Pressed Seamen

Alex Ritchie · Post by **Alex Ritchie** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:31 pm

Does anyone know if there were records kept of any seamen "pressed" into the Royal Navy off merchant vessels ?

Alex Ritchie

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:28 am

Hello Alex,

According to Wiki impressment to the Royal Navy was legalised in 1563. The theoretical maximum length of service was five years and the practice ceased after 1814. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment

If you search at the National Archives for ‘impressment’ you’ll see a variety of items in the result. If you have a particular vessel or name in mind you could try adding those to the search term. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/sear ... d=True&j=t

The National Archives has a series of Research Guides for the Royal Navy including “Royal Navy: Ratings' Service Records 1667-1923” http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cata ... afletID=39

I’ve no idea whether the RN record would give much in the way of detail as to the prior history of their newly impressed recruits.

There’s a lot of material in google full view and limited preview books and it may be worth a search there using various combinations of terms especially if you have a particular ship in mind. http://www.google.com.au/books?hl=en

Hope that’s useful,
Alan

LATER

There’s a bit more here http://www.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/librar ... mpressment
and
Just in case you’re talking about impressment of Americans by the RN.
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/milit ... -1814.html

Alan

Alex Ritchie · Post by **Alex Ritchie** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:40 pm

Thanks for the info Alan.

I was really wondering if/when a seaman was "pressed" from a merchant vessel whether some form of compensation or at least official acknowlegement was given or received ?
And if there was a record of which vessel he was pressed from.

Alex Ritchie

q98 · Post by **q98** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:37 am

It has long been my understanding that "pressed" seamen were simply entered into the Ships (this being the RN vessel) book. Details were probably date, vessel pressed from, name, rate, division, watch.

Jim McCreadie
Fremantle
Western Australia

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:52 am

On the compensation side of things, the impression I get from reading around is that there seems to have been an attitude that the impressment of a crew of a merchant vessel was to the advantage of the owner and master because the RN provided security for commercial shipping. Also that it was an advantage to the impressed seaman because of the improved conditions on board and the sometimes availability of pensions and other fringe benefits.

“what ship-owner, what mariner, does not know, when he becomes a mariner, that he will be liable to the impress? This is one of the conditions, on which he enters the profession …….” See columns (pages?) 235 and 236 of Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, 1803. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=r6s ... 2&as_brr=1

All the best,
Alan