num_pages: 416
description: Brian Lavery, one of the pre-eminent historians of the Royal Navy, turns his acute and wide-ranging analytical eye on to its lower deck' the world of the seamen as distinct from the officers of the quarterdeck'. If not totally overlooked in the grand narratives of the Senior Service the lower deck is often only noticed when it is a problem. Seamen are difficult to recruit, sometimes they mutiny on board ship, they are liable to drunkenness or venereal disease, they tend to desert, or to behave in a feckless manner.For the first time in a dedicated volume Royal Tars presents the authentic voice, life and social history of the lower deck. The ways in which, in a tightly controlled environment, it asserted its independence of authority and as part of this, established a strong and vivid culture with its own scale of values, language and rituals. Presented in an accomplished anecdote-led style based on diverse first-hand accounts, rare letters, primary documents and a careful examination of naval practice and regulation, the volume seeks to convey the character of the seaman, from the medieval navy through to the post-Trafalgar long peace. It explores the seaman's skills and daily routine, his living conditions and dress, his attitudes to those set over him and the regulations they made, and the experience of battle as seen from the gun deck or the fighting top.
language: English
title: Royal Tars: The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy, 875-1850
publisher: Naval Institute Press