The Chest at Chatham, 1590-1803

THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 SHIRLEY BURGOYNE BLACK, Ph.D. In 1803, Chatham Chest was transferred from the dockyard at Chatham to Greenwich Hospital, and with the move one of the earliest known friendly societies in the country1 lost its independent existence. The Act 43 Geo. III, c. 119 recited that 'there now is within this Realm a certain ancient and laudable Institution, commonly called or known by the Name of the Chest at Chatham, for the perpetual Relief of such Mariners and Seafaring Men as have been or may happen to be hurt or maimed in the Service of his Majesty in the Royal Navy, or in any Ship or Vessel in his Majesty's Service, either at Sea or in Harbour; which said Chest is supported and maintained ... by certain Defalcations, Deductions, and Abatements, heretofore and still rightfully and accustomably made from and out of the Wages of certain Mariners, Seamen and others.' The Act also made mention of other sources of income which had accrued to the Chest over the years. All these assets were now transferred and made the basis of the newly established Chest at Greenwich. Chatham Chest was one of several early foundations intended to benefit maimed and injured seamen. Of the three principal ones in Kent, the earliest on the scene was the Society of the Trinity House in the parish of Deptford Strond, whose existence, already it would seem going back many years, was confirmed by Charter in the reign of Henry VIII in 1514. Apparently founded initially as a charitable institution - its almshouse is referred t o i n its Charter - the promotion of navigational skills soon became its overriding concern, and by the time of Elizabeth I it had a duty to maintain beacons, marks and signs not only in and around the mouth of the Thames but along the coast of England as well.2 Hand in hand with this went a responsibility for superintending levels of navigational ability among pilots and mates. 1 D. Defoe, Essays upon Several Projects (1702), 122. 2 F. Arrow, The Corporation of Trinity House (1868), 8-10. 263 S.B.BLACK Edward Hasted, the historian of Kent, writing in the seventeen-eighties, noted that it was fu nded from 'light-money, buoys, beconage, ballastage' and private benefactions, and that the first call on its funds was for the maintenance of navigational aids for sailors, which by then included a number of lighthouses. Its charitable purposes were continued by means of the surplus remaining from this money, which was put to the relief of decayed seamen and their widows or orphans, both as out-pensioners and in the Society's almshouses. According to Hasted, in the late eighteenth century the Society had some 3,000 pensioners on its books.3 The Chest at Chatham appears to have been established around 1590, the second in date of the great Kentish institutions for the welfare of seamen. Its origins are attributed to the interventions of Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins - particularly perhaps Hawkins, who also established a hospital at Chatham for decayed mariners and shipwrights at about the same time. The hospital was completed in 1592, and a charter of incorporation granted by Elizabeth I in 1594. But Hawkins was to die at sea two years later, and his hospital was not well endowed, obtaining few subsequent sources of income: Hasted mentions only a benefaction of £500, and a small legacy from one Robert Davis in 1692, which was administered by Dame Elizabeth Narborough, the future wife of Sir Cloudesley Shovel.4 Had the hospital attracted the patronage, which was to smile on Greenwich a century or so later, the combination of Chest and hospital at Chatham might have made of it a rival which would not have been so easily assimilated in 1803. Nevertheless, by that date, even without a substantial hospital, the Chest had become a recognised part of the state system for promoting the welfare of injured seamen. That the question of compensation for injuries sustained by mariners and other seafaring men, highlighted no doubt by the sea-battles of the Armada, was considered to be an area of state concern around this time is shown by an Act of 1593, which ordered that every parish should pay a sum weekly towards the relief of sick, hurt and maimed soldiers and mariners.5 This Act (and one of 1597 by which it was continued and explained) was replaced in 1601 by an Act which was sophisticated in intention, although somewhat clumsy of application.6 By 43 Eliz. I, c. 3 it was intended both to reward those men who were hurt and disabled, 3 E. Hasted, A History & Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 2nd edn. (Canterbury, 1797-180 I; repr. Wakefield, 1972), Vol. I, 358-61. 4 E. Harris, History of the Chatham Chest and Sir John Hawkins' Hospital (Eastgate Series, No. 23), (Rochester, 1915), 3-6. Hasted, op. cit., Vol. 4, 218-21. s 35 Eliz. I, c. 4; continued and explained by 39 Eliz. I, c. 21. 6 43 Eliz. I, c. 3. 264 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 the numbers of which were admitted to be increasing 'with the increase in the country's defensive wars', and to encourage others. Like the previous Acts, this was again based on a parochial tax for the relief of soldiers and mariners. No parish was to be rated above lOd., and none under 2d., so that 'the total sum of such taxation of the parish in any county where there shall be above fifty parishes, do not exceed the rate of six pence for every parish in the same county'. The petty constables and churchwardens in each parish were responsible for collecting this small sum, which was to be assessed by agreement among the parishioners themselves, and were to hand it over to the high constable, who was in turn charged with transmitting it to the county treasurers of the fund - either two justices of the peace, or another person or persons whom they had nominated. There are detailed instructions in the Act for claiming relief from the appropriate county. In the case of pressed men this was the county in which they had been impressed, while those enlisting of their own free will were to apply to the treasurer of the county where they had been born, or where they had last resided for three y ears. Men unable to travel could claim relief from the treasurer of the county where they had landed. Claims were to be substantiated by presentation of a mariner's certificate, suitably signed. The rate of pensions laid down seems relatively generous for the period: not exceeding £10 per annum for soldiers or sailors who had not been officers; not exceeding £15 per annum for officers below the rank of lieutenant; and for those who had served as lieutenant, a sum not exceeding £20 per annum. This Act was continued by two Acts in the reign of Charles I, but thereafter it drops out of sight.7 It may well have foundered on the simple suggestion that parishioners would agree on their own assessment, and in the event there were probably few such sums forthcoming for transmission to the county treasurers. The Chest at Chatham, established on quite different principles, was to have considerably more success in creating a fund for the benefit of injured and disabled seamen. The precise date of its founding is unclear. In April 1803, Lachlan McLean, the then accountant of the Chest, produced the following summary of its early history for the Commissioners of Naval Enquiry: 'This Institution was established in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, about the year 1590, when the Masters, Mariners, Shipwrights and Seafaring Men, serving in the Ships and Sea-Affairs of the then Queen's Majesty, finding by experience that by frequent employment by Sea for the Defence of the Kingdom and other the Dominions of the said Queen, divers and Sundry of them, by reason of Hurts and 7 3 Car. I, c. 4; 16 Car. I, c. 4. 265 S.B. BLACK Maims received in that Service, were driven into great poverty, extremity and want, did, by the Incitement, persuasion, approbation and good liking of the right honourable Charles Earl of Nottingham the Lord High Admiral of England, and the then Principal Officers of the Navy, Voluntarily and Charitably give and bestow, and consented, to have defalked out of their Monthly Wages, for ever, the following Sums, Vizt. Out of the Wages of every Mariner, Seaman and Shipwright receiving ten Shillings pr Month or more 6d. pr Month of every Grommetts receiving 7s. 6d. pr Month 4d. Do of every Boy receiving 6s. pr Month 3d. Do And, that the Masters Attendant, Master Shipwrights, Boatswains and Pursers (the Gunners being admitted in the Year 1618), should have the disposal of the said Money, as they should see cause, and by the oversight of the Principal Officers of the Navy for the time being, or some of them. Upon this Basis it hath stood ever since.'9 Edward Hasted assigns a date of 1588 to the Chest, suggesting that it was 'first planned by Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, in the year 1588, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, when the seamen of the royal navy voluntarily agreed to advance a certain proportion of their pay towards the support of their distressed brethren.' 10 However, a date of 1590 is attested to in an enquiry of 1617. By a decree of that year James I put into execution an Act of Elizabeth I, 43 Eliz. I, c. 4, which was intended to 'redress the misemployment of Lands, Goods and Stocks of Money heretofore given to charitable uses'. Commissioners would appear to have been appointed for each county, those for Kent including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Earl of Nottingham (who had remained Lord High Admiral under James I), the Bishop of Rochester, Viscount Lisle, Lord Wooton, and the county's baronets, knights, and some gentlemen. At the subsequent inquisition, taken at the castle of the city of Rochester between 11 April and I May, 1617, before Sir William Sidley, B t., Sir Nicholas Gilbourne, Sir William Page, Sir Isaac Sedley, Sir Edward Duke, Thomas Lee and Henry Clarke, it was established that the Chest had been set up in or around 1590. 11 This would appear to be the earliest official reference to the Chest. In 1693, asked by William III's Commissioners of Publick Accounts to provide various items of s Grommet!: Here, apparently, someone taken on as an older ship's boy, aged about 18. 9 P(ublic) R(ecord) O(ffice): ADM 82/130. Ill Hasted, op. cit., Vol. 1. 218. 11 PRO: ADM 82/128; ADM 82/130. 266 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 information relating to the Chest, including 'a true and perfect copy of the original Constitution of the Chest as it stood on the 5th November 88', the governors of the Chest replied that they did not have the original in their custody, but offered instead 'a copy of a Decree (conveyed to us by our Predecessors) made upon the Statute of Charitable uses' of 1617.12 During the course of its existence the Chest at Chatham acquired several other sources of income, although the defalcations or abatements (as they were variously called) from the wages of seamen in the Royal Navy always provided by far the major part of it. In 1763, for example, the number of men voted for this service was 30,000, which, at 6d. a man a month, provided at least £9,750, while in 1783 around double this number were found to have been borne in the navy's ships, with a consequent doubling of the income to the Chest from this source.13 This figure increased still further during the first decade of the Napoleonic Wars: defalcations in 1791 amounted to £2 6,000; in 180 l, to £50,000. Between 1799 and 1801 inclusive, an average of £53,000 was disbursed each year, leaving an annual balance in each case of around £10,000. The total disbursed in the years preceding the onset of the Napoleonic Wars was, of course, much lower, averaging just under £2 3,000, with average balances remaining of aro und £2 0,000 (1791-93, inclusive).14 The records inspected in 1803 showed a further source of income to the Chest: from fourpences and twopences abated from sailors' pay for ships' chaplains and surgeons, where these were not borne, or when the sums in question remained unclaimed - a benefit apparently dating back to before 1672. This item is clearly documented for the late 1700s in the records now remaining, and provided a substantial sum each year.is An additional source of income derived from property which was acquired quite early in the Chest's history, principally between 1617 and 1647. This lay in various parishes, including Chislet, St. Mary's in the Hundred of Hoo, Minster-in-Sheppey, Rainham, Upchurch, Chatham itself, and Boxley. It consisted mainly of farms, all of which were regularly leased out to tenants. An estate book begun in 1711 contains details both of the purchases and of the lettings.16 We can see from this that land in Chislet was the first purchase, when in 1617 Port 12 PRO: ADM 82/128. 13 PRO: ADM sons. 14 PRO: ADM 82/130. 15 PRO: ADM sons. 16 PRO: ADM 82/129. 267 S.B.BLACK Farm and other parcels of land known as Ballingham's and Marsham's were bought from William Johnson. In 1632, Newlands, in the parishes of St. Mary's, Hundred of Hoo, and Halstow, was bought from Benjamin Wallinger. The next purchase was made four years later, when Dame Agrippina Bingley sold to the Chest three pieces of land in Chatham, including Godsight Farm, several messuages, and a wharf. There was also a number of other pieces of land, and some woodland in Boxley. Scocles Farm, at Minster, was bought in 1641 from Allen Livesey and John Orwell, and Mackland Farm, in Rainham, from John Lyford in 164 7. The final piece of land belonging to the Chest at Chatham was acquired in 1675 and was a gift from Charles II. This consisted of two contiguous pieces of marsh land, known as Delce Marsh and Sellars Marsh, the conveyance being made out by direction of the Commissioners of Sewers. The book contains abstracts of transfers of deeds, from governors to governors, and also details of the leases, right up to the time of the transfer of the Chest from Chatham to Greenwich. The evidence of the records shows that considerable attention was given to the Chest estates, with not infrequent visits paid to them by the governors. In 1712, it had been laid down that five of the governors should 'view' all the Chest estates every three years, in company with the Chest's attorney - a regulation which we may assume was being complied with, perhaps over-enthusiastically, since sixty years later, at a time of one of the periodical economy drives, we find the decision, 'Not to visit Chest Estates too frequently and with only 5 governors, and to be cautious about repairs' . 17 There seems no doubt that the estates were being administered in a business-like fashion, with new leases made out when old ones fell in. The most recent lease was one granted by the Chest to a Baptist meeting house and burial ground. As the site had been used for this purpose for the last ninety-nine years, a further lease of ninety-nine years was granted, which would have expired only in 1900; in granting it the governors ordered the trustees of the meeting house 'to put down the Old building and set up a New One, a given Number of feet back on the Ground in order to open the Lane and thereby improve the Estate in General' . 1 s When Greenwich took over the affairs of the Chest in 1803, its property was valued at a total of £27,978 and subsequently sold for slightly in excess of this sum. 19 An additional source of income to the Chest was from 'fines, amerciaments and pecuniary mulcts', granted by decree by James II, 11 PRO: ADM 82/128. 1s PRO: ADM 82/130. 19 PRO: ADM 80/75. 268 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 who ordered that any such fines laid on any member of the Royal Navy whether at sea or ashore should be given 'to the sole use and towards the better Support of the poor Seamen belonging to the Chest at Chatham'. In 1709, there was an attempt to divert the mulcts and fines to the Hospital recently set up by William III at Greenwich, but the benefit was restored to Chatham after a remonstrance by the governors.20 There is a mention of particularly heavy mulcts and fines swelling the funds of the Chest in the accounts for the year 1784, so it is clear that this item continued to benefit the Chest virtually to the end of its history.21 James II was also responsible for a further benefaction to the Chest. By an Act of the first year of his reign, in 1685, which was intended to promote the building of ships in England, it was ordered that after Michaelmas 1689 12d. per ton per voyage should be paid on all 'foreign bottoms' then trading up and down the coast of England and Scotland, 'using the Coal or other Coast Trade', and which had not already been made free, and 5s. per ton per voyage on foreign ships subsequently put to this use. The money so claimed was to be divided equally between the Chest at Chatham and the Trinity House of Deptford Strond, 'for and towards the relief of wounded and decayed Seamen, their Widows and Children' .22 Between 1689 and 17 16, the duties on foreign bottoms were collected with some regularity at many ports, among them Blakeney, Boston, Bridlington, Chichester, Cowes, Dartmouth, Dover, Exeter, Ipswich, London, Lynn, Maldon, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Scarborough, Southampton, Topsham, Weymouth, Whitby and Yarmouth. By 1725, however, when one of the officials of the Chest, the Clerk of the Checque of his Majesty's Yard, was enquiring after the Chest's dues, he was told that the high duty of 5s. a ton had indeed had the desired effect of discouraging anyone from using a foreign-built ship on the coastal trade, so that there were now no duties at this rate to be collected, and that 'the other Bottoms which paid only ls. pr Ton, are now either worn out, sold, or lost, so that there is no such Duty now collected, there being no Forreigne Ships so Employed at this Time'. Nevertheless, there was still an occasional trickle of income to the Chest from this source: in 1729, £4 10s. was collected at Scarborough, and duly divided between the Chest and Trinity House, and as late as 1787 the custom house at Leith sent in £12 2s. 2½d. claimed from a brig, the Robert, under the Act of 1685.23 20 PRO: ADM 82/128. 21 PRO: ADM 80/75. 22 1 Jae. II, c. 18; PRO: ADM 80/73. 23 PRO: ADM 80/73. 269 S.B. BLACK From the remaining records, there is no reason to suppose that the fund was not carefully administered by its officers in Chatham. An overhaul of the administration and general running expenses was undertaken on several occasions in its history - of which that of 1617 would seem to have been the first. The commission of 1617 discovered that while there was £1519 19s. Od. in the Chest at the time of the enquiry, a further £1280 18s.9 d. was outstanding and in the wrong hands. This was either money which had been loaned out and not repaid, or else money which had been collected and not yet paid in to the Chest. One of those at fault here was 'Sir Thomas Middleton Knight now one of the Aldermen of the City of London', who 'is indebted and hath in his hands of the Money given to the charitable use aforesaid the Sum of Three Hundred and Seventy One Pounds and Eighteen Pence which he or such as by his consent did assist in getting in the payment of the sums of Money received of the Mariners and Seamen that returned from the West Indian Voyage wherein Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake died, in the Year of our Lord Christ 1596, as being Treasurer or Paymaster for the said Voyage.'24 1711 and the early seventeen-seventies seem to have been likewise years in which a careful summary of the Chest's position was made, with a view to catching up on sums outstanding and perhaps reducing costs.I n 1711 came the purchase of the book already referred to, which was to serve as the fund's estate book - a handsome, tooled leatherbound book, with three clasps, well over two feet deep by nearly a foot wide - which begins with 'An Abstract or Particular of several Deeds, Writings and Muniments belonging to the Chest at Chatham ... Abstr acted by the Governours, January 1711 ... and also Memorandums and Queries then made by the Governours'. There follows a list of the contents of twelve boxes. In Box No.2 were 'Three several! Bonds from Sir Sackwell Crow to the Governours, for payment of £3,005 14s. ld., being Mony he had Defalked out of Seamens Wages for the Chest, when Treasurer of the Navy and retained for his own use'. A Commission of Rebellion against Sir Sackville Crowe was noted, and the box also contained a 'Decree in Chancery. Dated Anno 1634 for the said Sir Sackwell Crow, to pay the above Sum of £3,005 14s. Id. to the then Govern:s at certain Dayes therein mention'd; and for securing the Payment thereof, to make Assignments out of such Mony, then due from his Majesty to him, as should first become payable'. Interest on this very large sum was said to have raised it to £5,600: 24 PRO: ADM 82/130. 270 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 'And for the Payment of the said sum of £5,600 the said Sir Sackwell Crowe, did Assign over to the Govem:s of the Chest, Tallys and Orders to the Amount thereof, Payable out of the Revenue arising from the Wine Licences'. In spite of this decree, it looks as if the Chest remained defrauded of its dues. A query is noted regarding the account of the tallies, 'what part is paid (if any) ... where and when Sir Sackwell Crow dyed, and who were his Heirs, Executors, or Administrators' .25 Important items from earlier memorandum books were copied into a single book around 1 770, and these allow us to fill in a little more of the history of the Chest.26 The Chest was indeed a chest: an item of 1649 describes it as an iron chest, with five locks, the keys to which were kept by five different people. These were a principal officer of the navy, a master attendant, a master shipwright, a boatswain, and a purser of the Navy Royal for the time being. The key was held for a year, and then handed over to another five men of the same position and rank. For the year that he held the key, the purser also acted as the clerk of the Chest. The post of governor dated from 1631, when new regulations were drawn up for the Chest, and two each were appointed from among the boatswains, pursers and gunners of first, second and third rate ships, one of each being chosen from the Ship Royal. All were attached to Chatham yard, or, as it was sometimes termed, belonged to Chatham 'Ordinary'. Under the new regulations it was agreed that shipkeepers should pay 6d. a quarter to a mathematician, who was also to receive £10 a year from the Chest, in return for which he was to provide free instruction for all shipkeepers who chose to attend his classes. Ten years later the £10 payment to the mathematician, who is here named as Richard Burley, was stopped as being 'improper', but it was reinstated in 1649 - Burley had perhaps been making do with the shipkeepers' sixpences in the meantime - 'towards his encouragement in this work, so much tending to the Good of the Navy and Education of Youth and Information of all relating to the Navy who incline to the Mathematical Sciences. We shall expect that he perform his Lecture once a Fortnight, besides his other duty.'27 This office appears to have lapsed again towards the end of the seventeenth century, for in March 1705 there is a note of its re- 25 PRO: ADM 82/129. 26 PRO: ADM 82/128. 27 Ibid. 271 S.B.BLACK establishment, this time with a salary of £20 a year. The schoolmaster was now one Thomas Whittle, a cook from HMS Vanguard, a somewhat surprising elevation. Whittle's duty is spelt out in great detail: 'to teach all the Officers' Servants in Ordinary at this Port ( one Half one day, the other Half the next) Reading, Writing, the church of E ngland Catechism and the Mathematicks, particularly Navigation and Gunnery, and to teach the Sons of all such Pensioners to this Chest as reside in Chatham, or any of the adjoining Parishes of Rochester, Stroud, St Margarets, Frinsbury and Gillingham, who are not able to give their sons Learning at their own Charge; provided that their said Sons are not under five, nor above fifteen Years of Age; and provided the Master or Friends of the aforesaid Servants, and Fathers or Friends of the Pensioners' Sons, do find them, at their own Charge, Books, Pens, Ink and Paper Sufficient for their Learning. And it is hereby expected and required that the said Schoolmaster Shall keep the said Youth under a Strict Discipline, and give them due Correction for every Fault that appears plain to him; and when any of these his Scholars are absent, to give Notice thereof to their Masters, Parents or Friends, that they may be chastised for their neglect by them or himself.' The schoolmaster was ordered, in addition, to provide reports on his pupils' progress, to give a mathematical lecture once a fortnight to all who might come to hear it, and to hold his school as near as possible to Chatham church or the dockyard.2s The troubled times of the late sixteen-forties did not leave the Chest totally unscathed, although it seems that its officers had the foresight not to leave money where it might be found. From 6 April, 1649, comes the entry: 'This day all the Writings which were heretofore in the Iron Chest were removed into the Land Chest; for that in the Insurrection in Kent the Iron Chest was broke open by Colonel Wild and his Soldiers in Expectation of Monies there. ' 29 Under the year 1688 is the entry already referred to, which is a copy of the letter transmitting to the governors James !I's Order in Council giving all 'fines, amerciaments and pecuniary Mulcts' for the better support of seamen belonging to the Chest. The letter is signed, 'By His Majesty's Command. S. Pepys' ,3o There are few case histories of the pensioners among the extracts from earlier minutes noted in this book, although we learn that in 1641 the pension of a man in slavery with the Turks was ordered to be paid to his wife until his return. Unlike most later friendly societies, the 2s 1bid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 272 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 Chest does not seem to have made much provision for widows. In 1632, it was noted that widows were only to receive relief briefly after a husband's death, and then only in cases of great necessity. In 1672, it was laid down that a pension was not to be paid to anyone who was a ble to maintain himself with out one. The eighteenth-c entury memoranda contain some tables of rates of compensation, the loss of a leg above the knee or of an arm above the elbow being rated at £8 per annum in 1704, for example, while in 1731 the loss of the thumb on either hand was compensated at the rate of £4 a year. Lesser injuries, known as 'small hurts', were compensated with a lump sum. By 1802, pensions varied between £4 and £20 per annum. The smaller pensions seem to have been considered a heavy drain on the Chest, and there are several references to buying them off.31 The number of pensioners was not a constant figure, and naturally rose considerably during and just after a war. In 1763, there were 3,022 men receiving pensions, in 1783, 3,434, while in 1803, in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, when the Chest management was transferred from Chatham to Greenwich, there were 8,364 pensioners on the books.32 Printed blank certificates were in use from 1689 for the purpose of making claims on the Chest in respect of wounds received while serving in the Royal Navy. The wording on these began as follows: 'These are to certify the Worshipful the Governors of the Chest at Chatham for the Relief of hurt and wounded Seamen in their Majesty's Service that - aged about - Years was wounded on board their Majesty's Ship the - by receiving - on the - of - in the Year - being then actually upon their Majesty's service in - .'33 The word 'certificate' seems to have become, in common parlance, 'smart ticket', and the phrase had come into general use, for the document relating to a man's wounds was known as his smart ticket. 'Regulations relating to Smart Tickets to be observed by Surgeons of Ships and Hospitals' were copied out in an entry for 1740. Smart tickets and smart money are both referred to in the Naval Enquiry of 1803, although while a smart ticket could entitle a man to either a pension or a lump sum in compensation, the latter only seems to have been understood by smart money. In 1772, there is what appears to be a contemporary entry in the book, signed by several sets of initials. It is headed 'Resolutions to lessen the expences of the Chest', and calls for stringent economies of a somewhat parsimonious nature . These include reducing pensions 31 Ibid. 32 PRO: ADM 80/75. 33 PRO: ADM 82/128. 273 S.B.BLACK deemed to be too large; stopping them altogether for 'small hurts' and in those cases where men could manage without them; refusing relief to anyone whose smart ticket was made out seven years after the hurt was received; and no longer allowing trusses to ruptured men. In addition, there was a note that the Chest estates were not to be visited too frequently, and then only with five governors, 'and to be cautious about repairs'. 34 B y this date Greenwich Hospital, the third of the principal benefactions for seamen on the waterways of Kent, had been in existence for three-quarters of a century. It had been founded and endowed at the very end of the seventeenth century by letters patent of 1694 and 1695, both recited in an Act of 1696, which was for 'the increase and encouragement of seamen'. By this Act provision was made for seafaring men of all kinds, including mariners, fishermen, bargemen and keelmen, to register themselves for his Majesty's sea service in time of need, and this was linked with the newly-founded Hospital set up in the old palace of Greenwich 'for the relief of seamen, their widows, and children, and an encouragement of navigation', to which such registered men would have access. The Act also provided for the Hospital to be supported by 6d. a month taken from all seamen's wages.35 Throughout their joint history, deductions from wages for the Chest were around double those for the Hospital: by the late eighteenth century quarterly deductions from the pay of each seaman over 18 amounted to 3s. 3d. for the Chest and ls. 8d. for the Hospital. The relief provided by each institution was probably commensurate with this: clearly, the Hospital could not provide for the thousands of pensioners supported by the Chest. There must initially have been some confusion, however, over this dual provision of services. An entry for 1712 in the Chest memorandum book notes that the Admiralty Office had written to say that Chest pensions should cease when seamen were admitted to Greenwich Hospital. Although the Naval Enquiry of 1803 was to describe Greenwich Hospital as supported by sixpences deducted from the wages of seamen in the merchant service, an examination of the pay books of the principal dockyards throughout the eighteenth century shows that such deductions were regularly made from the pay of all men in ships belonging to the yards' 'Ordinary', that is, from men in the Royal Navy.36 34 Ibid. 35 7 & 8 Gul. III, c. 21. 36 See here PRO: ADM 42, e.g. ADM 42/7, 42/81 (Chatham, 1697 and 1790); ADM 42/1051, 42/1138 (Portsmouth, 1697 and 1801). 274 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 In spite of what seems to have been a certain amount of competition from Greenwich (witness the attempt, in 1709, to divert fines and mulcts to the newer foundation), the Chest at Chatham would appear to have held its own throughout the eighteenth century, its very heavy business being transacted either at the Hill House, or, from about the middle of the eighteenth century, in the Chest Room, at Chatham.37 When it was taken over by Greenwich in 1803 it was being managed by two supervisors and nine governors, the supervisors being the then Comptroller of the Navy and the Resident Commissioner of Chatham Yard, and the governors, the two Masters Attendant and the Master Shipwright of Chatham Yard, two boatswains, two pursers and two gunners 'of First and Second Rates in Ordinary at the Port of Chatham'. The supervisors, who were unpaid, were responsible for superintending everything connected with the Chest, controlling the governors, taking final decisions in Chest matters, and generally promoting the interest and welfare of the institution. The governors' duties were outlined by Lachlan McLean, the Chest's accountant, in 1803 as follows: 'Their Duty is, to be present at the viewing and examining of all maimed and Wounded Seamen; to inspect the Smart Tickets, to determine with the assistance of the Surgeons what Sums should be granted as Pensions, or what should be paid as full Satisfaction in proportion to the hurts received, to direct and superintend all payments of Money, to visit the Chest Estates and see that they are kept in proper repair, to solicit for the Money required for the General Payment, and other services of the Chest, to examine all disbursements and Accounts, to inspect the Certificates of Life and Powers of Attorney, and, in short, to give whatever assistance may be necessary for the benefit and advantage of those for whose relief the Chest was established,'38 These far from sinecural positions were unsalaried, but the seamengovernors (i.e. the pursers, boatswains and gunners) received 1 ls. 8d. a day for their actual attendance at every meeting, monthly and general. Monthly meetings, which began on the first Tuesday in the month, and continued till all the business was finished, were mainly for the admission of pensioners and the granting of compensation to those not allowed pensions due to their having suffered 'small hurts'. The general meeting was annual, and began on the third Monday in June, when all the pensioners were paid their y early pensions and any arrears due to them. The hours of attendance were from 8 in the morning until 37 The Hill House at Chatham was the local Admiralty House from c. 1567 to 1720, and then the Navy Pay Office until c. 1750. See F. Cull, 'The Hill House (1567-1805)', Arch. Cant., lxxviii (1962), 95-109. 38 PRO: ADM 82/130. 275 S.B. BLACK 2 in the afternoon, with no holidays observed, and the general meeting did not end until all the business was transacted. The Chest's principal officers were served by a small staff, consisting of an accountant, a 'cheque on the Treasurer of the Navy', two surgeons, an attorney, two clerks, a doorkeeper and an assistant doorkeeper, and a messenger. All these posts carried various duties with them, in some cases fairly arduous, with related remuneration. The accountant was a purser of the navy, obliged to be present at all meetings and visitations, to enter the orders and conduct the correspondence. He was, of course, responsible for handling all outgoings, as well as receiving rents from the Chest's estates and dividends on funded property. The post carried a salary of £100 per annum, plus five guineas travelling expenses for visits to town, and 2½ per cent commission on income from the deputy remembrancer of the Exchequer. The curiously named Cheque on the Treasurer of the Navy was in fact responsible for ensuring that the Chest received its dues from the Navy Pay Office. Resident in London, he was the chief clerk in the Comptroller's office for seamen's wages, charged with examining and adjusting all deductions from wages intended for the fund. It was his duty to charge these amounts to the treasurer, and to arrange for the transmission of the money to Chatham . H e also had to keep an alphabetical register of all smart tickets issued by ships' surgeons, and return this monthly to the governors; to keep an alphabetical book of all pensioners, which noted their injuries; and to attend at the general meeting at Chatham. For this he, too, received a salary of £100 per annum, together with another £6 annually towards travelling expenses. Of the two surgeons, one was the resident dockyard surgeon, who received no additional remuneration for his attendances, while the other, resident in the neighbourhood, was paid a salary of £70 a year. The post of attorney, remunerated at the rate of £30 a year, plus the usual fees, was filled by a local man, who was required to attend the governors whenever legal advice or assistance was necessary, to visit the Chest estates with the governors, and to handle leases and agreements with tenants. All the principal members of staff were elected by the governors, as vacancies arose. Both doorkeeper and assistant doorkeeper had specific tasks. The doorkeeper was clerk to the masters attendant, and at monthly meetings attended the governors, read the warrants and issued tickets to old pensioners who had been re-examined. At the annual meeting, frequently referred to as the General Payment, he was in charge of the Hurt Book, calling out the time for which the pension was granted in order to prevent frauds. For this he was allowed 3s. a day at monthly meetings, and 1 Os. a day during the General Payment, plus an annual allowance of ten guineas for writing out one of the pay books. The 276 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 assistant doorkeeper served both as usher and steward, receiving ls. 6d. a day for keeping the door at the monthly meetings and 5s. a day at the time of the General Payment, when he had to call out the names of the pensioners, repeating them from the accountant. It appears to have been his duty also to provide a breakfast on such days for the officers, for which he was allowed £5 a year. The messenger, who was a member of the Commissioner's boat's crew, acted as the general servant, delivering messages, lighting the fires, cleaning the furniture and doing such other 'Menial Offices' as might be necessary.39 Such was the routine and the establishment of the Chest at Chatham as it stood in 1803. In that year an Act was passed appointing commissioners to enquire into 'any Irregularities, Frauds, or Abuses which are or have been practised in various naval departments'. Investigations were instigated into, among others, the prize agency, the victualling department at Plymouth, the Sixpenny Office, and various dockyards.4° Chatham Chest, as 'the institution for the relief of seamen maimed and wounded in the service of their country', claimed the early attention of the commissioners, and was the subject of the second of their reports out of a total of ten, issued over a period of two years from May 1803 to February 1805. It is noteworthy that no abuses were found in the running of the fund itself. The commissioners noted: 'In the minutes of the proceedings of the governors, the transactions relating to their trust seemed to be fully detailed; and we must do those who are at present in office the justice to observe, that their accounts appeared to be kept with great regularity. '41 Indeed, the conduct maintained by the Chest and its officers would seem, on the basis of the lack of any evidence to the contrary, to have been on this high level throughout its history. But as in any large institution at any given time, there were areas which an outside investigator might point to as susceptible of better management. It was unfortunate that Edward Soan Twopeny should have stated before the Naval Enquiry Commissioners 'that the estates were never surveyed previous to his becoming the attorney of the Chest' .42 All the evidence points to considerable attention having been paid to the estates throughout their history, and surveying as an essential part of estate management would seem to have come to the fore only towards the end 39 Ibid. 40 43 Geo. III, c. I 6. 41 Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates during the 3rd Session of the 2nd Parliament of the United Kingdom ... , Vol. 4, 15th January -12th March, 1805 (1805), Appendix, Parliamentary Papers, 2nd Report of the Commissioners of Naval Enquiry: Chest at Chatham, 891. 42 Ibid., 889. 277 S.B.BLACK of the eighteenth century. It was also clearly not difficult for the Commissioners to point to leases granted some years ago and bewail the fact that 􀁊hey had been let out so low. It was evidence of this nature which resulted in a largely undeserved verdict by the Commissioners on the manner of handling the estates, although even they could only couch this in general terms, speaking of the 'mismanagement and general want of improvement in estates belonging to public bodies, more especially where the managers of them are frequently changed.'43 I n addition, a system was detected whereb y landlords of neighbouring public houses in Chatham preyed on unsuspecting pensioners by acting as agents for them when they came to attend a monthly meeting, particularly if they arrived too late for one and had to wait for the next - an abuse which would seem to have been outside the direct control of the Chest and which, indeed, had been revealed over twenty years earlier by Captain Thomas Baillie, the then Lieutenant Governor of Greenwich Hospital, as an abuse fostered by the Hospital itself.44 The location of such an important fund at Chatham was pointed to as a disadvantage, and the slightly greater proximity of Greenwich to the metropolis was felt to give it a considerable advantage. In the event, the transfer of the business of Chatham Chest proceeded with what could well be termed indecent haste. Without waiting for the report of the Commissioners of Naval Enquiry into the running of the Sixpenny Office (which was in effect an enquiry into the financial administration of Greenwich Hospital), the recommendation that Chatham Chest should be taken over by Greenwich was made and implemented. The second report, on the Chest, appeared on 4 June. That on the Sixpenny Office did not appear until 9 August, uncovering, when it did, a host of abuses both there and at Greenwich (and providing perhaps the first official support for the unfortunate Thomas Baillie, whose whistle-blowing revelations in 1778 had resulted, as so often happens, in his dismissal from his post).45 By then, however, the first meeting of what was termed 'A Court of Supervisors of the (newly established) Chest at Greenwich' had already been held at the Royal Hospital for Seamen: the more prestigious foundation had at last overtaken its humble rival.46 43 Ibid., 891. 44 Capt. Thomas Baillie, The Case of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, containing a Comprehensive View of the Internal Government; In which are stated The several Abuses . . . (1778). 45 Thomas Baillie, A Solemn Appeal to the Public from an Injured Officer, Captain Baillie, late Lieutenant Governor of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich ... (1779). 46 PRO: ADM 67/258, Court of Supervisors of 5 August, 1803. 278 THE CHEST AT CHATHAM, 1590-1803 The speed with which the new machinery was put into operation lends weight to a suspicion that the decision had been taken beforehand to terminate the Chest at Chatham, and to transfer its assets and affairs to Greenwich . In place of the pursers, boatswains and gunners receiving a humble 1 ls. 8d. a day for their attendance, there were now to be five permanent directors, chosen from among the ranks of captains and lieutenants, and receiving salaries of £60 each a year.47 The integrity of the handling of the affairs of the Chest at Chatham had perhaps been due to the very fact of 'the affairs of the Chest being administered by a fluctuating body, removeable every year, and actually changed in two years', but the Commissioners found this 'open to many objections', remarking that 'the constant and minute attention necessary to secure the due administration of so great and extensive a trust, obviously requires that it should be executed by a distinct board, composed of men of diligence and ability, and constantly resident on the spot. '48 Such a statement blandly ignored the Chest's fine history of two hundred years of responsible administration, by seamen, for seamen. It was not allowed to pass without criticism. The Gentleman's Magazine for July 1804 carried a review of a pamphlet entitled Strictures on the Second Report of the Commission of Naval Enquiry under the Abuse Act . .. relative to Chatham Chest, written by 'an old and late Governor of that Institution', which was described in the review as a vindication of the governors of the Chest.49 The writer appears to have emphasised in particular the improvements made over the years to the Chest estates, with the cost of these borne by the tenants of the farms, and the irony of a now quadrupled establishment at Greenwich in place of the decreased expenditure which had been promised. By 1804, however, the take-over was an established fact: a number of Courts of Supervisors of the Chest at Greenwich had already been held, a new building to house the Chest at Greenwich, agreed at a cost of £4,500 but which soon escalated to £5,000, was in course of erection, and a new establishment had been appointed - at decreased salaries, it is true, but all of which had to be raised within a very few years; indeed, the meagreness of the wage initially offered made it very difficult to find a suitable person to take on the recreated post of doorkeeper. so 47 Cobbett's Debates, Appendix, 2nd Report, 897-8. 48 Ibid., 894. 49 Gent. Mag., 74 (1804), Part 2, 656-7. so PRO: ADM 67/258. 279 S.B. BLACK Over the y ears since its establishment Greenwich Hospital would seem to have attracted far more criticism than Chatham for the waste and profligacy of its management, and, as has been indicated, in the Fifth Naval Enquiry, in 1803, somewhat disingenuously entitled 'The Sixpenny Offi ce', but which w a s i n fact an enquiry into the administration of Greenwich Hospital, the Commissioners found considerably more to criticise there than they had at Chatham. Around the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth any institution generating large sums of money was unlikely to escape the interested scrutiny of the state. It seems quite possible that Chatham Chest was sacrificed to Greenwich because it was too successful rather than because it was a failure. Certainly, on the basis of the surviving evidence, it would seem an unwarranted slur to have suggested that the pursers, boatswains and gunners who assisted in handling so large a fund over so long a period had not been 'men of diligence and ability'. 280