Pressgangs, Conscripts and Professionals
Just checking in after getting back from Portsmouth where nodbear and I had a fab weekend at the National Museum of the Royal Navy's Pressgangs, Conscripts and Professionals Conference. It was a much smaller conference than the Port Towns Conference we were at last month, however what the audience lacked in size, it more than made up for in eminence! Both Brian Lavery and N.A.M Rodger were there along with two retired admirals, a head of department from Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth and a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Marine Corps :}
The conference papers were all excellent, several were by doctoral students undertaking large scale statistical analyses of musterbooks and naval records, but there were also some brilliant papers on the role of evangelists in reforming the navy, the use of uniform and clothing as recruiting tools, the history of the Wrens, and "balladry, naval recruitment and the language of patriotism in 18th century Britain". The majority of the papers were on the sailing navy but somehow I ended up chairing a session about 20th century and contemporary naval recruiting, which is a subject I know absolutely zilch about!
nodbear and I presented a paper on the naval and merchant service of two of the Indefatigable's Scottish midshipmen which seemed to go down rather well. We got lots of questions and N.A.M. Roger seemed to be genuinely interested that we presented evidence that rather contradicted the accepted historical view that Pellew was only concerned with promoting the sons of powerful political friends and allies. So if we've gone some way to help reform Ned's reputation among the proper naval historians we'd be very happy bunnies indeed :)