"How The Royal Navy Fed Its Sailors Over 200 Years Ago" Topic

"An army marches on its stomach, and while a Navy sails on the sea, its sailors still need feeding. In the 1790s and early 1800s, the Royal Navy had to provide rations for over 100,000 men, with no refrigeration, modern preservatives, or packaging. This proved to be a difficult task, but one which the Victualling Board tackled head on, providing their sailors with a hearty, if not diverse diet.

To better understand how the sailing men ate at the time, let us take a single ship as a case study.

In 1800 HMS Arethusa and her 280 men were sailing out of Portsmouth and had full access to the Admiralty's stores. As she was so close to home, her crew would likely have eaten by-the-book rations, with very little being substituted due to scarcity.

Of the 280 men, each of the ordinary sailors were formed into messes. This was the necessary administrative grouping of sailors, but functionally, it was with whom they ate. Each week a man from each mess would be made the mess cook. He would assist the ship's cook, collect and prepare his mess's rations. His day started early, to produce breakfast…"

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Amicalement
Armand

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Hornblower," said the chief commissary, "that you allowed your men to eat fresh beef? A bullock a day for your eighteen men? There must have been plenty of ship's provisions on board. That was wanton extravagance, Mr. Hornblower. I'm surprised at you."

-- C. S. Fororester, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower

TO be fair, the food was probably a lot better and more nutritious and filling than anything they got on land.

They received 3 square meals a day (yes their plates where square and that's where the expression comes from) washed down with 8 pints of beer a day (or equivalents).
Their calorie in take was between 5 and 6000 calories a day and they'd burned it off.
Remember the man power on board a sailing ship is'ts engine room and gun crews,

Thanks for this!

tkdguy…."wanton extravagance"….yes, remember that….I use it every so often….gets a good laugh…

Glad you enjoyed it my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

I'd like my eight pints of beer NOW, please. With me grog ration on the side.

Excellent article.

What's that being roasted/turned on a spit in the front of the stove?

Part of a Pig…?

Amicalement
Armand

Where historical fiction is indeed fiction…

The answer to the question as previous posters have said is "often, well and far better than they would have had on land".

There is an excellent book on the subject by Jane MacDonald and although not very varied they are getting a diet with a calorific value not far short of a modern athlete.

It is one of the hidden advantages of the Royal Navy at the time that the crews were better fed, healthier and able to sustain the incredible physical effort of fighting at sea for longer.

When you read Nelson's operational letters from the Trafalgar period, the vast majority of them are related to the day to day business of keeping the fleet fed and watered.

Best wishes,

Mark Barker

Most navies – by that point – had learned the need to keep the crew well fed. The major concern beyond merely getting them enough, was making sure there was some fruit in the mix, or at least citrus juice, to control scurvy.

Reading the Aubrey/Maturin novels, thanks Armand

DELETED……….

A votre service mon cher ami!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Sailing warships may have been wind-driven, but the amount of human muscle power required to manage, sail and fight such a vessel was very great indeed. Three-deckers of the sail era (perhaps 200ft in length) carried crew complements as large as those of a WW1 Dreadnought.

BTW, anyone interested in comparing the diet (prescribed diet at least) of French sailors circa 1780 can find full details in Boudriot's "Seventy Four Gun Ship", down to calorific equivalents.

B