Musical Jack Tars - Brass bands on board Royal Navy ships in the 19th and early 20th centuries
Journal: Humanities Commons CORE (Modern Language Association / Columbia University)
Year: 2020

From the middle of the 19th century Royal Navy warships, especially the larger vessels, often had bands aboard. These were generally brass, with occasional woodwind instruments and/or fiddles. Their ongoing upkeep was usually the responsibility of the individual ship's officers with a modicum of support from the Admiralty. This paper lists some of the known ships' bands and their activities, although information about them is even more sparse than that for civilian, land-based bands of the same