PART TWO
Read on, otherwise - go to home page - and restart
Warrant officers were called 'Sir' by
their subordinates and 'Mr' by their superiors and pre 1949, many of their
number were saluted by all those junior in rank to them. The navy salute of 18th
and 19th century was quite different to that of the 20th century when just the
right hand is used and touching ones cap as a sign of diffidence had been
abandoned. These plates 
are taken from the Boys Training Manual of Seamanship 1880 and the QRAI of that
year too, and tell of the rules for saluting. The navy had many obscure
rules and customs, some of them extant to this day, which can cause confusion.
As an example, I will expand on the name Mr as used in the navy. As I have said,
Mr is used officially for speech and for writing by an officer senior to the
warrant officer being addressed. In Victorian times, the word Mr was used
by officers senior to lieutenants to address lieutenants socially [they
were called lieutenants officially] and I found that in 1918 this was still the
case. More research revealed that the style is on-going at least up to 1980, and
if you read the following reference source {"Titles and Forms of
Address" published by A and C Black [Publishers] Limited of London ISBN 0
7136 2072 2 states the rules} you'll recognise that you need a refresher
in etiquette. Additionally, and from the same source [1980] all ranks below a
lieutenant are addressed as Mr both for speech and in writing, officially and
socially, exactly the same as for the warrant officer. Thus, the sub lieutenant
shares the same comprehensive style with a warrant officer, even though the
latter is not commissioned. The style Mr was used for all in the gunroom and for
warrant officers, but as the navy changed and modernised for the twentieth
century, the rules of etiquette, or more specifically the rules printed in books
of reference, didn't! However, the Oxford English Dictionary tells us
that Mr ............{"Until
the latter half of the 17th c. the title was often written in the full form
master; but there is reason for believing that from the 16th c. it was, at least
in rapid or careless speech, treated proclitically, with consequent alteration
of the vowel of the first syllable. (See mister n.2 1, quot. 1551.) Eventually
the word came to have the weakened pronunciation whenever it was used as a
prefixed title, and it became customary to employ the abbreviated spelling
always for this use, and for this only. Hence at the beginning of the 18th c.
master and Mr. were already regarded as distinct words. Cf. mister n.2, which is
merely an occasional (chiefly jocular) rendering of the pronunciation of the
word of which _Mr.' is the accepted spelling. The early history of the
application of Mr. is identical with that of the use of its fuller form: see
master n. 21. From the 17th c. it has been the customary ceremonious prefix to
the name of any man below the rank of knight and above some humble but
undefined level of social status, except where usage requires the substitution
of some honorific title, such, for instance, as those denoting military and
naval rank. As with other titles of courtesy, the inferior limit for its
application has been continually lowered; at the present day any man however low
in station would be styled _Mr.}
All officers, including warrant officers, had their function/duties/uniforms explicitly described in KRAI and QRAI [respectively, Kings Regulations and Admiralty Instructions when the monarch was a king, and Queens when not] which governed every conceivable aspect of the royal naval and was considered to be the R.N., bible.
Then as now, warrant officers started
as lowly ratings at the foot of the lower deck ladder, so we must take a quick
look at the rates they would have held on the way up. {For
a look at boys, as the WO would have probably started his career as one, click
on this picture 
and start reading from half way across the second line from the top. {servants
pay rates are shown on this page} Then
look at BOYS
TRAINING IN THE LAST HALF OF THE 19TH
CENTURY and
BOYS
TRAINING IN 1903].
In 1860 all Royal Navy ratings were dressed in square rig which was introduced
as standard in 1857. Before that time what sailor's wore was not necessarily
uniform vis-à-vis what other sailors wore. The same applied to officers
uniforms. A well-off, stylish officer would have his tailor create a
uniform specifically designed to follow the fashion worn by gentlemen in places
like London. Uniformity was very much the choice of a captain of ship for
his crew, or for the senior and rich officer wanting to make his personal mark.
By 1880 chief petty officers had shifted into fore and after rig for the very
first time, leaving just the two classes of petty officer and junior rates
dressed as seaman. Admiral Fisher got rid of the 2nd class petty officer in the
first two years of the twentieth century. Petty officers shifted into fore
and aft rig in 1920. Even up to and including the mid-1960's, a petty officer
would wear square rig for his provisional year [acting time] and shift into fore
and aft rig on being confirmed in the rate. The following plates best
signify Rates and their Status throughout many of those Victorian years.
| LOOK @ GIBSON Robert. The right hand plate above is rather sad. Warrant officers could be awarded the LSGC medal and were allowed to wear it as long as they had the qualifying time on the lower deck before being promoted officer. This man was obviously promoted to Acting warrant officer whilst relatively young and one assumes that if he had been confirmed a proper warrant officer in normal time, he would not have been awarded his 'gong'. However, as you see, he had 15 years on the lower deck for substantive rate reasons, and therefore qualified. What a sad state of affairs for the poor man! |
This is the dress for a chief petty officer in 1870 at a
time when only small badges separated men dressed as seamen from one another,
and here are those badges. 
1880
lower deck [ships company] dress regulations Incidentally,
to the un-initiated, the stripes, or badges as we call them in the navy, which
form part of the chief petty officers badge in the picture below are
commensurate with a chief petty officers age and length of service, but are not
part of his rate badge: that being the crown, the foul anchor and the laurel.
Those same three badges could have been added to any of the three other rates
shown because they represent time spent in the navy measured from when aged 18
years, one for each four year period to a maximum of three. 
The man below is 
enough
to put the fear of God into you! Here, you can enjoy looking at this Chief
Gunnery Instructor [Chief GI] without fear of him 'biting your head off'. This
picture shows the dress of a chief petty officer Seaman and chief petty officer
Stoker in July 1896 {when this man joined in 1867 chief petty officers were in
square rig}. 
Note the simple cap badge, rather like a
petty officers hat badge of today; the slits to the rear of the cuffs and the
two buttons sewn onto the slits, and the jacket showing three button. By 1890
{NAVY LIST 1890 pages 502/503} Chief petty officers of all branches {artificers}
except Seamen and Stoker, were wearing three buttons on each cuff. 
Plates
showing the uniform regulations for the CPO in 1900. On the right hand plate,
ignore the small amount of text top left above the title of CPO......
All uniforms had four buttons, or space
for four buttons. Officers actually had the four buttons, but ratings not
dressed as seamen, had three buttons on the right side with a button hole only
where the top button would have been, and the top button on the left hand side,
though sewn on, was always hidden under the collar flap. This was the start of
three buttons on the jacket front for ratings {chief petty officers and below
and from 1972 fleet chief petty officers/warrant officers} and four for all
other officers. A senior CPO
worked his way up to become a warrant officer but it took a long time and was
usually 'into dead man's shoes'; however, as one would expect, those with
outstanding abilities made it early whilst still young. As you will read a
little later on, ones chances of promotion to the wardroom from the lower deck
without first going through the warrant rate [and then only a few of them at
that] was literally impossible in one period which lasted for 50 years, and
virtually impossible at other times.
This is a first class petty officer of the same period 
and a second class petty officer 
and what about this fine old second class petty officer 
? A Coastguardman was not what you may think. The coastguard were active
royal navy men and indeed were responsible for royal navy recruiting {see sign}
. Notice his single killick [a type of anchor] with a crown above. 
Another piece on the coastguard men. 
We now say goodbye to the men on the
lower deck. They were not treated too badly considering what was happening
to countless thousands outside the dockyard gates, and although their treatment
was harsh by modern standards, being in the navy during this period protected
the men from often total and utter deprivation. Before we do, look at this very
special picture 
and if this one doesn't fill you with admiration [or just plain old amazement]
try this one 
Lower deck titles were much the same
as they were in my day {from 1953 onwards} - boy 2nd class, boy first class,
ordinary seaman, able seaman - plus the rates shown in the picture above, but
they were biased towards the seaman branch with executive officers representing
the equivalent on the upper deck. 
When
a CPO was not qualified in either gunnery or torpedoes this anchor is the badge
her wore on his jacket collar. Compare it to the size of the anchor a leading
seaman wore on his left arm - both thumbnails have been set at 8%
In those days though, boys, in particular, but others also, were
'different' from my time. In my time, young boys came from one
source only and that was HMS Ganges [HMS St Vincent entries were older, past
their 16th birthday on joining and were known as 'juniors' not 'boys'] but in
the late Victorian period, boys in the fleet came from many different training
ships each claiming to be better than the other, and many a senior officer had
his preferences and demanded boy's from the school he patronised. After
the second world war when Ganges returned to its function of training boys,
Ganges boys' were acclaimed to be the best [I was one in 1953] but whether they
were or not, they were the only true boys, they having joined at age 15¼.
After 1850, engineers,
artificers and stokers had been recruited to man the steam/sail iron-clads, but
were at that time an unknown factor. These
additional men made a moderately difficult system for officers and men into a
complicated one. Both sides of the deck, upper and lower, were in a
continuous state of flux, and even without these additions, we have seen
how complicated the officer corps was with some of its members commissioned and
other not. The men, or more correctly the lower deck, but always known as the
ships company were a mixture of petty officers and seaman. Petty
officer, was an all encompassing term, and one was borne on the ships book as
just that. For purposes of employment, skills and qualifications, one was
either a chief, a first class or a second class petty officer. 
The
picture here shows the chief class and the first class petty officers in HMS
Blake in 1896. Note over to the left a first class petty officer wearing fore
and aft rig. Men were allowed to change rigs providing they did so
entirely at their own expense, only getting back their money when the Admiralty
actually confirmed the change of rigs. With money so tight, few could
afford to do it. Today of course, the
phrase "petty officer" has become "senior rate" but first
and foremost, today's men and women are Warrant Officers, Chief Petty Officers
or Petty Officers, and then their employment skills and qualifications are of
secondary importance. Officers had a status not used today, where
subordinate officers lived in the gunroom, and lieutenants and above lived in
the wardroom. Lieutenants meant any officers between two rings/stripes and
three, so what we call a lieutenant commander today, was a lieutenant in those
days. 
Look closely at the stripes on the cuff of the officer standing at the left of
this picture. He has 1½ and without the curl. This dates from 1902 and tells us
that he is an Assistant Paymaster of 4 years seniority. So, not all
lieutenants had two full rings, some having a ½" ring on the bottom and a
¼" ring on top, and this system is still used in the USN when the officer
rank of lieutenant is suffixed JG, meaning Junior Grade. Other lieutenants had
2½ stripes [2 x ½" + 1 x ¼"] which they wore when they had been a
two stripe lieutenant for 8 years. The term lieutenant commander didn't come
into being until 1914 yet lieutenants had been wearing 2½ stripes since
1877. As from 1914, for social reasons, the lieutenant commander was
addressed as commander in speech. 
Plates
showing uniforms in the second world war. These are important to the story
because they show the rank of warrant officers after they lost their buttons in
October 1918 and the rank of lieutenant commander dating from 1914. The
plates were relevant until 1949 when the rank of warrant officer was withdrawn.
The plate on the right is not technically correct for it should have included
'commissioned warrant officer' under the sub lieutenant column.
Staying on the same theme, there is
another set of plates further on in the story which explains one of two
anomalies, like, for example, how it is possible to have the same number and
configuration of stripes for a rear admiral and a first class commodore.
Look for this sign ***
The term "officers" meant all officers
who wore either rings/stripes on their cuff or three buttons [warrant officers
and midshipmen although the latter were styled subordinate officers]. So,
when the ships crew were to assemble for prayers, funerals, colours ceremony,
photographs etc., warrant officers, whether commissioned or not assembled with
the wardroom, and petty officers irrespective of class, with the men [the
seamen], fell-in as the ships company, or just plain 'company'. Whilst quite
naturally, today's chief petty officer would take offence at being called or
considered as a petty officer one rate below him, as would a lieutenant
commander being addressed as a lieutenant one rank below him, the term
"admiral" is still used to address any officer who has attained flag
rank between rear admiral and admiral, and it would be bad style to address a
rear admiral [a junior admiral] as a rear admiral in speech. You would address
him as admiral just as you would a very senior admiral proper when speaking to
him, but when writing to him, you would address the envelope Rear Admiral Flint
and begin the letter with either Sir, less formally with Dear Sir or socially
with Dear Admiral Flint. Notwithstanding good manners of course, my point is
that a senior admiral doesn't take offence at some newly promoted captain being
called an admiral, even though each is separated by three levels of rank.
Approximately ten years after the introduction of steam and the iron-clads, the navy had polarised itself into groups to accommodate steam technology but the overall plan despite much concern, had not changed much from the pre-steam days. The officers structure looked like this: CLICK HERE.
It is not part of my story, but the
introduction into the wardroom of engineering officers was like a replay of the
days of wardroom status warrant officers [Master, Purser, Surgeon and Chaplain]
in that the wardroom of the 1860 period, found them socially unacceptable. The
engineers were socially naive, engaged in artisans talk, tended to undermine
learning and knowledge [though of course they had goodly amounts of each for
their own needs] by their pragmatism. Moreover, the engineers were recruited in
many cases direct from engineering jobs in civilian life and had, as it were,
jumped the naval ladder [in both the gun room and the lower deck] and were, to
say the least, considered as upstarts. For good reasons, historians and
authors almost to a person, take the road of following famous naval officers and
the battles they fought as being the yard stick for "Naval History."
When those subjects are exhausted, they start to look for 'domestics' like
mutinies, pay and conditions [especially if by being bad, they cause mutinies]
etc, but if I were to ask you why an ERA, a chief petty officer, has his own
mess and stoker messman, and doesn't mess with other chief petty officers when
afloat, would you know why? If you don't, it is probably because our
raconteur's have never bothered to spread the word. The answer is not a logical
split to fill up all those individual water-tight spaces on the ship or boat.
No, it comes from the 1860's when the navy were absolutely desperate to get
senior engine room and boiler room staff into our warships and would, within
reason, pay the going price to get such men. These engineers knew that, and were
able to 'call the tune' to which the hapless Admiralty had to dance.
First, the engineers demanded high wages and the navy went some way to meet
their demands, until it reached the point where the engineer would be earning as
much or more than the master or a surgeon. Then privileges above his lowly
[but needed] station were sought, when the engineer could take what leave he
wanted once the engines had been rung-off, and a naval uniform for him would be
an encumbrance rather than an asset. As steam became more and more
important ashore for transportation, factories, docks, commercial shipping, the
engineer grew in importance and touted his skills to the highest bidder.
History doesn't show us the list of bidders, but I doubt whether many could
out-bid the Admiralty especially when it was desperate to man the iron-clads,
the most powerful warships of the day. The Admiralty more than met the engineers
demands, and so started a privileged set of sailors. However, the shrewd
Admirals had made their own demands in a subtle way. They offered a package
which, just as today [thinking about the brain-drain], few other employers could
match, which for a return of service [job security], they would get the very
best machinery to play with where money would be no obstacle; money would be
spent on training, and promotion was more or less guaranteed. Their pay was
moderated and other specific attractions were added to their conditions of
employment. 
Firstly, that they were skilled, knew it, were arrogant about it, and looked
down on common sailors, and so their demand for their own mess or living space
with their own steward was met in full. Then this led to them having their own
uniform, but as the uniform regulations were rewritten, they had to adhere
except that badges were not needed for engineers - it was obvious who they were!
- and that they would circumvent the traditional lower deck ladder climbing, and
enter as first class petty officers, soon to become chief petty officers, and
almost as quickly, warrant officers, commissioned warrant officers, and then
engineering officers as lieutenants. That package made every body happy,
and the navy got back to work with the engineers below playing with their
machines, and the mariners up top, wondering whether to set sail or make
smoke? As the Admirals went to bed that day, content that they had 'tamed'
the engineer by making him sign-away his ability to make demands, they decided
that the precedent would not be repeated in the future. Within a matter of
months the boy artificer training programme had begun, and within just a few
short years, engineers touting their skills were ridiculed by the navy, unless
of course they wanted to join-up on Admiralty terms and not theirs.
Now for some pictures just to break-up the story
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| An excellent teaching picture. Front row 1st and 2nd from right - executive and non executive lieutenants over 8 years seniority. Back three left and back two right are warrant officers. Notice 4 commanders, 2 seated non executive plus one executive probably engineer and paymaster, with a second executive commander 3rd from right standing. The ship is HMS DAVASTATION at Devonport | A picture of HMS ARDENT a torpedo boat destroyer late 19th century. Good opportunity to have a good look at officers uniforms in every detail of a LT [over 8] - executive, the CO; LT [under 8] - non executive; Sub Lt and a WO. | HMS BOXER an MTB. This is her full crew. Note 4 officers sitting together with the one on the right a WO. Also of interest, note the CPO [two small button sewn onto split in back of cuff] on left of WO, and the ERA, the first CPO rate to wear 3 buttons on cuff front, sitting on right of left hand seated officer. | ???
A strange one. Three buttons and one thin stripe yes, but wrong cap badge for RN. Possibly another nations navy, or British merchant naval cadets. |
This is a Mr Jones, a
boatswain in Simon's Town Dockyard South Africa.
Offered DQ's or this draft, I think it could so easily have been..."mind your fingers"... |
Christmas 1914. A lieutenant [telescope under arm] and a warrant officer read their mail from home. Alongside them is a rating and all three are wearing their great coats suggesting that they are on duty. Note rum barrels. The rating with the great coat also has a brief case and it appears that it is he who is handing out mail from it. | HMS WARSPITE. Rear Admiral Claude E Buckle and staff. Excellent view of a frock coat being worn by a warrant officer on the left. | The normal daily dress for an officer of the late Victorian era. Mr Gibbs has been a warrant officer for 10 or more years. | A Gunner [warrant officer of over 10 years seniority] supervises the maintenance of user checks on a secondary armament. | Posted here to show you a good picture of a MAA of those days. Note no three buttons on cuff but two small ones sewn onto a slit in the back of the cuff and the badge - NP and crown [Naval Police] NOT Naval Patrol as it might be today |
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| Executive officers of HMS TERRIBLE | Non executive officers of HMS TERRIBLE. | The Engineers of HMS RODNEY. ERA's have three buttoned cuffs but chief stokers have two small buttons sewn on to the split at the rear and bottom of their cuff the same as seamen CPO's | TheOfficers of HMS CAMBRIDGE | The flag-captain is His Serene Highness [HSH] The Prince Louis of Battenburg, Lord Mountbatten's father. The flag lieutenant is a lieutenant under 8 years seniority and the admiral's secretary is a non executive civil branch lieutenant also with less than 8 years seniority | Young budding engineers | It is obvious that 5 of the 6 officers standing are warrant officers, and it is possible, because he looks elderly, that the lieutenant standing could have been a former commissioned warrant officer. Northumberland was a training ship. Taken in 1901 | Text attached to picture is self evident. | A group of 1st and 2nd class petty officers | Members of the CPO mess
and not a cuff button in sight, except for the two small ones at the
back of the split cuff. The scattering on 2nd class petty officers were
'mates'.
See description of 'mates' at the bottom of these photographs. |
These three pictures [added
in January 2007] are relevant to our story. Adrian Wright, who very much
wanted a naval career, spent most of his working life working with and
directly for the navy in the front-line support unit WSTG [Weapons
System Tuning Group] and therefore has experienced some aspects of life
at sea with the "grey funnel" line and is fully familiar with most of
the naval weaponry. Adrian who now works as a volunteer in HMS
Collingwood's Museum is extremely proud of his grandfather, and for
good reason too, for he was a Commissioned Torpedo Gunner, a man much
respected by all in the ships company and often feared by those who did
not pull their weight or meet the high standards of discipline demanded
by the navy of those far off days. This is a photograph of his
grandparents with Adrian's father standing in front of his father.
If you look carefully at the right sleeve of grandpa's jacket, you
can see one cuff button and the ¼-inch
stripe above it, and note also the four buttons on the front of his
jacket.
The next two pictures are respectively of the front and back of Form S 447, the form used to record the results of a board convened to exam a rating for the rank of warrant officer. 
Such a document is very rare today and
it is worth looking at it in some detail. I have mentioned in these pages {for example, see above to the text just below the sketches of badges} that there was a period when many bright young petty officers and leading hands were allowed to become warrant officers, jumping the queue of 'old and bold' chief petty officers who got to be warrant officers [eventually] simply because of their length of service and a 'clean' but an uninspiring Service record. By the time Lawrence William Wright had served just 11 years and 165 days [of which 4 years and 354 days had been on a sea-going ship - not a lot of sea experience] he had sat and passed the Examination Board for Warrant Officer Torpedo Gunner. 'Fast-track' is the expression which would be used today. However, this early promotion meant that Lawrence did not have enough time on the lower deck to qualify for a Long Service and Good Conduct Medal or the bounty which came with it! Each of the Board Members from four different ships [in the presence of the Captain of HMS Duke of Wellington] signed the Form, one commissioned and the other three warrant officers themselves. However, before that event took place, two weeks earlier, a Naval Instructor [a school master - today called an Instructor, also of HMS Duke of Wellington] had signed the Educational Certificate on the back page of the Form, certifying that he was numerate and literate to the level required for a warrant officer. Lawrence William Wright served another eighteen years [30 in all] in the Royal Navy retiring as a Commissioned Warrant Officer Torpedo Gunner. |
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Mates.
A commonly used word in the navy and in the dockyards. The old three 'standing
officers', the warrant officer Gunner, Boatswain and Carpenter [of whom much of
this story is about] chose men who they liked as people and who had proved
themselves able, trustworthy and reliable, to help them run their department.
The senior warrant officers, the Chief Gunner, Boatswain and Carpenter who were
commissioned warrant officers, chose number two's who became known as "The CHIEF
BOATSWAIN'S MATE" etc. The Boatswain, a rank below the Chief Boatswain
also had his number two, known as "The Boatswain's Mate" etc.
When a large ship had both a Chief Boatswain and a Boatswain embarked, the
BOATSWAIN'S MATE worked under the supervision of the CHIEF BOATSWAIN'S MATE.
When the ship had just a Boatswain, his mate assumed the importance of a Chief
Boatswain's Mate à la as in a large ship. In today's navy
the Chief Boatswain's Mate is a CPO, known as the BUFFER, in charge of
seamanship and ship husbandry, and the Boatswain's Mate is a junior rate,
usually a seaman, tasked to run the gangway of a ship alongside, or at anchor
with a sea ladder rigged. Boatswain's Mate is best known for his blowing
of the boatswains call or whistle, which is a 'sound' salute to senior officers
and a means of communicating pre ordained orders, like go to work, have your
dinner, put the lights out and go to sleep, in a small ship. In a
large ship or shore establishment we would hear a royal marine blowing a trumpet
to convey the pre ordained orders.
BELOW,
YOU WILL MEET ANOTHER MATE, THIS TIME A LIEUTENANT'S MATE, WHO WORE A SUB
LIEUTENANT'S STRIPE AND CAME FROM THE LOWER DECK!
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A |
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14.
Samples of the many pages of warrant officers published
in the Navy List covering all Branches with warrant officers in 1914.
Note plate 3 with the many acting warrant officer gunners although this
applied to all branches. A list of abbreviation is published in Part One
as a Snippet. |
BONANZA |
 15  16 Recruiters. The forerunner of
the CS Lieutenant.  17 - we often hear about Flag
Lieutenants [Lt Cdr's or Lt's] and sometimes Flag Captains, but rarely,
if at all, Commanders and Lt Cdr's.  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30. Plates 18-30 are ships of
the 1st word war. This series of thumbnails shows the history of
some of our shore establishments and ships: e.g., Plates 32a and b
charts the start of HMS Dolphin and what she was originally.  31  32a  32b  33a  33b  34a  34b  34c {34 went on to be HMS St Angelo
in Malta}.  35a  35b  35c  35d {35 became Whale Island HMS
Excellent}.  36a  36b | ||