Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor. Life on the Lower Deck of the Victorian Navy

Michael Joseph, London, 1977. VG/VG dj is not price-clipped. pages are a tad tanned to extreme outer edges of textblock. no inscriptions or marginalia. 1st edition. The ordinary British bluejacket served faithfully and cheerfully all over the world, from the snows of the Arctic to the malarial swamps of the tropics. He fought the Queen's enemies, on land and sea. He chased pirates and slavers. He went on long voyages of exploration and surveying. He served in open boats in all weathers and he braved the dangers of disease, storm and shipwreck. Yet his life on board was hard, his punishment brutal, his pay low, his food and living conditions abominable. He had no proper career structure, no official uniform, and very few rights at law. As the century went on, the Navy was slowly reformed - though most of the reforms were bitterly fought by the Navy itself. Steam came and sails went. The old wooden walls were replaced by iropclads. Flogging was abolished, the rum ration reduced, pay increased. The sailor had libraries and canteens on board, savings banks and sailors' rests ashore. Frog.: one ballads and music-hall songs, from Victorian inelodrania, and advertisements, from admirals' dispatches and memoirs, from ships' logs and from sailors' own diaries and reminiscences, John Winton has recaptured the flavour of life on the lower-deck of the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century and the rise in the sailor's status. By 1900 he had become the darling of the Victorian public, who all loved Jack