Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815
Blue Lights and Psalm-Singers
Richard Blake
The Evangelical Admiral Gambier, notorious for distributing tracts to his fleet in a theatre of war, is commonly seen as a misfit in a fighting service that had scant time for fervent piety. In fact, the navy of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars showed a level of religious observance not seen since the days of Queen Anne. Evangelical laymen provided one dynamic for this change: concentrating first on public worship, they moved to active proselytism in search of converts amongst sailors, and in a third phase developed a loose network of prayer groups in scores of ships, uniting officers and seamen in voluntary gatherings that transcended rank.
This book explores the effect this new piety had on discipline and human governance, on literacy, on the development of chaplains' ministry and on the mindset of the officer corps. It also looks at the larger question of how its values were absorbed into the ethos of the navy as a whole. It draws on sources both familiar and unusual - logs, letters, minutes, memoirs, tracts and sermons, Regulations - to explain how evangelical influence affected officer corps, lower deck and Admiralty, showing how a movement that began by promoting public worship at sea became an agency for mass evangelism through literature, preaching and off-duty gatherings, where officers and men met for shared Bible reading and prayer a mere decade after the great Mutinies.
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DETAILS
14 b/w illustrations
1 line illustrations
Pages: 336
Size: 23.4 x 15.6 cm
13 digit ISBN: 9781843833598
Binding: Hardback
First published: 20/Mar/2008
Price: 95.00 USD / 50.00 GBP
Imprint: Boydell Press
Subject: Modern History
BIC class: HBCR
STATUS: Available
Details updated on 09/02/2010
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Contents
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Introduction
| 1 | |
A Century of Neglect and a Call to Revival
| 2 | |
The Genesis of a Movement: Middleton, Kempenfelt and Ramsay
| 3 | |
Gathering Momentum: Divine Service at Sea in the Later Eighteenth Century
| 4 | |
The Blue Lights during the French Revolutionary War, 1793-1802: A Change of Emphasis
| 5 | |
Developing the Ethos of the Officer Corps
| 6 | |
The Impact of Evangelical Enthusiasm on Fighting Determination: Quarter- Deck or Organ Loft
| 7 | |
Evangelical activity on the lower deck: The Psalm-singers
| 8 | |
Evangelicalism at the end of the Napoleonic War: A Flare in the Darkness
| 9 | |
Bibliography
| 10 | |
Index
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Reviews
Well-researched and thoughtful. NAUTICAL RESEARCH JOURNAL
A splendid book [and] a pleasure to read. [.] A rich and sound account. CHRISTIANITY & HISTORY BULETIN
Those interested in early modern naval history, especially the social and cultural side of sea life, will be stimulated by a cruise through Blake's well-written sea of words. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MARITIME HISTORY
At last, an authoritative book, impeccably researched and beautifully written, which illuminates a feature of naval history ignored by naval historians. This is a book which no serious student of naval history can afford to ignore. SURGEON VICE-ADMIRAL SIR JAMES WATT KBE (Rtd)
[This] is the first book to tell an important story: we know a lot about the victories of Nelson's Navy, and we know something of Wilberforce and the early Evangelicals, especially as opponents of the slave trade, but few people realise how much the two overlapped. [...] Religious history and naval history are usually conceived as quite unconnected subjects; this lively and fascinating book shows that neither can be understood without the other. PROFESSOR NICHOLAS RODGER
At a time when cultural studies of Britain's maritime history are becoming more prominent, any book which takes seriously the role of religion should be warmly welcomed. Historians have perpetuated a myth that naval piety was unusual; Blake presents a wealth of evidence that it was widespread. [A] pioneering work. THE NORTHERN MARINER
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