#schoolmaster

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Before a schoolmaster could get his warrant from the Admiralty he had to be examined by the Master, Warden, and Assistants of Trinity House, as well as producing certificates concerning his sobriety and good behaviour. He was ‘duly to employ his time in instructing the Volunteers in writing, arithmetic, and navigation, and in whatever may contribute to render them proficients’.

Drumming spherical trigonometry into unwilling heads of midshipmen was a thankless task for which he was paid (in a third-rate) £1 17s 6d a month, with a £20 bonus at the end of the year providing his captain gave him a certificate. His basic pay, though, was within 2s 6d the same (in a third-rate) as a bosun’s mate, quartermaster, trumpeter and sailmaker.

— Dudley Pope, Life in Nelson’s Navy

Usually only carried in ships- of-the-line, the primary task of the schoolmaster was to teach the midshipmen mathematics,trigonometry and theoretical navigation. Before being accepted into the navy, candidates for the postition of schoolmaster were examined by representatives of Trinity House at Deptford Strond to prove their ability to perform these duties. The emphasis, naturally, was placed on navigation. Besides teaching potential officers, schoolmasters were also encouraged, according to Admiralty Regulations and Instructions, to teach all of the youths on the ship in reading and writing.

A Schoolmaster with Midshipmen and naval cadets. He teachs them how to use a sextant, c. 1890 (x)

On all other ships below the rank of a ship of the line, the captain took over the teaching, whereby he concentrated only on the midshipmen. Having no specific status, most schoolmasters messed with the midshipmen and found their own place to berth, although in some ships a schoolmaster may have been lucky enough to have been given a cabin, as was the case with the chaplain within the gun room.

I was sent to school to learn Latin and Greek, of which there are various ways of teaching. Some tutors attempt the suaviter in modo, my schoolmaster preferred the fortiter in re, and, as the boatswain said, by the “instigation” of a large knotted stick, he drove knowledge into our skulls as a caulker drives oakum into the seams of a ship.