Honest Ben, 1786

Honest Ben, printed by C. Sheppard, 1786, Bodleian Library Broadside Collection.

Today's entry in the sailor's farewell trope is a broadside ballad sang from the throat of a sailor heading gout to see. Ben shares a "parting glass" with his love Sue, while the boatswain calls for him to repair to the ship.

This is one of the very few images I have found explicitly depicting a boatswain. I can confidently say that this is the bosun depicted here, because unlike many engraves of broadside ballads, C. Sheppard appears to have custom illustrated his rather than reusing the same engravings for multiple songs. Unfortunately, the publicly available digital scan of "Honest Ben" is not high resolution.

The boatswain waves his rattan toward Ben, beckoning him to the waiting warship. It is difficult to make out much beyond that. It appears that he's wearing petticoat breeches and jacket, but I'm not even positive about the boatswain's hat.

I am slightly more confident about Ben's clothing. He wears a round hat with a conical crown bound in a lighter colored band. His jacket ends at the top of the thigh, features flap pockets, and closed mariner's cuffs. Under his arm is tucked his trusty stick. Ben's trousers end well above the ankle, but I am not sure if they are striped or plain. He also wears white stockings and pointed toe shoes.

Peregrine Pickle Illustrations, 1781

Illustrations from Peregrine Pickle, various artists, 1781, British Museum.

These copperplates were engraved for The Novelist's Magazine and depict scenes in the Tobias Smollet novel The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. The title character is raised by a former Royal Navy commodore and his cohort of mariners. Thankfully for us, several of these cuts depict those mariners in action.

The first scene is the same as that shown in the 1769 edition of the novel that I featured here. Unlike the 1769 edition, the commodore and most of his companions are dressed as gentlemen or officers. This may reflect the observation of N.A.M. Rodger in his history of the Georgian navy: The Wooden World. Officers and men were not as starkly divided in the mid-century as many popular histories portray. The division between them became much more classist and defined by the end of the century. Separated by two decades, these two separate prints demonstrate that in the dress of their characters.

Interestingly, boatswain's mate Tom Pipes is still in the dress of a common tarpawlin. He is hatless with short hair, wearing a single breasted jacket, and carrying a sailor's stick. He wears a pair of slops/petticoat trousers. At his neck is an oddly shaped black neckcloth. This may be the mysterious gorget type badge seen in the 1762 illustration of a bosun featured here. I turned to the Internet Archive, which hosts a digitized copy of the Novelist's Magazine, Volume VI. It has a slightly higher resolution image of this engraving, but not high enough to be definitive.

The next scene gives us a better (and more humorous) image of Tom Pipes: leading children in an attack on a local gardener.

Pipes wears a loose fitting cap, white neckcloth, single breasted white waistcoat without pockets, single breasted jacket with clash cuffs that ends about the top of the thigh, plain slops/petticoat trousers, white breeches, white stockings, and pointed toe shoes with rectangular buckles. In his right hand, raised in defense, is a cudgel.

Tom watches as Pickle exchanges rings with his love. Though relegated to the background, Tom Pipes still has a lot to offer us. His jacket is single breasted, but the artist couldn't settle on a style of cuff. His left arm ends in a buttoned down mariner's cuff, but his right features a small slash. Under his left arm is tucked a short stick, and in his right hand is a cocked hat. At least, I presume it is a cocked hat, it is difficult to tell. Again he wears plain slops/petticoat trousers.

Illustration for "A Favourite Song," 1762

Detail of illustration from "A Favourite Song," in Clio and Euterpre, or, British Harmony, A Collection of Celebrated Songs and Cantatas, Volume Three, page 50, published by Henry Roberts, 1762. Detail provided by Peter Plunkett.

Detail of illustration from "A Favourite Song," in Clio and Euterpre, or, British Harmony, A Collection of Celebrated Songs and Cantatas, Volume Three, page 50, published by Henry Roberts, 1762, Internet Archive.

Piggybacking the Sailor's Farewell trope, "A Favourite Song" plays out the tearful farewell of a steady Jack and his love. She assures the sailor that the enemies of his country are her enemies, too. The sailor is heartened by her encouragement, and the bosun praises the fair wind that will "waft us to the foe."

The sailor is very typical for the era. He wears a plain cocked hat with the point forward, a long neckcloth over his white shirt, no waistcoat, and a single breasted jacket ending about the top of the thigh. His white trousers are loose and end above the ankle. In his right hand is a stick.

What really delights me about this engraving is that it is only the second in my study so far that clearly depicts a bosun.

He wears a reversed cocked hat without tape, bob style hair or wig, a white neckcloth tied as a cravat, and a single breasted jacket with unbuttoned mariner's cuffs and waist pockets. Our bosun's trousers are the same as the sailor on the right,

Two details make this an exceptional image. The first is the bosun's pipe in his right hand. A lanyard runs from the bosun's neck down to the pipe, though what precisely his lanyard is made of is pure speculation.

The second major detail is the heart at his neck. It looks a bit like a gorget worn by military officers. It is illustrated with the image of a three masted vessel. Interestingly, the only other image of a bosun I have come across, an illustration accompanying The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, also shows the bosun wearing a sort of gorget. It was a detail I missed at the time.

I confess, I've never seen nor heard of such a badge. That famous and widely printed satirical pamphlet The Wooden World Dissected identifies but three major symbols of the bosun's position: the pipe, cat, and rattan. Granted, as NAM Rodger warns in his book The Wooden World, it is quite possible that the author of that pamphlet had not actually been to sea.

I'll keep searching, but if you have any idea what this object is, leave a comment below!

Gamaliel Pickle Observes Commodore Trunnion and Lieutenant Hatchway Duel at the Inn, 1769

Gamaliel Pickle Observes Commodore Trunnion and Lieutenant Hatchway Duel at the Inn, Henry Fuseli, 1769, British Museum.

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollet was a popular comedic novel first published in 1751. Peregrine Pickle, the titular character, is something of a prodigal son. Smollet follows Pickle from his youthful dalliances and failings to ultimate redemption and maturity. Early in the story, Pickle is neglected by his family and taken in by Commodore Trunnion. Smollet describes the Commodore as a man who

has a power of money, and spends it like a prince—that is, in his own way—for to be sure he is a little humorsome, as the saying is, and swears woundily; though I'll be sworn he means no more harm than a sucking babe. Lord help us! it will do your honour's heart good to hear him tell a story, as how he lay alongside of the French, yard-arm and yard-arm, board and board, and of heaving grapplings, and stink-pots, and grapes, and round and double-headed partridges, crows and carters. Lord have mercy upon us! he has been a great warrior in his time, and lost an eye and a heel in the service. Then he does not live like any other Christian land-man; but keeps garrison in his house, as if he were in the midst of his enemies, and makes his servants turn out in the night, watch and watch as he calls it, all the year round.

By examining the above image, a frontispiece to the 1769 edition, I'll be departing a bit from the usual focus of this blog. Commodore Trunnion and Lieutenant Hatchway are old sailors, but former officers in the Royal Navy. With a fortune and servants, Trunnion and his cohorts are not common sailors. Even so, they show the rough edges that all men who follow the sea share. By examining their dress and posture, we can say something about how mariners in general were viewed.

As a note, I will not be tagging the clothing of any of the figures in this image except the character who is explicitly described as a common sailor: Tom Pipes.

Trunnion is a globular fellow. His coat is trimmed with turn back cuffs. At his neck we can make out a cravat over the striped shirt or waistcoat beneath. His breeches are bound with buckles beneath the knees, As a nod to the character's description, Trunnion is depicted with a darkened eye, but not a patch as I might expect. Using his crutch, he parries the attack of Lieutenant Hatchway.

Mr. Hatchway strikes at Commodore Trunnion with his wooden leg, but does so with enough of a swing to avoid the punch bowl. He wears a cocked hat bound along the brim, and a neckcloth bunched up about his neck. His coat has open mariner's cuffs, revealing a checked shirt beneath. Hatchway's breeches are tied below the knee, not unlike many mariner's breeches we've seen before. All of this, combined with Hatchway's bob style hair, give us a set of clothes more akin to that of a common sailor than a gentleman.

Tom Pipes is an old boatswain's mate who followed Commodore Trunnion from the sea. Given employment in Trunnion's manor, Pipes finds himself rounding up and herding the servants for their "watch and watch."

Tom is a man of few words, but an excellent hand at a song concerning the boatswain's whistle, hustle-cap, and chuck-farthing—there is not such another pipe in the county—so that the commodore lives very happy in his own manner.

Hustle-cap and chuck-farthing are both simple gambling games.

Boatswain's Mate Tom Pipes wears a barge cap with an upturned front. A similar cap is seen in the collection of the National Maritime Museum belonging to a member of Admiral Lord Hood's barge crew. The Hood barge cap is wooden, and laid over with velvet. Given the way Pipe's cap appears stiff and unyielding, we might assume that his cap is likewise covered wood.

Around Pipes' neck hangs a string bound around a cylindrical object. This might be a bosun's whistle, but looks nothing like the originals I have seen thus far. It could well be that the artist is unfamiliar with bosun's pipes. If that is the case, it strikes me as odd that the artist is familiar with barge caps, but not bosun's pipes. Regardless, Pipes wears a jacket without collar and slit cuffs. Hanging from the corner of his mouth is a clay tobacco pipe.