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This page is part of a website based
on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander
with any comments or queries. |
NAVY SOURCES
All information at National
Archives (PRO) unless otherwise notified.
Contract information
Contract information, Cort
& Jellicoe etc: ADM49/120,121 etc
Some detail on earlier
Attwick contracts: ADM106/912,939,943,1118,1126,1145
Additional contract
information at Caird Library, National Maritime Museum:
POR/A/26-35 warrant books
POR/F/19 Navy Board letter book
Naval service:
pay, agents etc
ADM25, ADM22 and ADM32-35 all
include a column to record the name of an agent.
Half-pay records:
ADM25. Between
or after spells of service, officers and some lower ranks go on "half
pay" (not always half of full pay).
Payment twice a year. You can
trace how clients of Thomas Bell proceed via Thomas Batty (1761) to Henry Cort
(1763). Note how the half-pay roll
expands as crews are laid off following Seven Years War end in 1763.
Widows' pension
books: ADM22. Payment
once a year. Remittances small compared
with officers', hence collected by agent's clerk. Earliest record for Henry Cort in ADM22/75.
Ship's records
Most useful in following navy
careers...
John Becher: Jersey/Ambuscade 1758,
St Albans 1776, Eagle (ADM51/293), Ariel 1778, Camilla (ADM52/1633), Nautilus
1778.
Michael Becher: Centurion 1749,
Torbay 1757, Goree (ADM51/4200).
James Hackman (murderer's
uncle): Hazard 1755, Mermaid 1758, Launceston 1762.
William Hackman (murderer's father): Devonshire 1747,
Fougeux 1749.
George Hamilton: Porcupine
1758, Squirrel/Richmond 1759.
Thomas Morgan: Launceston 1766,
Russell 1777, Alfred 1781, Ville de Paris 1782.
Valentine Neville: Orford 1755,
Namur 1760, Yarmouth 1764.
Coningsby Norbury: Furnace
1742, Gibraltar 1744, Looe 1745, Hampshire 1755.
Ship's pay:
ADM33(32,34,35)
Shows agent. Each volume covers several ships. Pages dilapidated.
Ship's company
musters: ADM36-37
Covers shorter period than
ADM33.
Ship's logs:
ADM51 (captain), ADM52 (master)
Plenty of information on location
and action.
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Departed this life Wm Thomas Norbury, Second Lieutenant. From
log of HMS Hampshire, 12 June 1760. |
Fired 19
Minuet Guns at Captn Beecher's
Funerall. From log of sloop Goree, 27 December 1760 |
Extracts from
Stores Reports: ADM30/44
Useful information about the
activities of ship's pursers. Page 173 reveals an early link between Cort
and the Becher family.
Navy bills: ADM18
Particularly useful for
following the careers of Navy Office employees like
Adam Jellicoe.
Other archives of
interest
For accounts of naval
battles, intelligence, etc, admiralty records ADM1-3 may hold useful
information.
The early careers of some
navy officers can be traced with the help of their commissioning records,
ADM107.
Reference
books
Most of
these can be found both in the PRO library and in the Caird Library at the
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK.
The Commissioned
Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815 (3 volumes, authorship not
acknowledged) is a list
which probably succeeds in covering all officers over the period. Each entry quotes name, date of
commissioning, and dates for advancement in rank. Date of death is included if known.
More detailed information on the careers of some naval officers
can sometimes be obtained from Charnock, Biographia Navalis (1798) and
Marshall, Royal Naval Biography (1823).
Much of the information about
the Navy’s part in the American War has been obtained from James, The
British Navy in Adversity: A Study of the War of American Independence
(1926) and Syrett’s two books The Royal Navy in American Waters (1989)
and The Royal Navy in European Waters (1998). Coverage
of the war in James's book is greater in breadth, but less in depth, than in
the two by Syrett. Written so much
earlier, it is both less accurate and less helpful in quoting its sources.
N.A.M. Rodger, The Wooden
World, gives useful insights into the way the Navy was run in the
eighteenth century.
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RELATED TOPICS Cort’s experience
as navy agent John Becher and
the American War Thomas Morgan
and the American War The Arethusa,
Sandwich and Keppel |
henrycort.net
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