of Man an early cradle of fine seamen. Some engaged in the herring-fishery in the testing weather and tidal regime of the Irish Sea. Others, conducting the running or smuggling business, felt their way amongst the perilous sandbanks of Liverpool and Morecambe Bays and the Solway Firth. Proximity to Liverpool took others out on deep water voyages in Guineamen or privateers. Manxmen were prominent amongst the best-known ship-masters in the triangle trade. Meanwhile naval men were drawn to the island, to suppress the smuggling and to direct the press-gangs that took other Manxmen down another route to wartime experiences.

As might be expected, some very familiar names feature here. A significant part of the chapter on the Pacific and the Far East is devoted to leading protagonists in the Bounty story. Whilst the author is wide of the mark in suggesting that scholars have ignored the links with the Isle of Man, he does provide a useful analysis of the networks of island society that drew families together and enabled contact by incomers like Bligh, whose time in the island during his early career is helpfully covered. There is also description of places in Douglas where Bligh, now married into island society and lodging in the town, might have encountered the Christians, Heywoods and their local allies. The conclusion, however, that Bligh viewed the mutiny as a Manx conspiracy is not compelling.

It is good to see coverage of another product of the school of Pacific exploration, a skilled navigator who was very much a counterpart of Bligh. Peter Fannin had served as master in Adventure, Captain Tobias Furneaux, in Cook’s second voyage. He also married and settled in Douglas, where he established a navigation school. Yet another Pacific voyage, that which took Lord Macartney and his embassy to China in HMS Lion in 1792, opened the naval career of the dockyard labourer John Quilliam.

Quilliam is a major figure in the cast and plot of this book, justifiably emerging again and again amongst the increasing numbers of Manxmen drawn into the wars that dominated the period. As first lieutenant of Victory he heads the island monument (illustrated in the centre-spread) to the 69 ‘Gallant Manxmen’ who served at Trafalgar. Rising from his unprivileged background to the rank of Post Captain, he is rightly cited as “living proof of the meritocratic nature of the Georgian Navy”. The author also makes the telling point that it was his share of prize money from the capture of the Spanish Thetis by Ethalion in 1799 (£450,000 in today’s money) that enabled Quilliam to establish himself in the landed society of the Isle of Man and to attain to a seat in the House of Keys.

Others would have much less good fortune yet they find a place in this narrative. One such figure is Robert Parry Young, son of a master in the Royal Navy, born, possibly out of wedlock, to a girl from the Isle of Man. Lack of family influence would dog his career, during which he saw much front-line service. He commanded L’Entreprenante at Trafalgar. He was known to Nelson who had intended to send him home with post-battle despatches. That coveted task would instead be given by Collingwood to Lapenotiere of Pickle. A particular strength of this book is the author’s desire to give a voice to the lower deck, and to do so by drawing on local archive sources. Letters to home, wills and other records, bring vignettes of experiences of pressed men, victims of disease and battle wounds, and prisoners of war.

There are themes which the author might have explored further. The Introduction has a tantalising throw-away reference to education, the church schools of the island delivering a “high standard of literacy among its working and poorer people”. Yet we learn elsewhere that some pressed men, certainly in the period of the Seven Years’ War, spoke only Manx, and that groups of men from the island were kept together to ensure translation and interpretation by those who were bilingual. Was the schooling in the island on a par with that in church schools in England, or was it closer to that in Scotland, where all children were given a good grounding in mathematics? By the 1820s Peel had a navigation school to match Peter Fannin’s in Douglas. Were there other such establishments to nurture the seafaring men whose story is told here? Perhaps the author may probe further into the archives and pick up his pen to tell us more.