Wheat Googling #7

How do I create a slightly less classist naval hierarchy?

Good morning!

Over the last few weeks of googling, the crew of the ship in my game has changed massively. I had originally imagined it as being roughly the same as the crew of the Endymion (the ship on which it’s based) - about 300 people, a handful of officers, a sawbones, and a few carpenters and sailmakers. Now, I have a crew of 87, 60 of whom have to be available to crew the six watches I have invented. The remaining 27 people have to cover the full time therapist, bard, medical team of five, and all the warrant and command officers. So today’s mission is to figure out what career progression in my fictional navy actually looks like.

And I want to come up with something that allows me to think about class. In my game, I have done my best to create a world free from most forms of prejudice - there’s no sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, racism. That’s because at the moment, these things just make me feel tired. I suspect at some point I’ll want to write something that allows me to engage with some of these issues more deeply, but right now, I want to imagine a world where they just aren’t a thing. Class, though, is something I am currently thinking about a lot. It’s something I think is often overlooked in art because most of the people who work in the arts are from middle class backgrounds. In the scripted arts - film, TV, radio - where I’ve done most of my work so far, only about 8.5% of people are from working class backgrounds. That means that the vast majority of depictions of working class people you’ve seen in films, on TV, on the radio, were written, directed, and produced by middle class people having a bit of a guess.

I want to think about class, and hidden barriers, and this feels like the right project to consider it. For one thing, class is basically integral to an Age of Sail setting, with its two distinct cultures: the upper class officers’ mess, and the much larger working class crew. For another, the modern navy has, I discovered, made a bunch of really proactive and surprisingly effective attempts to change this.

What did the British Royal Navy do?

A British frigate in the early 1800s was highly stratified. Where you ate, where you slept, and who had to call you ‘sir’ was assertively enforced. I have tried, but I can’t improve on this brilliantly clear chart I got from Wikipedia that shows all the relative ranks.

By Kirhess - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6444431

I can’t fit all that information into the alt text, so here is a screen-reader friendly version of those parts of the chart that are relevant to this discussion.

Top: captain

Senior wardroom officers: lieutenants, captain of marines, master

Junior wardroom officers: lieutenant of marines, purser, surgeon, chaplain

Cockpit mates (officers in training): master’s mates, surgeon’s mates, midshipmen, clerk

Warrant officers: master, purser, surgeon, chaplain, gunner, boatswain, carpenter, armourer, ropemaker, caulker, master at arms, cooper, sailmaker

The chart marks the cockpit mates in green, and notes that irrespective of their nominal (mid-to-low) rank, they were considered to be officers in training, and often referred to as “young gentlemen” to emphasise the class and prospects differences between them and the other senior petty officers.

It is important to note that, technically, it was possible for any ordinary sailor to rise through the ranks from seaman to captain (see Thomas Cook for an example). But during the period of the Napoleonic Wars things got more classist, and it became increasingly hard to pass for lieutenant if you could not also “pass for a gentleman”, as they put it. That is, be from the upper classes.

What were warrant officers?

Basically, warrant officers were sailors who had been granted a warrant to perform a special job on the ship: surgery, gunnery, and carpentry are three of the big ones. And, presumably because it was pretty vital that these roles were done by people who really knew what they were doing, their warrants were granted by a vocational board. A surgeon’s warrant was appointed by the Board of Surgeons, the gunner’s by the Ordnance Board, and a ship’s carpenter had often spent years qualifying as a shipwright before going to sea. Essentially, warrant officers were a highly skilled middle rank between officers and ordinary sailors.

I completely love this fact. In a service that had inherited a rigid class system in which the small group of people actually in charge of the ship were drawn from the upper classes if not the actual aristocracy, they did at least have the sense to make sure that the level below command was made up of people who definitely knew how to do their jobs.

What does the Royal Navy do now?

These days, about 30% of commissioned officers in the Royal Navy started out as ratings (ordinary enlisted sailors). A pretty dramatic improvement on the 1800s. And, having looked at their brD 3 (giant book of rules), it looks to me like this figure is the result of a sincere and protracted effort to make the service more meritocratic. I especially enjoyed this line, which is about helping sailors who want to gain a commission:

b. Encouragement. Candidates are to be given every encouragement, help and advice to reach the required standards.

There are multiple schemes available for ratings at different professional stages to get onto officer training. If you are a basic rating, you can apply at any time, and you will be in competition with everyone else who applies from outside the service. If you already have a specialism and rank, you can apply to a separate scheme and, if accepted, you acquire a commissioned rank and level of seniority appropriate to your years of service - no danger of warrant officers with 15 years’ professional experience getting shoved in as Midshipmen. If you’re a Senior Command Warrant Officer, you go in as a lieutenant with three years’ seniority.

They also have libraries aboard, and people whose job is to support the crew’s additional learning desires. The books include fiction and general interest of course, but also GCSE textbooks and books about naval leadership. This latter was followed by this comment, which I enjoyed:

Whilst the temptation may be to place books on a shelf in the Wardroom, it must be stressed that the intent is to provide access for all.

Both the intent and the temptation here are instructive, I feel.

Of course, what it says in the official guidance may not be representative of what actually happens. In particular, I think it’s significant that all paths from rating to commission require the support of your commanding officer, which could be a problem if your commanding officer is a snob.

Still, intentions can tell you a lot. Especially because nothing about this document makes me think it is intended as a PR stunt. It is full of impenetrable acronyms and sub-paragraphs. And what can tell you even more is that 30% figure. I wonder how many other fields have 30% of all leadership roles filled by working class people. A research question for another day.

What shall I do?

I’ve settled on a system that is about halfway between the 19th century navy’s, ‘technically it’s possible to get promoted to captain’, and the modern navy’s, ‘no, seriously, we’ve put loads of work into making this actually happen’. I am going to do this by making two major changes to the way my navy works.

1. All officers must hold a vocational warrant in addition to their commission (I’ve never liked the idea of people being trained exclusively for ‘being in charge’ anyway).
2. All sailors are actively encouraged to train for a warrant, and all sailors with a warrant for a Senior Vocation are may attempt to pass for lieutenant.

The Seven Senior Vocations

The chiefs of these seven vocations mess in the wardroom. You must choose one of these if you want to pass for lieutenant.

• Navigator (master)
• Medico (surgeon)
• Bard (in charge of knowing what to do on land, and culture and entertainment stuff)
• Gunner
• Carpenter
• Alienist (psychiatrist)
• Purser

There are eleven seats at the wardroom table. Before it can set sail, a ship must have at least one chief for each of these vocations, a bosun, and at least three lieutenants. Ideally, the lieutenants and bosun will not also be required to be the chief of their vocation, because they won’t have a lot of time to do that role alongside their other duties. But this is flexible and depends on who the captain can get at the time. If a lieutenant/bosun doesn’t end up also being the chief of their vocation, it is important that they have a competent mate to delegate a lot of the work to.

All this should create a system that sounds meritocratic on paper, but in practice will still allow a pernicious class system to hold sway. This is largely because out of these seven professions, only two can be acquired purely through apprenticeship: carpenter and gunner. The other five require a university education. And, unlike the modern Royal Navy, my fictional navy will not fund a university degree. So if you are from a working class background, it’s scholarship or bust. And scholarships are rare.

I’ll add a few other soft barriers too. Lieutenants’ uniforms are expensive and have to be bought from a licensed shop; if you hold a carpenter’s or gunner’s warrant, the Captains on your interview panel are likely to be more sceptical of you. And, of course, you can’t even apply without your own captain’s blessing. All this is, I think, enough to make it so that although technically all these roles are equal, the majority of commissioned officers come from middle or upper class families.

Naturally, I have made a chart…

You should be able to zoom in on this to render it legible.

Career trajectories

My aim here is to come up with something that allows for a familiar setup for those who already like Age of Sail novels (which always have teenaged Midshipmen running around), and which is more meritocratic than the historical reality, but not as meritocratic as it might seem.

Age 14 - 17 - Youngster: You can enlist as a rating (ordinary sailor), or if your family is wealthy or well connected, you can sign on as a Mid. In both cases, you’ll get a pretty good general seafaring education, but in the latter, you’ll get opportunities to shadow all seven chiefs, and formal lessons in the basics of all seven vocations. You’ll also be invited to dine in the wardroom sometimes, and you’ll have a different uniform. There will be an assumption on board that you are aiming for a commission. NB: the captain can promote ordinary ratings to the mids, but numbers are limited and this is discretionary.

Age 17 - 21 - Apprentice: You are encouraged to pick a vocation and train for your warrant. Most mids leave the sea for three years at this point to study for one of the upper class vocations, though all of them have to come back for a certain amount of vocational training as well. Most ordinary ratings choose gunner or carpenter if they are particularly skilled or ambitious, or one of the less challenging warrants (sailmaker, cook, armourer etc.) if not. Many are happy to remain as straightforward shiphandlers, or prioritise a purely sailorly profession such as becoming a yeo of the sheets, or a captain of a watch.

Age 21 plus: Junior warrant officer: At this point, most people who chose to study for a vocation are ready to apply for a junior warrant. I’ve based this on the older concept of a journeyman - someone who is past apprentice stage, but not yet a master. This is sufficient for any blue or green role on the chart below the row with the alienist’s mate on it. The two bottom rows don’t actually require a warrant, but are almost always filled by someone who has one.

Age 25 plus - Senior warrant officer: This stage is not essential. If you want to, you can apply to the relevant board for a senior warrant. This usually involves some kind of exam, though in the case of some of the more practical vocations this can be a practical exam, and testimonials from your captain and department head. You get more money and respect than the junior warrant officers, though your actual job might look pretty similar. This step is a requirement for holding a ‘chief’ role or above.

Age 25 plus - Lieutenant: Also not essential. If you have a warrant for one of the seven vocations, you can choose to attempt to pass for lieutenant.

Age 25 plus - Chief: Also not essential. If you hold a warrant for any vocation, you can apply to be the chief of that vocation. This is an appointment, not a rank.

I’m quite happy with this I think. Cosmetically, it will look familiar: posh teens running around in fancy uniforms, skilled working class artisans, occasional promotions from the crew. And in subtle ways the upper class will still be holding onto its advantage, not least because every aspiring lieutenant in my fictional world will have to stand in front of four captains who will be able to tell at a glance if they are ‘one of us’.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Grace xx

PS: Which vocation would you choose? At present only three are available for players to choose in my game, but if there is a popular one not on my list, I might add it.

Next time

Having finalised the crew, next time I want to show you the diagrams I’ve drawn for the different decks of the ship - and explain why I chose the ship I did as a model.

This week’s interesting link

Sue Diamond’s PhD thesis about the difficulties of being promoted out of your class.

A really interesting, and very accessibly written, analysis of the problems you can face if you are promoted to commissioned officer rank but not of the same class as most of the people you are suddenly sharing a wardroom with.

Right now, the project for which I am doing most of my wheat googling is a choose your own adventure IF game I’ve been commissioned to write for Choice of Games. You can find out all about it, and play the 60K word demo, here.

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