Feeding Nelson's Navy by Janet Macdonald

Author:Janet Macdonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2014-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

TIMING OF MEALS

Although theoretically the time and duration of meals was at the captain’s discretion, when a squadron was working together such things were laid down by the senior officer. Sir Edward Pellew took over the East Indies squadron in 1805 and put out a general order that said ‘The commander-in-chief…will hoist a red pennant at the main when he makes it noon, that all the crews may dine at the same time… [they] are to breakfast at eight bells [in this case, 8am] and sup at half past five pm.’ This makes good sense: a commanding officer who is contemplating mass manoeuvres wants people available to perform them and since mealtimes were sacrosanct he would want to know when they were. The norm was forty-five minutes each for breakfast and supper and an hour and a half for dinner.17 Pellew stated this and went on to say that ‘the meal times of the people are not [to be] broken in upon’; Nelson remarked in one of his general orders about turning the men up for muster when demanded by the senior officer at a port ‘meal times excepted’, and many captains said much the same in their own order books.18 So we can accept that with the exception of essential watch-keepers such as lookouts or steersmen, who were known as ‘seven-bell men’ because they ate half an hour early, all the crew (ie everyone except the officers) ate together. Mealtimes were piped by the boatswain.

At this point one begins to wonder whether they ate their meat dinners hot. This doubt comes from contemplating the length of time it would take for the meat to cook, and the time it would take the cook and his assistants to serve each mess cook. Obviously this varied according to the size of the ship and the number in her crew – a large ship bearing less than her full complement having less of a problem than one which mustered nearly 100 per cent of her complement – but since we do have some actual figures for Victory, we will continue to use her as an example. During the first year when Nelson had her as his flagship in the Mediterranean July 1803 to June 1804) she was carrying an average of 811 men, so although the officers would not be eating from the main boilers we can say that roughly 800 were. Whether there were still 165 messes, as five years previously, is not known, but it seems likely. On a pork day one boiler would contain pork, the other pease; on a beef day one beef and the other vegetables or pudding. We can say that with fair conviction because the pease, vegetables and pudding would not take as long as the meat to cook and would anyway be awkward to cook in the same pot. Even so, the boilers were going to be pretty full of nets and bags, each of which had to be given to the right mess at serving time.

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