HMS Ganges at Falmouth

Written by Godfrey Dykes

© RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

  There is a book, first thought to have been published in 1879 called 'OLD FALMOUTH' written by a lady called Susan E Gay. This, over to the left, is the front cover. It is still in print and readily available at Amazon UK.

  As you see this is Edition number two from 1903. In it, she lists in chronological sequence, the major dates which affected this fair Cornish town throughout the years, but after 115 years, it is a little too late to challenge her data. Whilst there could be other things clearly wrong, I will mention just two pages (pages 235/236) on which there are four naval entries, and all four are wrong. If you read this book and start to doubt the story on this webpage or indeed any other naval historical fact, please don't, for the facts Susan states are very misleading and should be ignored.

This is page 235 and 236. Can you spot the glaring errors. Two concern the arrival and departure of HMS Russell which was a steam coastguard vessel and not a training ship (let alone a boys training ship) at Falmouth before HMS Ganges arrived; one concerns the arrival at Falmouth of HMS Ganges, and the reference to HMS St George (which had links with HMS Ganges during WW2 when both were shore establishments) is wrong - she was also a steam coastguard vessel whose coastal patch was Bristol to Falmouth, and not a training ship. Both the Russell and the St George were large sailing ships of the line converted from sail to sail/steam, and the very last ship so converted was HMS Bombay.

  Lead ins:

  1. In 1865 boys where marshaled at the naval port of Sheerness in Kent in hulks to be made ready for training. That training was to be conducted in the redundant ship of the line HMS Ganges, at that time in Devonport being converted from a warship to a training warship without her guns and other necessary warring devices. The ship coming from the "east" was a steam paddle ship called HMS Medusa.

  This newspaper cutting has been taken from The Times 1 Nov 1866 entitled "Boys for Ganges at Falmouth loaded at Devonport by a ship from the east. In 1861-2, Medusa was converted into a seagoing tug. The rationale was that boys from the west would join to compliment those boys from the east, but that was to fail. When all was ready, HMS Ganges was taken in tow by a second steam paddle ship called HMS Gladiator (below left) heading off for Falmouth. She was just one of seven ships in her class of 1844 (Terrible, Retribution, Siden, Odean, Bulldog, Gladiator and Polyphemus).

  The newspaper cutting to the right has been taken from The Times 23 March 1866.

  2. What ALL (I should think) boys didn't know from 1866 onwards, was that some years before in 1853, the Admiralty had introduced discharge by purchase for certain boys. See this image taken from The_Times 27 June 1853 boys can purchase their discharge from the navy.

  The 8l and 12l refers to £ = GBP. However, the allowance for their first uniform was withdrawn so the boys had to fork out!

  3. The Falmouth station was never considered a wise choice by any of Their Lordships, junior (captains over eight years seniority) and admirals (various), the senior Lords. There were four moves to pull out and put Ganges in a different geographical station, three official (1872, 1878 and 1899) and one unofficial one in 1888.

  The first HMS Ganges is 'still alive' and she fought in the Napoleonic Wars and was present at the Battle of Copenhagen famous for the non seeing eye of Lord Nelson. It is 'still alive' because in the Admiralty Archives, now of course kept by the National Archives at Kew, there is an account written by her captain during the period 1st September 1801 to 6th December 1801. It can be read under ADM 51/1394.

  It would be wonderful if we could have a peep at what life was like in the second HMS Ganges in the third quarter of the 19th century. Whilst we can't do that, we can get very close to their organisation and if we could see the ships complement and analyse it we could learn a great deal of the everyday modus operandi of the ship. We know fully how the navy of those days worked, the language they used, and the customs they maintained, as well as knowing from the Navy List (and other documents yet to be mentioned) exactly what their pay was to the penny. We also have their manuals, their training syllabi and a good outline of the boys daily routines. We have good pictures of their kit layouts and their bedding layouts and what the ship looked like on the upper decks. We also know by visiting HMS Victory (launched 8th May 1778) and the ironclad HMS Warrior (launched 29th December 1860) - HMS Ganges was launched 10th November 1821 - that little had changed below decks in over eighty years of ship design. That the Ganges (built as a second class ship of the line with two decks and not at all a large vessel) had had a make-over from active service to boys training ship simply meant that she was de-stored, de-ammunitioned and disarmed of her guns, leaving the spaces thereby released, for remodelling into accommodation and instructional spaces. Moreover, we know that it was a stationary ship, a floating barracks and would have been treated as such by the staff and the ships company most of whom were married, many of them living ashore in the local areas. In my time in the navy, we would have called it an RA's ship, meaning that many of the crew were paid an allowance to help feed themselves ashore and to help pay for their shore accommodation, whilst the non-RA's were victualled, accommodated and fed by the navy. There are some who would tell you that we know little about the ship, but they are wrong, for we know enough to understand it and its purpose. This is five years on from our story of 1891 and only a few years before she leaves Falmouth. This is the picture of her officers at that time of 1896.

  Notice the composition of the officers: in brackets after their numbers I have added the number on the 1891 Ganges commission. Six are commissioned wardroom officers (8 in 1891) with just three executives (3 also in 1891) with a curl (or loop) on their top stripe, and three (5 in 1891) civil branch officers (e.g., paymaster and surgeons plus others) with no curl; these six officers occupy front seats, the three executives being in seats 1, 3 and 4, respectively a commissioned warrant officer either a gunner, a boatswain and latterly a carpenter, the commanding officer and the first lieutenant. In seats 2, 5 and 7 are the civil branch officers. Staying with the front row, seat 6 is occupied by a warrant officer with at least ten years seniority wearing a quarter-inch stripe above his three buttons on each cuff namely a 1st class warrant officer: this warrant officer was not part of the complement in 1891. At the back standing there are seven ordinary (5 in 1891) warrant officers wearing three buttons on each fluted cuff - these are 2nd class warrant officers. Thus exactly the same number of officers, fourteen, but a reduction of 37% for commissioned and an increase of 50% for warrant officers. This must tell us something, and I think that is that the Ganges was becoming less and less of a training asset all the time she remained at Falmouth. In a moment I will tell (and show) you what her official rating was in the eyes of the Admiralty.

  NOTE: Officers of North American navies (particularly CF and USN) call the 'loop' or 'curl' an "elliot's eye" and claim the following:-

  "What is known as the executive curl, the ring above an officers' gold lace or braid, is said to date from the Crimean War when it was called 'Elliott's Eye' in commemoration of a Captain Elliot who carried his wounded arm in a sling under heroic circumstances. The term also refers to an eye in a hemp rope, said to be a memento of the Honourable William Elliot, a member of the Board of Admiralty 1800-1801. It is worthy of note that of almost all of the seagoing nations of the world the French and American are the only navies whose officers do not wear 'Elliott's Eye'".

  This expression is not used in the RN, and you will not find it in an Oxford English Dictionary nor in an RN Victorian and Edwardian Seamanship Manuals referring to 'eyes' in hemp or wire rope.

  Back to our story. We can get that complement from a national census which in the 19th century occurred every ten years. From such a census, plus the Admiralty records, we can rearrange data from the needs of a civilian headcount to the needs of a naval organisation, or, a ships complement.

  So to begin with, I have sourced the last census Ganges took part in whilst in Falmouth which was in 1891 and have accrued a great deal of knowledge from the relevant Admiralty records of the ship. The detail is not only fascinating but tells us about how the ship was organised , the top-down command structure, the numbers in the ships company and the number of boys borne for training. It tells us of the demography of the crew (ages, where born), their ranks and rates, and from this details we can proceed to putting on a play, for we know exactly how to dress them and what they would have looked like and how they spoke in their many different accents/dialects. We can also find the role of the ship knowing that only first class boys were drafted to sea or for further training, many to the Minotaur at Portland to continue their gunnery training, and thus we could 'take the pulse' by measuring the ratio of first class boys to second class boys. Those of you who are interested could source the 1901 census results for the ship (or indeed the 1881 census), although I doubt whether there would be a dramatic change in numbers borne from this 1891 census, given the size of the ship and its as yet un-established position at Harwich.

  Having rearranged the data of all involved I have been able to produce the following table which in a moment we will discuss in much more detail. Suffice at this point to simply view and read the columns and the statistics at the end.

  This then, is a record of the inhabitants of this ship, which to ex-Ganges boys alive today is a famous ship, but in reality she was a relatively small lack lustre training ship. There is no doubt that the Ganges was based in Falmouth harbour from 1866 until 1899, but exactly where and when ? Originally her mooring was in St Just Pool on the Roseland peninsular. Her first commission was brief and she paid off on the 31st December 1870.

  At this point, a brief four years, her senior officers turn-over was quite incredible. All the references you will read throughout are taken from the Admiralty Records of the life of HMS Ganges.

NAME	RANK	DATES IN SHIP	APPOINTED FROM	APPOINTED TO	REMARKS
Frank H Stevens	Commander	1.1.1866 to 28.7.1866	Training ship Wellesley	Asia for re-appointment under Admiralty Memorandum 522	Paid £203-12-6d whilst in Command
Edwin Barnes	Lieutenant	1.1.1866 to 1.8.1866	HMS Marlborough	Asia	Relieved by Lt Smallpiece
Jno Smallpiece	Lieutenant	11.8.1866 to 20.6.1867	HMS Hector from ½ pay	Asia ½ pay	Relieved by Lt Smythe
William Smythe	Lieutenant	22.6.1867 to 31.12.1870	-	Asia	Paid ship off in Devonport
Frederick W Wilson	Commander	29.7.1866 to 30.4.1867	Asia ½ pay	Asia ½ pay	Relieved by Cdr Wilson
Joseph M Wilson	Commander	1.5.1867 to 21.7.1870	Asia ½ pay	Asia ½ pay	Relieved by Cdr Annesley
William H Annesley	Commander	22.7.1870 to 16.8.1870	Asia ½ pay	Asia ½ pay to be promoted Captain	Relieved by Cdr Kelly
Edward Kelly	Commander	17.8.1870 to 2.11.1870	Asia ½ pay	Asia ½ pay to be promoted Captain	Relieved by Cdr Tinklar
Arthur R Tinklar	Commander	3.11.1870 to 31.12.1870	HMS Monarch	HMS Ganges for second commission	n/a
Cdr Stevens brought with him from the Wellesley two of his favourite warrant officers, a Gunner and a Boatswain.
John Welch	Gunner	1.1.1866 to 18.9.1866	Wellesley	-	The new Gunner, Mr Spalding lasted until October 1869
James Fawkes	Boatswain	1.1.1866 to 4.3.1867	Wellesley	-	-

  She then spent a period in Devonport dockyard where she was refitted. Her return to Falmouth was never in any doubt, but the Admiralty wanted to see better recruitment figures and improvements in the management of the ship. The second commission started on the 1st of July 1971 - more of that later.

   Her first commission, part suggested by the table above, was marred by known cruelty, investigated and found to be proven, resulting in the removal of her commanding officer and the executive lieutenant, namely Stevens and Barnes - Stevens, dismissed his ship and command was through appointed to be the governor of Malta's naval prison at Corradino as this image shows Naval Prison Malta 11 Oct 1866:-

  Also have a look at this image which gives you some idea of the cruelty of naval punishments carried out at the naval prison in the period mid 19th century (1850 ± 20 years). The Times 30 May 1851 - Malta's Naval Prison

  However, even with their removal and the hoped for "new broom", her punishment returns, her death lists (men and boys" and her desertions (men and boys) were appalling. The table below representing a small part of the whole, is all telling. Note "Jno" stands for John or Jonathan !

MENS DEATHS	BOYS DEATHS
Jno Stribling 6.6.66 William Cundy 28.11.66 Jno Burridge 18.6.68 Jno Wray 21.12.68 - died in hospital Samuel Revell 19.4.69 - clothes given to father Cornelius Stanton 31.5.70 James Tiddy 12.9.70 - clothes given to brother	William Woodruff 20.1.66 William Smith 13.5.66 Jas Lovelock 29.4.66 - died in debt John Griffen 26.8.67 Joseph Simmonds 10.6.68 - died in debt John Barry 28.8.1868 William Hatcher 11.6.69 - clothes sent home Chas Morcom 12.6. 69 - clothes sent to hospital Jno Macy 9.7.69 Henry Higginbotham 26.7.70 - died onboard William Terry 27.7.1870 - died onboard John Reilly 26.12.70 - died in credit of 19s 4d
MEN DESERTERS	BOY DESERTERS
Jno J Roberts 22.1.67	There are simply too many to list! The total was 88. The first was on 28.12.65 and the last 8.10.70

  I have many of the death certificates in my possession and this one is typical of the majority, namely that with few exceptions only, all the boys died of disease. Today, we cannot imagine the filth and the stench surrounding a floating but stationary ship with over 600 souls aboard. She would have floated in raw sewage and she would have regularly 'fouled' her mooring. The boys didn't have toilet paper (or indeed any paper) and cleaned themselves with straw or a sea-water sponge and the sea-water came from the floating raw sewage beds surrounding the ship. Typhoid (or enteric fever) was one of the biggest killers and the boy in my example death certificate died from this disease and as you see above, died onboard and not ashore in hospital. I have chosen this boy simply because I went to school with a boy of the same name.

  Typhoid Fever At A Glance
    Typhoid fever is caused by Salmonella typhi bacteria.
    Typhoid fever is contracted by the ingestion of contaminated food or water.
    Diagnosis of typhoid fever is made when the Salmonella bacteria is detected with a stool culture.
    Typhoid fever symptoms are poor appetite, headaches, generalized aches and pains, fever, and
    lethargy. Sustained temperatures of 103 to 104.

  How is typhoid fever treated, and what is the prognosis?

  Typhoid fever is treated with antibiotics which kill the Salmonella bacteria. Prior to the use of antibiotics, the fatality rate was 20%. Death occurred from overwhelming infection, pneumonia, intestinal bleeding, or intestinal perforation.

Typical Death Certificate

  The majority of the deaths were ashore but there were many onboard and it must have been unimaginably stressful for all concerned because many of the boys were seriously ill for up to two weeks before death released them. The tidal harbour would have rendered any beach in the vicinity of Ganges unusable because of effluent fouling. In my time, sailors, when referring to stationary ships moored offshore (depot ships for example) would say that the ship would find it hard going to sea to get off its mountain of cans thrown overboard, but in the middle of the 19th century, the saying used 'beef bones' instead of cans.

  This beautiful badge belonged to a first class petty officer and is now a national treasure. It belonged to Chas Stanton and is dated December 1870.

   Her complement was 106 ships company and 420 boy second class supernumeraries.

  Her task was simple. She was to be, throughout her time at Falmouth, nothing more than a 3RD RATE TRAINING SHIP - TRAINING SECOND CLASS BOYS ONLY....

  In 1870 the Admiralty issued a Training Manual for the Training of Boys' in First Class Training Ship's (St Vincent and Impregnable Group). It wasn't fully appropriate to the Ganges and the Staff of the Ganges modified it accordingly. The main detail of the Manual can be found here Training Manual

  A 3rd rate ship also meant that only ORDINARY BOYS were recruited and ordinary boys in 1929 became known as GC (General Class) Boys. AC (Advance Class) Boys, Boy Signalmen (introduced from 1870) and Boy Telegraphist (introduced from 1905) were all trained at Devonport in the premier 1st class training ship, the Impregnable. That situation prevailed into the first decade of the 20th century as this article, taken from a document you will hear much about on page 17 dated 1912 mentions. It opens with "Until recently" which means 1910 for AC Boys and Boy Signalmen and later, in 1913, for Boy Telegraphists.

AC Boys

  Every file and document from the Admiralty to the Commodore of Training Ships and the documents fed back into the system from the Ganges, refer to her lowly task. Some of these documents are very large (and heavy) and here I produce just a few of them. As a comparison with crews of other first and second class training ships, none but a third class ship had officers appointed as the commanding officer from the half pay list; none had so few commissioned officers and so many warrant officers; none carried only an acting master at arms; none had just second class boys. Ganges was, in my opinion having seen all the facts, akin to being a frigate whilst all other training ships were either cruisers or battlecruisers/battleships.

Debit/Credit Ledger	Ganges Ship's Log	Ganges Ship's Log	Ganges Ship's Log	Ganges Monthly Debit/Credit Ledger	Decommissioning Document

  IN EFFECT, OFFLOADING HER BOYS TO SECOND AND FIRST RATE TRAINING SHIPS TO COMPLETE THEIR TRAINING TO BOY FIRST CLASS BEFORE BEING READY FOR SEA.

  The full complement shown below has only five first class boys borne. These boys are SHIPS COMPANY BOYS and are borne as PUPIL TEACHERS before going off to teacher training colleges, after which they would return to the navy as Chief Petty Officer SCHOOL MASTERS. Although not borne in the Ganges, second class boys could also be nominated as Pupil Teachers whereupon they would be immediately advanced to boy first class. They were however borne in the first and second rate ships, the St Vincent, the Impregnable and the Lion for example. During Ganges' second commission, boy first class PUPIL TEACHER Joseph Bitmead deserted (5.6.72) and PUPIL TEACHER Joseph Smith was sent to Exeter College to start his teachers course.

  I mentioned above that her first mooring in Falmouth Harbour was in the lee of the land up at St Just Pool on the Roseland peninsular. Incidentally, the word 'Pool' is important because St Just is a town in Cornwall way over to the west close by Penzance many miles from where the Ganges was moored, which shouldn't be confused with the Falmouth area. Whilst there she formed a close relationship with an area across the other side of the River Fal called Mylor, or Milor for a rather sad reason, amongst others! It is interesting to note that at no time did any member of the ships company live in these communities. Mylor had several hamlets or tiny villages and it also had an old dockyard: however, Mylor Creek was too small to berth the Ganges. The purpose of the dockyard had been to act as a watering and coaling hole for the fleet as it entered and came from the western approaches. It had very basic facilities, one of which was a shed or a boat shed. As an expedient, the shed was converted, using the top deck (the sail loft, as a makeshift hospital) specifically for the use of HMS Ganges, the alternative being either eight miles north at Truro or two and a half miles south at Falmouth. With a hospital, regrettably, comes death and the need for a cemetery. On Mylor, such a cemetery was created, and this today, acts as an icon for the Falmouth days of HMS Ganges, this, notwithstanding where she was moored. This icon, perhaps more than anything else perpetuating the story of Ganges the boys training ship, is important, unchallenged, and respected, because in that graveyard lay the remains of the of the 'first boys' the pioneers of the early 1859 Royal Commission days. It was re-built and is subsequently tended by the Cornish ex-boys of the HMS Ganges Association, to whom this is hallowed ground, and I for one will acknowledge their love and care and humble respects to those days of hardship so long ago, paradoxically, enacted under the watchful eye of mother nature, for undoubtedly, there can be no other beauty than is Roseland or Falmouth, or Cornwall per se.

  However, that Mylor should become the rallying point of the Ganges 'cry', is exactly the same as the Cenotaph in Whitehall being the National 'cry' of all our armed forces, transcending for national purposes, cenotaphs elsewhere which recall, revere and remember 'battles' rather than 'wars'.

  The records show that HMS Ganges did not spend all its thirty odd years in Falmouth in the same mooring. Admiralty records are vague, but unequivocal that moves were made on demand (!), but it is to local history that we turn for a positive understanding of where the Ganges was actually berthed. CASSELLS GAZETTEER of 1898 (late on I agree) says that the Ganges was moored off Flushing and ten years before that, in 1889, Kelly's Directory (from where, incidentally I sourced many rare and hitherto unseen photographs of Shotley Barracks) also states that the Ganges was moored off Flushing. It also tells us that on Mylor, there was a pub called the Pandora Inn, run by the landlady, one Amelia Clymo. By all accounts, its locals were indigenous Cornish folk and not members of the ships company of HMS Ganges.

  There is a great deal of ambiguity and her mooring remains unresolved at least to specific dates. Nevertheless we know that many of her ships complement (officers and ratings alike), living ashore with their wives and families, chose the village of Flushing, which was quite nearby the Ganges. What didn't change, throughout all these years (1866-1899) was that Mylor Church and its naval cemetery was the only place in Falmouth Harbour where boys from the ship were buried. It is therefore not surprising that Mylor, even though the Ganges frequented its waters for a very short period, has been chosen as its sole representative for its west country days, even understanding and acknowledging that at Mylor the boys had a shore training parade ground and an open air gymnasium. However, it does detract from the overall story, and it might have been better throughout, to have used the one word of FALMOUTH rather than to have "picked out" specific parts of its lovely harbour. If any devotee of the Falmouth period can point me to official documents showing that the Ganges was actually in Mylor waters (as opposed to other confirmed parts of the harbour) I would be most grateful and I would use that information to modify this text.

  Coming on to the second commission, that between 1st July 1871 and later (manuscript data too voluminous to reproduce here), we see the following.

  The complement of boys was 520 showing their ships book numbers and their CS (Continuous Service) numbers where relevant.

Note that the Ship's Steward and Ship's Cook are CPOs

The other CPOs are:

Chief Gunners Mate  Chief Boatswains Mate  Chief Captain of the Forecastle  Quartermaster  Schoolmaster

The first class POs were:

Plumber  Ropemaker  Sailmaker  Carpenter's Mate  Caulker  Blacksmith  Armourer  Leading Stoker  Yeoman  And all others without the word 'Chief' in front of their rates.

  The Cooper, signalman, and others were PO second class ratings. The painter and the shipwright were junior rates. Second class boys were paid 6d, and first class boys 7d per day. Many of the boys were shown as being in debt.

  All the boys were discharge for further training to second and first class training ships, and in Ganges itself, many of its boy entrants came from an overspill of boys entering the first and second class ships straight from shore. Those shown and endorsed as "Deserters and Straggling" were severely punished money-wise let alone physical punishment-wise.

  Losing a library book incurred a hefty fine of up to 2s. Bear in mind that two shillings was 24d, and that their pay, as a boy second class for example, was 6d, this meant a months pay. There are examples of boys being invalided from the service and in every case these from the Devonport Stonehouse Hospital.

  During the next commission, post 1st July 1871, the complement had been increased to 118 (from 106) ships company, and just over 510 boys (420). On the 26th November 1871, 1 carpenter's crew had been added; plus two leading seamen; four petty officers second class in lieu of four petty officers first class; one able seaman gunner; seamanship instructors money to be paid to Captains of the Tops, sailmaker and quartermaster of the tender "lIBERTY" during the diving and cruising season.

  The pay is all explicit but sometimes difficult to understand particularly that for the allowances awarded. It was as follows:-

RANK/RATE	WAGES PER DAY	ALLOWANCES PER ANNUM
OFFICERS
Commander Lieutenant Chaplain & Naval Instructor Surgeon Paymaster Assistant Surgeon Assistant Paymaster Gunner Boatswain Carpenter	20s 10s 23s - 6d 28s 20s 10s 10s 7s - 6d 6s 7s - 6d	£365-0-0 £365-0-0 £428-17-6 £511-0-0 £365-0-0 £182-10-0 £182-10-0 £136-17-6 £328-0-0 £136-17-6
CHIEF PETTY OFFICERS
Master at Arms Writers Schoolmasters Ships Steward Ships Cook	5s-6d 2s 4s-6d 3s 2s-2d	£100-7-6 £73-0-0 £246-7-6 £54-15-0 £39-10-0
PETTY OFFICER FIRST CLASS
Ship's Corporals (RPOs) Gunner Mate - Swimming Instructor Boatswains Mate Captains Coxswain Captain of Forecastle Quartermaster Yeoman of Signals Captain of Maintop Captain of Foretop Captain of Quarterdeckmen Captain of Hold Sailmaker Ropemaker Carpenter's Mate Painter Blacksmith Armourer Plumber Sick Berth Steward Bandmaster	3s-8d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-2d 2s-5d 2s-5d 2s-5d 2s-5d 2s-5d 2s-5d 2s-5d 2s-5d 2s-5d	£334-11-8 £197-14-2 £39-10-10 £39-10-10 £39-10-10 £108-12-6 £39-10-10 £79-1-8 £79-1-8 £39-10-10 £39-10-10 £44-2-1 £44-2-1 £44-2-1 £44-2-1 £44-2-1 £44-2-1 £44-2-1 £44-2-1 £34-19-7
PETTY OFFICER SECOND CLASS
Captain of the mast/Captain of the HEAD Signalman Captain of the Mizzen Top Cooper	1s-11d 1s-11d 1s-11d 2s-3d	£69-19-2 £34-19-7 £34-19-7 £41-1-3
JUNIOR RATES
Shipwright Carpenter's Crew Ordinary Seaman and Second Class Ordinary Seaman Tailor Shoemaker Butcher Lamp Trimmer Captain's Steward Captain's Cook Wardroom Steward Wardroom Cook Warrant Officers Servant Warrant Officers Cook Ship's Steward Assistant Assistant Sick Bay Attendant Cook's Mate BarberCommander's Servant Schoolmaster's Servant Boy First Class Pupil Teacher Ship's Steward Boy Royal Marine - Colour Sergeant Royal Marine - Corporal Royal Marine - Private Royal Marine - Drummer/Bugler	2s -3d 1s -8d 1s -7d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -1d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -4d 1s -1d 1s -1d 1s -4d 1s -1d 0s -7d 0s- 7d 2s -9d 1s -7d 1s -2d 1s -3d	£41-1-3 £60-16-8 £260-1-3 £48-13-4 £48-13-4 £48-13-4 £48-13-4 £48-13-4 £48-13-4 £48-13-4 £48-13-4 £19-15-5 £24-6-8 £24-6-8 £24-6-8 £39-10-10 £19-15-5 £24-6-8 £19-15-5 £53-4-7 £10-12-11 £54-3-9 £28-17-11 £425-16-8 (This is not a mistake!) £22-16-2

  Head Schoolmasters (Warrant Officers) were paid £20-00 per annum responsibility money ! Many of the seamen petty officers were paid 6d per diem (day), paid quarterly, for being seamanship instructors. The ships band boys were members of the ship company.

  The lighter punishments onboard (others are covered, though not individually, in the Hansard Section) and were typically:-

Henry G DUNN, assessed as FAIR, was a wardroom steward. He was discharged shore SNLR (service no longer required) on the 16.9.1871. Able seaman Charles F MOREY, assessed as FAIR, went to Boro' Gaol at Devonport under Naval Directive dated October 1866 and thereafter to HMS Royal Adelaide for discharge - 31.7.71. Other ratings were assessed down and were discharged through the Royal Adelaide but didn't go to gaol first.

  Temporary supernumaries borne in this period were:-
    A Chief Carpenter
    A carpenter
    13 boys (9 first class) - Pupil Teachers
    2 lieutenants

  HMS Ganges shared a tender which was called HMS LIBERTY. She was a BRIG (and also serviced Devonport training ships) which took some of the second class boys to sea for training experience. The word "brig" has been used in the past as an abbreviation of brigantine (which is the name for a principally fore-and-aft two-masted rig with a square rigged foremast). The brig actually developed as a variant of the brigantine. By re-rigging a brigantine with two square sails instead of one it gained greater sailing power. The square-rigged brig's advantage over the fore-and-aft rigged brigantine was "that the sails, being smaller and more numerous, are more easily managed, and require fewer men or 'hands' to work them." The variant was so popular that the term "brig" came to exclusively signify a ship with this type of rigging. By the 1600s the British royal navy defined "brig" as having two square rigged masts. 'Liberty' was built in 1861 as a "racer class" with 16 guns and was sold in 1905. In 1877 the frigate EURYDICE, Capt. M. A. S. Hare, was converted into a training ship for ordinary seamen and sailed from Portsmouth on November 13th, 1877, with a complement of about 300 officers and ordinary seamen. Her destination was the West Indies and she was accompanied by the training brig MARTIN, being joined later at Madeira by H.M.S. LIBERTY from Plymouth, also manned by ordinary seamen.

  On March 6th, 1878, the EURYDICE left Bermuda on her homeward voyage, the other ships of the squadron having preceded her. In addition to her crew the vessel now carried a number of military officers and invalids from the West Indies. So far as can be ascertained the number on board totalled 368 persons. All were lost.

  Although separately victualled and accounted for she had a crew of:-
    1 x Lieutenant
    1 x Assistant Surgeon
    1 x Boatswain
    1 x Sub Lieutenant
    1 x Naval Schoolmaster
    1 x Ships Corporal 1st class (RPO)
    1 x Steward for all officers
    1 x Cook for all officers
    1 x Ships Cook (normally a CPO, but in this case a naval pensioner)
    1 x Gunners Mate
    1 x Royal Marine Private
    1 x Captain of Forecastle
    7 x AB's     Captain Foretop
    Ship Steward 3rd class (acting) !!
    4 x Leading Seamen
    1 X Sailmakers Mate
    1 x Warrant Officers Servant
    1 x Captain Maintop
    1 x Boatswains Mate

  Boys who died during the second commission were:-
    Daniel Delaney 18.8.72 - died in debt 6s 0½d
    Samuel Boynes 9.10.72 - died in debt 6s 5¼d
    William Stanley 16-4-71 - died in debt 11s 9½d
    William Spooner 20-8-72
    James Price 28-7-72

  The complement is presented to you in the normal and traditional way for the Victorian navy namely that all the executive side of the ships company comes first from captain to able seaman (bluejackets), followed by the (non bluejackets) engineers (ERA, other tradesmen and stokers) and the civil side of the navy, ie the writers, cooks, stewards etc etc. I have numbered them for convenience and here you will see the following statistics:-

    Ships Company = 163 (officers = 14 passengers = 1 ratings = 148)
    Total number of Boys = 507
    Ratio of ships company to boys 1:3
    Total number of naval boys = 491
    Total number of Band boys = 16
    Total number of first class boys (Pupil Teachers) = 5
    Total number of second class boys = 491
    City providing the largest number of recruits not counting London and its spread into the home
    counties = Birmingham
    Most used first Christian name throughout the ship = William.

Ship's Company

  The file below shows the number of boys only for each different county, represented as a number an a percentage of the 512 boys borne. There is a very strong argument that if the training ship was on the East Coast (or southeast) the number from the counties east of a central line drawn north to south through the mainland, would increase making the recruiting from such counties as Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, London, Northumberland, Co Durham, Berkshire, Huntingdonshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and large parts of Hampshire that much more buoyant than it ever was in the West Country. Note the zero numbers for counties like Sussex, Dorset, Wiltshire, Shropshire.

Ship's Company by County

  Important Naval changes from 19 years before the Crimean War (1855) to 19 years before the end of the First World War (1918). This includes the Royal Commission of the Manning of the Navy in 1859 (which was the official date from which boys training and training ships were greatly increased and thus which brought HMS Ganges into the boys world) to the time when HMS Ganges left St Just Pool (Roseland)/and or Flushing in Falmouth Harbour to arrive off Harwich.

Chronology