The Dido Papers: The Letters of a Victorian Midshipman

197 pages

Capt M K Barritt Royal Navy

In the course of research for his biography of Admiral of the Fleet ‘Rosy’ Wemyss (NR 12 Nov. 2021) John Johnson-Allen came across the copious archive of a contemporary of the admiral, Bryan Godfrey-Faussett (G-F), whose unusual career, culminating in service as an equerry to three monarchs is recounted in the first chapter of this book. In it we are offered letters home from the very start of that career, with G-F serving as midshipman on the West Coast of Africa and Cape Stations in the corvette Dido, whose own biography forms Chapter Two. These two chapters are well illustrated with contemporary photographs.

It must be said that the book is otherwise rather ‘padded out’. Chapter Three, some 20 pages in length (10% of the total) comprises extracts from the 1875 Admiralty Africa Pilot covering places mentioned in the letters. Whilst this shows the remarkable range of information in the sailing directions, it is hard to imagine a reader ploughing through this material, which surely would have been better placed for cross-reference in an Annex. Chapter Four, another 20 pages long, is even stranger. In the first chapter the author notes the significance of the teaching of drawing at BRNC, and G-F speaks of sketches sent home. Perhaps these did not survive, for there are only a handful in this volume, including two track charts, one mis-labelled. Instead, we have his scrap-book of cuttings and miscellanea, whose contents may be of some interest to a social historian, but with little to hold the attention of a NR reader.

Indeed, the letters themselves may have more value as a source of social history, reflecting the outlook of a scion of a well-connected and well to do family with footholds in England and Ireland. With the Home Rule movement in full swing, Parnell is subjected in the letters to the same obloquy as the leaders of the Zulus or the Boers. There is a touch of arrogance which will grate today. The author declares up front that he has applied an editorial hand to avoid offending current sensibilities, and ‘native(s)’ has been substituted for another word beginning with ‘n’. One wonders whether the amendment extended further in the passage: “M[…] and I walked about the town […] humbugging all the Spanish and natives.” In his homesick moments G-F recalls shooting-parties. He receives copies of The Field and Sporting and Gun News and looks forward to hearing of his father’s bag from a shooting holiday in Norway. Much of his own narrative consists of accounts of how he and his fellow officers have gone ashore with their guns, opening fire on anything in the animal kingdom that moves. Birds are prized for the coloured feathers that can be sent home for ladies’ hats. Some monkeys and parrots are spared to be brought onboard as pets – but – “you need not be afraid” – not to be brought home, “if any of them go overboard at sea […] they will be drowned, there are too many in the ship already so […] won’t be mourned.” We are here in a different age. Whilst many of us will recall the packs that ‘declared smokers’ collected, here we have a 15-year old who is regularly offered a cigarette if not a cigar, and who writes home that he has enjoyed a hearty breakfast ‘and smoked one cigarette’. The hospitality that he enjoys ashore includes that in the residence of Sir Henry Bartle Frere, British High Commissioner at the Cape of Good Hope. We are dealing here with a confident 15-year old who is soon the ‘ADC’ of captains who seem well aware of his family network.

What is there here for the naval historian or midshipman of today? NR readers who have dipped into Bartimeus or who are familiar with the recollections published in the old ‘Log’ Series of the Westminster Press may be disappointed by this “extraordinary and rare glimpse into the daily life of a cadet and midshipman in the Victorian Navy” (publisher’s ‘puff’). Here this reviewer must acknowledge a twinge of remorse. How often did I write home, and how much did I tell of routine onboard or of operations? Where there are ‘glimpses’ here – and they are glimpses – of a midshipman’s life, they perhaps speak more of continuity than change. There are plans of the ship and signal hoists to grace a journal or workbook, moans over the lot of the Navigating Officer’s ‘doggy’. But also the satisfaction from the responsibility of boatwork, and that memorable occasion: “Went on deck and began keeping my office of the watch for the first time.”

In terms of operations, the series of letters culminate with G-F, the captain’s equerry, stuck onboard off the coast of Natal whilst others are sent to join the Naval Brigade in the last weeks of the First Boer War. Most of the commission was spent on the West African coast, ‘showing the flag’ from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to St Paul de Loando, Angola, and rolling at anchor off the Gold Coast and in the Bights of Benin and Biafra. There are occasional mentions of the Kroomen, those invaluable local entrants whose skills earned respect. From time to time it was necessary to undertake the challenging navigation of the rivers for a show of force. There are accounts of ‘palavers’ to damp down disputes between the powerful Kings and Chiefs. Here there is corrective to todays’ unbalanced slavery narrative, with the boats of these potentates manned by the victims of the ancient slave trade that was entrenched in the continent long before the arrival of Europeans on the coast. Inevitably, one thin entry caught this reviewer’s eye: “October 21 Cape Lopez. We all went surveying at 0830. My bones were all sticking out of my body in all directions and I was lame and stiff. We got on board again just before lunch.” Not much enthusiasm there for a very necessary pursuit, for every so often we get a glimpse of the inadequate knowledge of these waters. In this reviewer’s estimation, G-F’s experience seems deadly dull compared with the busy days and varied life of a midshipman in a surveying ship – try Boyle Somerville’s The Chart-Makers!

So, is this book worth reading? Yes. Glimpse is the operative word. But especially if you have visited the coasts on which G-F served in Dido, you may catch glimpses that bring back memories. He experienced the delight of offshore Fernando Po to which ships of the anti-slave trade squadron had retreated earlier in the century to recover from the fevers of the coast – fever not unknown to the men of Dido. From there he admired the ‘magnificent Cameroon mountains’, which he later waxes lyrical about from ‘lovely Ambas Bay’. Passing off the South African coast, “the scenery was simply lovely […] close to a river called St Johns […] long green plateaus halfway up the mountains […] within a mile from the shore there no doubt were hundreds of animals, tigers and leopards, monkeys …”. He delights in the beauty of St Helena and visits Green Mountain on Ascension. Here are some of the true rewards of naval service far and wide if one has one’s eyes open.