Cheating ‘Jack Tar’: seafarers’ wages in Britain’s Royal Navy, 1754–1767

ABSTRACT

The introduction of the Navy Act of 1758 by the British Parliament was designed to provide a mechanism whereby the payment of wages and allowances to Royal Navy seafarers and their dependants would be placed on a more equitable footing through more timely remittances. This study challenges earlier claims made concerning the effectiveness of the Act in this regard. By utilising modern accrual accounting techniques, we demonstrate conclusively how, over a 14-year period of war and peace (1754–1767) that included the promulgation of the Act, seafarers were forced to endure longer periods for payment seemingly at odds with the desires of Parliament. We provide explanations regarding this phenomenon showing seafarers were ensnared in a macro-level public-finance policy agenda that strictly prioritised the credit status of the Royal Navy through the timely payment of Navy bills at the expense of the day-to-day survival needs of seafarers. In order to maintain reputation and ensure the ongoing supply of materials, we show that accounting technologies, in the form of parliamentary budgetary processes and Treasury and Royal Navy cash management practices, were used to deliver this outcome.

KEYWORDS:

• Budgeting
• Georgian period
• Royal Navy wages payments
• accruals
• public finance
• Navy bills

Acknowledgments

As a result of the suggestions from the anonymous referees and the guidance and advice provided by the journal’s editor Cheryl McWatters, the focus of the original manuscript has been significantly tightened and improved. We are extremely grateful to all for the suggestions received.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Average Total Net Expenditure for the period amounted to £13,004,000 with a year-high in 1761 of £21,112,000. Expenditure on the Army averaged £4,134,000 and £3,536,000 for the RN with a year-high of £9,923,000 for the Army in 1761 and £7,464,000 in 1763 for the RN. (Mitchell and Deane 1962, 930).

2 Significant but unsuccessful attempts had been made in the later years of the seventeenth century (Roseveare 1969). Major reforms, achieved through reforms to the Civil List, did not occur until later in the eighteenth century through the efforts of reformist parliamentarians including Edmund Burke, Pitt the Younger and Charles Fox (Roseveare 1969; Funnell 2008).

3 Below deck seafarers in the Royal Navy at the time were generically referred to as Jack Tars. The term was also used to describe seafarers in the Merchant Marine.

4 In 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne of England following the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromewll, and in 1688 Mary II and William of Orange were invited to take the throne of England following the deposition of James II of England and VI of Scotland.

5 Lloyd (1968) provides no explanation as to why this figure is at such variance with that of the Navy Board. Neal (1977) uses the same 1763 figure as Lloyd (1968), again with no explanation as to the variance.

6 As to whether the estimates were ‘budgets’ in the modern sense, it is useful to apply Hofstede’s (1968) criteria that proposed spending be authorised as well as provide a realistic basis for planning and control purposes. While authorisation via parliamentary approval was certainly present, in other respects the Navy estimates did not provide a realistic basis for planning and control. Thus, they were not budgets in the modern sense.

7 Attention is drawn to the year 1764 which is the highest demonstrated delay and the only observation where the delay extends beyond two calendar years (24.5 months). The year 1764 is also interesting as the time delays for wages and suppliers were roughly equal, 24.5 and 26.8 months, respectively. We do not consider 1764 to be an anomalous year. This view is supported by alternative calculations (not provided here) where 1764 is excluded that indicate the trends remain unaffected. It is also noted that this was the first year of peace following the end of the war.

8 Attention is drawn to the year 1764, the first year of peace following the end of the Seven Years' war, where the delay in the payment to suppliers extended to 26.8 months, considerably higher than all other observations for the period. The next highest delay is 9.1 months (1765). This year was characterised by very low ‘suppliers’ expenditure’ (Column 3 - second only to 1767) but a relatively high ‘suppliers’ component of debt’ (Column 6). For these reasons 1764 is not considered to be an anomalous year. If 1764 is removed from the calculation of payment delays, the overall mean delay suffered by suppliers adjusts to 7.0 months and so the difference between the delay suffered by seafarers compared to suppliers extends to 12.1 months. Although numbers vary slightly with the removal of 1764, the trends are largely unaffected.

9 The wide franchise did not eventuate in England until the Great Reform Act of 1832 (The Representation of the People Act 1832, 2 Will 4).

10 Neal (1977, 31, 33) provides figures for the extent of public financing by the British Government of their involvement in the four wars that occurred during the eighteenth century. The Seven Years' War was financed 37 per cent by borrowings, Wars of Spanish Succession – 0 per cent, and Austrian Succession – 31 per cent. The level of debt financing for the American War of Independence was 40 per cent.