Going Off Watch

"The Sailor's Farewell," Charles Mosley, Date Unknown, National Maritime Museum.

It's eight bells for me, shipmates.

With hundreds of images compiled from a half century period, it's time to reflect. For an indeterminate period of time I will not be posting new images to British Tars: 1740-1790.

This blog is not being retired. I'm merely taking a break to compile the information that I have.

Much of the work I have put into this blog has simply been collecting the images and examining them in and of themselves. While I try to put specific events and images into context, there really hasn't been any dialogue between them.

For us to draw more solid conclusions from the images collected here, there needs to be a broader analysis. I will be compiling my posts decade by decade, then year by year, so that I can view general trends over time. Some of these (like the shape and height of round hats) are self-evident from even a cursory skimming of surviving images. Others, however, require more context.

At some point in the near future, I'll be posting some general assertions about the various decades under examination. It is my hope that these new posts will help us all better understand the appearance and daily lives of common tars in the eighteenth century.