Tracing a Master Mariner's career

Gradually adding events to an ancestor’s chronology is a satisfying indication of progress made, gaps filled and increased understanding of what made him/her tick. This is happening now in the case of George Henry Caithness, brother of James Ramsay Caithness.

They were both mariners who began their careers at the Lower School, Royal Hospital, Greenwich after the early death of their father, James Caithness. One of the documents pertaining to George’s acceptance at Greenwich is a declaration sworn by his mother, Ann Caithness nee Scorey, in October 1827, stating his birth date to be 5 July 1818.

  

George’s birth year is given as 1817 on his Master’s Certificate issued in January 1851. He was baptised at St Mary’s, Eling, Hampshire on 9 August 1818 and although baptisms were not always immediate it seems Ann’s statement giving 1818 as the year George was born is more likely to be correct.

So George was only about 9 years of age when he was admitted to the Lower School and boys were expected to remain ‘as long as the Directors thereof shall think proper’ - usually till they were 14. They were then ‘at the disposal of the Directors to serve ‘in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, or Merchant Sea Service’: George like his elder brother James was destined for the latter.

Fortunately, details of George’s career after Greenwich are revealed on his Master’s Claim for Certificate of Service, listing names of the ships he served in and the relevant dates. It’s stated that he served as ‘apprentice, seaman and mate from 1830 to 1840 and since that period as master’. Two of the ships he was with in the early years were the Leonidas (home port Southampton), as apprentice, and Comet (home port London), as mate.

As master, his ships from 1843 to 1849 were Rosebud, Schiedam, Victoria, Fortitude and Nizam, with destinations as diverse as America, the Mediterranean, Brazil and Calcutta.

The unusually-named Schiedam is listed in Lloyd’s Register.* The latter is a valuable source when tracing a master’s career, bearing in mind that there may be unexpected variations of a surname: George’s name is given as Cockness, Cartness and Catness, none of these an obvious choice when searching.

The Victoria is also listed in Lloyd’s Register – ‘Catness’ master – and the abbreviation ‘Sw’ indicates she was a Snow, a square-rigged ship similar to a brig but with a trysail mast added. It was in this ship that George experienced the volcanic phenomenon in 1845.

*www.lr.org/about_us/shipping_information/Lloyds_Register_of_Ships_online.aspx

Acknowledgement

Tom Sheldon

A mariner's widow: almshouses 2

From at least 1871, Ann Caithness was residing in an almshouse at Totton. There were four of these dwellings, each inhabited by a respectable elderly person, living alone. Ann’s neighbours in 1881 were two seamstresses and a nurse; Ann, at 85, was the oldest.

The almshouses were in Commercial Road, Totton, as seen in the map below:

Almshouses in Commercial Road, Totton 

As the almshouses haven’t survived and so far no pictures of them have been found we have to rely on descriptions, drawings and photographs of other similar structures. Almshouses were usually built in a row or a traditional three sided square, with a central courtyard. This gave a sense of safety and security without isolating the residents from the outside world; as pensioners they remained part of the community they had lived among for many years.

The term ‘almshouse’ is not synonymous with ‘workhouse’. It’s apparent from online offerings that considerable confusion exists on this matter. The basic distinction between the two is that an almshouse was privately funded as a charitable bequest whereas a workhouse was financed by public taxation.

Almshouse, Winchester

An almshouse was a lovely place to live, a workhouse was not. An almshouse was provided as sheltered housing for deserving aged individuals specifically designated by the benefactor and administered by a trust. A workhouse was set up by the Parish or, prior to the passing of the Poor Law Amendment in 1834, by the Union, and was the last refuge of the desperate.

Almshouses –  one of various terms including bedehouse, maison dieu, hospital - have an ancient history going back to monastic times in the 10^th century. After the dissolution of the monasteries many of the medieval hospitals disappeared but others were rebuilt and run as secular accommodation for those in need.

Perhaps the best example in literature is Hiram’s Hospital as described in Anthony Trollope’s novel, The Warden:

In the year 1434 there died at Barchester one John Hiram, who had made money in the town as a wool-stapler, and in his will he left the house in which he died and certain meadows and closes near the town …for the support of twelve superannuated wool-carders, all of whom should have been born and bred and spent their days in Barchester; he also appointed that an alms-house should be built for their abode … the twelve old men received a comfortable lodging and a small stipend under the will of John Hiram.….

There has been some debate as to whether Trollope based Hiram’s Hospital on St Nicholas’s, Salisbury, or on St Cross in Winchester.

St Nicholas's, Salisbury

Pawnbrokers' Almshouses
Forest Gate

Sometimes almshouses would be provided for people of a particular occupation. Examples: the Free Watermen and Lightermen’s Almshouses in Penge, Kent, built in 1840-1841 for retired company freemen and their widows; the Pawnbrokers’ Almshouses, Forest Gate, built in 1850.

The Free Watermen and Lightermen's Almshouses, Penge

In the volume of the Victoria County History pertaining to Eling and Totton it’s mentioned that in 1786 parliamentary returns refer to ‘a house, then vested in the churchwardens, given to the poor by a Mrs Moody. It was used as almshouses for four widows until 1860, when the houses were burnt down.’ Interestingly, the first reference to the almshouses at Totton is dated 1861 and is about fire insurance, a concern perhaps prompted by the disaster which overtook Mrs Moody’s almshouses.

A typical row of 19th c almshouses

  

Almshouses at Chipping Norton

Acknowledgement:

Tom Sheldon

Mariners: Caithness at Greenwich

A Squall, Southampton Water

The Caithness brothers, James and George, lost their father young. James snr had been discharged from the navy in 1814 after serving during the Napoleonic Wars and by the time his children were born was living in Marchwood, Hampshire earning an income as a waterman and ferryman. His death in 1826 left his widow Ann in an unenviable situation without the family breadwinner and with five children to rear.

However, Ann was a resourceful woman and with the help of influential friends managed to get her two eldest sons James and George into the Lower School at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, with a view to their being educated towards a seafaring career.

The magnificent group of buildings beside the Thames at Greenwich must be one of the most recognisable sights in the world; the National Maritime Museum has been situated there since 1934. Greenwich’s maritime history, though, goes back much earlier. King William III and Queen Mary II founded the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich in 1694. Its Royal Charter included provision for the 'Maintenance and Education of the Children of [Royal Naval] Seamen happening to be slain or disabled'. The aim was to create a hospital, to provide support for seamen's widows, education for their children and to improve navigation. 

The Hospital – now the Old Royal Naval College – was built from 1696 to 1751.

Greenwich Royal Hospital

The School began when the Hospital took in ten ‘orphans of the sea’ to be educated in navigation for the merchant service. At first housed in Thomas Weston’s Academy in Greenwich, the Hospital built its own school on King William Walk which was replaced by a larger building in 1782.

In 1798 an orphanage school, The British Endeavour, was founded in Paddington for children whose fathers died in the French Revolutionary War. 

This establishment was granted the Queen’s House, Greenwich, in 1806 and renamed the Royal Naval Asylum, which was later extended to house 800 children (boys and girls). 

By 1821 the Asylum and Hospital School amalgamated as the Royal Hospital Schools.

Greenwich Hospital and Royal Naval Asylum 1820, South Aspect; 
engraved by Henry Wallis from painting by Charles Bentley

Ann Caithness made application for her boys James and George to attend the Lower School in 1827 and surviving records offer a glimpse into their world at the time. 

James and George Caithness would have qualified for admittance
to the Lower School as 'boys whose Fathers have fallen in His Majesty's Service,
whose Mothers are living.'

To be continued …

Acknowledgement:

Tom Sheldon for copies of the Lower School documents