#mastheading

While it's still Midshipman Monday in my timezone, I want to share an interesting piece of trivia I found last night in Geoffrey Penn's 1957 book Snotty: The Story of the Midshipman. Mastheading, sending a boy into nautical time-out by having him sit up in the masthead, was officially abolished in 1836.

The “official” punishments, that is those authorized by the captain or the first lieutenant, but usually not by the Admiralty, were sometimes no less severe. “Mastheading” was the most frequent and at times this became both cruel and dangerous. The boy was sent to the masthead, usually for a set period or until told to come down again. Soaked to the skin with rain and in an icy wind at the masthead the youngster often suffered terribly from exposure and must have been in grave danger, with his fingers stiff and numb, of losing his hold and falling to the deck [...] It was perhaps because of incidents such as that described above that mastheading was officially abolished in 1836, though that is not to say that it actually ceased altogether.

— Geoffrey Penn, Snotty: The Story of the Midshipman

Mastheading is huge in the novels of Frederick Marryat, and the illustration I used was originally published with his novellas The Pirate and the Three Cutters in 1835. 1836, the year mastheading was supposedly abolished, is the year Mr. Midshipman Easy was published, with Jack Easy reading the Articles of War at the masthead. According to his statements in Newton Forster, Marryat was mastheaded frequently after he joined the Royal Navy in 1806. He usually makes light of the dangers (as with Jack Easy), but his hero Peter Simple is incapacitated by exposure at the masthead.

Marryat’s novels of the 1830s and 1840s are already products of nostalgia, largely set in the early 19th century if not the late 18th century. I had thought that mastheading was practiced throughout the 19th century in the Royal Navy, but it didn’t even survive into Queen Victoria’s reign (officially). It was a relic of more brutal times even as Marryat hit his stride as a popular writer.

"Mr. M—— ," would the first-lieutenant cry out, "why did you stay so long on shore with the jolly-boat?"

"I went to the post-office for the officers' letters, sir."

"And pray, sir, who ordered you?"

"No one, sir; but I thought—"

"You thought, sir! How dare you think?—go up to the mast-head, sir."

So much for thinking.

— Frederick Marryat, Newton Forster

It was of no consequence if a young gentleman moved from servant to midshipman to able seaman and back to servant, for none of these titles had much to do with his actual duties. In practice he was growing in years and knowledge, taking on more responsibilities and behaving more and more like the lieutenant he hoped one day to be.

— Nicholas A.M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy

'Mr B Mast-headed', original artwork by Captain Frederick Marryat, 1820. Often misattributed to George Cruikshank, who collaborated with Marryat and produced more polished engravings from Marryat's rough drawings for a series of satirical prints. Marryat based his art on his own experiences as a midshipman who was frequently sent to the masthead.

"When I was a midshipman, it was extremely difficult to avoid the mast-head. Out of six years served in that capacity, I once made a calculation, that two of them were passed away perched upon the cross-trees, looking down with calm philosophy upon the microcosm below. Yet, although I never deserved it, I derived much future advantage from my repeated punishments. The mast-head, for want of something worse to do, became my study, and during the time spent there, I in a manner finished my education. Volumes after volumes were perused to while away the tedious hours, and I conscientiously believe it is to this mode of punishment adopted by my rigid superiors that the world is indebted for all the pretty books which I am writing."

— Frederick Marryat, Newton Forster