Nelson’s Navy
achieved promotion to post-captain in 1800 and finally became Admiral of the Fleet in 1863, some two years before he died. Charles, the younger brother, joined the navy in 1794 at the age of 15 and in 1810 was promoted to post-captain. He reached the rank of rear-admiral, but in 1852 he died of cholera when on active service in Burma.
For Jane’s brothers, various sources of information exist beyond the normal naval records. Their promotions and naval actions were mentioned in newspapers, accounts of their lives appear in several biographical dictionaries as well as the Naval Chronicle magazine, and their wills can be downloaded, for a fee, from The National Archives ( TNA) website ( nationalarchives.gov. uk). Both men had their portraits painted. Nowadays, they have been eclipsed by their sister, Jane Austen, so that Charles is remembered much more for his purchase of presents for his sisters with his prize money than for his gallantry during the naval action which earned him this reward. Around the time of the Battle of Trafalgar, Francis was captain of HMS Canopus, an 80-gun warship, but Nelson sent him to Gibraltar and Tetuan to fetch water and other supplies. He is therefore known far more for his anguish at narrowly missing out on Trafalgar, the fame and the prize-money than for his subsequent distinguished career. A page from the muster book of HMS Canopus during his command is shown on page 55.
The lower deck
In sharp contrast to officers, the lives and careers of seamen (the ‘ratings’) are much more difficult to trace, and there is seldom any useful material beyond official documents, unless a seaman can be traced through his subsequent life on land. A few seamen left letters, while a handful wrote accounts of their careers that were published in magazines or as books, particularly those who took part in famous battles, like the Nile and Trafalgar. Some archives, such as the Caird Library & Archive ( rmg. co.uk/national-maritimemuseum/caird- library), also have unpublished letters, private papers and occasionally diaries of naval seamen.
For the vast majority of seamen, the best records are held by The National Archives and not in maritime and naval museums and archives. Very few from this era have been digitised, so they cannot be downloaded. There was no centralised record of naval seamen, so to get started you need to know the name of the ship on which your ancestor was serving and the approximate date. Without the name of a ship, you may well founder. Looking in muster books at random for your ancestor’s name is not a viable option.
Even if you know his ship, you may find that no records survive. If a ship was captured, for example, sensitive records were heaved overboard to prevent them falling into enemy hands.
A ship’s muster books are the mainstay of research into naval seamen, because they provide a record of the men on board a warship at a particular time. They contain different lists because boys, marines, supernumeraries and seamen were recorded separately. Using pre-printed ledgers, there were columns for a seaman’s name, when he joined the crew, when he came on board (if different), where he came from, his age, place of birth, rank, whether he was still part of the crew or had died, been