Nelson’s Navy
discharged or had deserted. Other columns covered a range of financial issues, such as deductions for the cost of clothing, bedding and tobacco supplied to him, as well as wages paid.
The relevant muster book may give the ship or place where a man was before joining this ship, and also what happened to him subsequently. If he is not marked as discharged into another ship, deserted or dead, he should appear in a later muster book for the same ship. Not all details are filled in for every man, and often the entries are vague and inaccurate, but by combining information from consecutive muster books, a picture of a seaman’s career can be pieced together. Naval Records for Genealogists by NAM Rodger explains the meanings of the muster book’s column headings (and much more). While not carrying anything like the same range of information, ships’ pay books can be used in a similar way to trace the path of a seaman, and a few surviving description books give the seaman’s age, height, complexion and distinguishing marks such as scars and tattoos.
Injuries and deaths
Another way of getting to know your ancestor is if he crops up in a court martial record or in a surgeon’s logbook, most of which are held at TNA and have been extensively catalogued making them searchable by name online. By February 1807, HMS Canopus was under a new captain, Thomas Shortland, and a naval squadron was about to enter the Dardanelles under bombardment from shore batteries. On 19 February, the surgeon Abraham Martin recorded (TNA ADM 101/93/1) that Able Seaman James Nugent had ‘received a severe splinter wound near his chin about four inches in length’. It was caused by a massive 546-pound stone shot, and a lengthy description of James’s injury and treatment is given. Only six weeks later, he was well enough to return to duty. James was 53 years old and the muster book shows that he was from Dublin and had joined the Canopus as a volunteer with a £5 bounty in 1803, serving under Captain Austen. Some surgeon’s logbooks contain a surprising amount of detail on bowel movements, venereal disease, piles and the like, enabling researchers to become intimately acquainted with their ancestors.
Seamen discharged from the navy can seemingly disappear, since there was no automatic pension to provide a paper trail. If a seaman applied, and was granted, help from the Royal Greenwich Hospital, the end of his life may be charted – either as a Greenwich Pensioner living in the hospital, or as an ‘out-pensioner’. Sadly, many men discharged from the navy found themselves destitute, and those who did not resort to crime or begging often ended their days in the workhouse.