The Quota System (also known as The Quod), introduced by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in 1795, required each British county to provide a quota of men for the Royal Navy, based on its population and the number of its seaports: London, for example, had to provide 5,704 quotamen while Yorkshire had to provide 1,081.
The counties found it difficult to meet the quotas. Some offered high cash bounties to inexperienced volunteers (mostly inexperienced landsmen) and created resentment among the regular seamen, who, despite their experience, had received only a small fraction of that bounty on their own volunteering (and none if they were pressed). Sometimes, the counties resorted to sending convicted criminals in lieu of punishment, further creating ill feeling among ships' companies and sometimes introducing typhus (otherwise known as gaol fever).
Britain ended using the quota system, along with impressment, in 1815, at the close of the Napoleonic Wars, when much of the fleet was decommissioned, and the supply of unemployed seamen was more than adequate to man the remaining ships.
The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Royal Naval Reserve, created in 1859, and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), created in 1903. The Royal Naval Reserve has seen action in World War I, World War II, the Iraq War, and War in Afghanistan.
Impressment, colloquially "the press" or the "press gang", is the taking of men into a military or naval force by compulsion, with or without notice. European navies of several nations used forced recruitment by various means. The large size of the British Royal Navy in the Age of Sail meant impressment was most commonly associated with Great Britain and Ireland. It was used by the Royal Navy in wartime, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice can be traced back to the time of Edward I of England. The Royal Navy impressed many merchant sailors, as well as some sailors from other, mostly European, nations. People liable to impressment were "eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18 and 55 years". Non-seamen were sometimes impressed as well, though rarely. In addition to the Royal Navy's use of impressment, the British Army also experimented with impressment from 1778 to 1780.
The Royal Naval Reserve are a part of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom.
Prize money refers in particular to naval prize money, usually arising in naval warfare, but also in other circumstances. It was a monetary reward paid in accordance with the prize law of a belligerent state to the crew of a ship belonging to the state, either a warship of its navy or a privateer vessel commissioned by the state. Prize money was most frequently awarded for the capture of enemy ships or of cargoes belonging to an enemy in time of war, either arrested in port at the outbreak of war or captured during the war in international waters or other waters not the territorial waters of a neutral state. Goods carried in neutral ships that are classed as contraband, being shipped to enemy-controlled territory and liable to be useful to it for making war, were also liable to be taken as prizes, but non-contraband goods belonging to neutrals were not. Claims for the award of prize money were usually heard in a prize court, which had to adjudicate the claim and condemn the prize before any distribution of cash or goods could be made to the captors.
The Mission to Seafarers is a Christian welfare charity serving merchant crews around the world. It operates through a global Mission 'family' network of chaplains, staff and volunteers and provides practical, emotional and spiritual support through ship visits, drop-in seafarers centres and a range of welfare and emergency support services.
The Royal Naval Auxiliary Service (RNXS) was a uniformed, unarmed, civilian volunteer service, administered and trained by the Royal Navy to operate in the ports and anchorages of the United Kingdom in an emergency. Although the abbreviated title would logically have been RNAS this abbreviation had long been taken by the various Royal Naval Air Stations, so RNXS it was. It maintained training units, and vessels at most major ports in the UK. and was formed in 1963 from the amalgamation of the Royal Naval Mine-watching Service (RNMWS) and Admiralty Ferry Crew Association in response to the perceived nuclear threat to British ports. The service was disbanded on 31 March 1994 due to Ministry of Defence (MOD) cuts. Most vessels from its fleet were transferred to the Royal Navy or sold, with the exception of XSV Loyal Volunteer, which was struck by a ro-ro ferry while berthed in Ipswich Harbour and was later scrapped.
A boy seaman is a boy who serves as seaman or is trained for such service.
A Virginia State Navy existed twice. During the American Revolutionary War, the provisional government of the Virginia Colony authorized the purchase, outfitting, and manning of armed vessels to protect the colony's waters from threats posed it by the Royal Navy.
The allotment system was a system used in Sweden for keeping a trained army at all times. This system came into use in around 1640, and was replaced by the modern Swedish Armed Forces conscription system in 1901. Two different allotment systems have been in use in Sweden; they are the old allotment system and the new allotment system, the latter often referred to as just "the allotment system". The soldiers who were part of these systems were known as "croft soldiers" due to the small crofts allotted to them.
Able seaman is a military rank used in naval forces.
The King's shilling, sometimes called the Queen's shilling when the Sovereign is female, is a historical slang term referring to the earnest payment of one shilling given to recruits to the Armed forces of the United Kingdom in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, although the practice dates back to the end of the English Civil War. To "take the King's shilling" was to agree to serve as a sailor or soldier in the Royal Navy or the British Army. It is closely related to the act of impressment. The practice officially stopped in 1879, although the term is still used informally and there are some cases of it being used still in the early 20th century, albeit largely symbolically.
The maritime history of the United States is a broad theme within the history of the United States. As an academic subject, it crosses the boundaries of standard disciplines, focusing on understanding the United States' relationship with the oceans, seas, and major waterways of the globe. The focus is on merchant shipping, and the financing and manning of the ships. A merchant marine owned at home is not essential to an extensive foreign commerce. In fact, it may be cheaper to hire other nations to handle the carrying trade than to participate in it directly. On the other hand, there are certain advantages, particularly during time of war, which may warrant an aggressive government encouragement to the maintenance of a merchant marine.
The Decoration for Officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, post-nominal letters VD until c. 1947 and VRD thereafter, was instituted in 1908. It could be awarded to part-time commissioned officers in the United Kingdom's Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve after twenty years of service as efficient and thoroughly capable officers. The decoration was a Naval version of the Volunteer Officers' Decoration and its successor, the Territorial Decoration.
The United States merchant marine forces matured during the maritime history of the United States (1900–1999).
HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a small merchant vessel that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian, an incident now popularly known as the mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island. An American adventurer helped land several remains of Bounty in 1957.
Royal Navy ranks, rates, and uniforms of the 18th and 19th centuries were the original effort of the Royal Navy to create standardized rank and insignia system for use both at shore and at sea.
Piracy was a phenomenon that was not limited to the Caribbean region. Golden Age pirates roamed off the coast of North America, Africa and the Caribbean.
George St Lo was a British naval officer and politician.
The Naval Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (1830) of the United Kingdom was introduced in 1830 and ratified by King William IV in 1831. It could only be awarded to selected Navy ratings after altogether 21 years of service and good conduct. The medal remained in use until 1847, when it was replaced by the Naval Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (1848).
The Royal Naval Coast Volunteers (RNCV) was a 19th century reserve force of the British Royal Navy. The volunteers were established in 1853 and the force lasted until 1873 when it was disbanded, with some of its volunteers entering the Royal Naval Reserve.
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