Category: marine missionaries

Smith and the New Sailor’s Magazine

Posted on by hilary.carey

Back to the BL

After a long time waiting for the British Library to recover from the cyber attack earlier this year, it was exciting to be back and able to order in advance. On 4 December, I arrived early and found my orders waiting for me. Thank you BL staff!

British Library

Smith and the New Sailor’s Magazine

This time my principal target was the original – and undigitised – copies of the G.C. (‘Boatswain’) Smith’s issues of the Soldier’s and New Sailor’s Magazine (NSM), which was published by Smith from his headquarters in and around Wellclose Square in London from 1828 and continued, though with many changes of name, until Smith’s death in 1863. I was intrigued because historians have differed over the significance of this journal and Smith’s place in the marine mission movement.

Smith launched the New Sailor’s Magazine as an act of defiance following his dismissal as editor of the Sailor’s Magazine and acrminomious split from the main dissenting mission for seamen in London, the Port of London Society and Bethel Union (PLSBUS).New Sailor's Magazine

According to Kverndal (1986: 271), Smith was entirely the injured party, and had every right to take his talents elsewhere. He argues that Smith had triumphantly created the Mariner’s Church and its numerous satellite welfare and mission work for sailors’ and their families, while all Smith’s dissenting and Church rivals floundered without support or effectiveness. But was it really the case? Is it correct, as Kverndall (1986: 274) states, that the PLSBUS was motivated by sheer jealousy of Smith’s ‘continuing success, coupled with their own diminishing support’?

In fact, this is rather less than the whole story, as I soon discovered by reading Smith’s New Sailor’s Magazine, which proudly proclaimed Smith as the ‘late editor of the Sailor’s Magazine’.

As with all of Smith’s publications, marketing and branding were key features with attempts to entice subscribers and supporters through calls to patriotism, religion and national pride. The first volume included three separate publications, The Soldier’s Magazine and Military Chronicle, aimed at soldiers,  The New Sailor’s Magazine and Naval Chronicle, for supporters of maritime missions, and a monthly brochure for the Sailor’s Asylum and New Brunswick Institution, the precursor to the London Sailors’ Home.

The Soldier’s Magazine was brashly patriotic and included an engraving of Smith’s most important patron, Admiral Lord James Gambier (1756-1833). The cover was embellished with a header including flags, cannon, helmets, a trumpet and drum to the left, with naval emblems of an anchor, sails and masts to the right. Beneath was the logo: ‘Fear God. Honor the King’. It would take a wise reader to realise that the main business of the magazine was not to serving members of the military, but rather former soldiers and sailors of the merchant service and their urban patrons.

The cover of the New Sailor’s Magazine is less showy, but there are indications that Smith’s resources were rather less than he claimed. Unsurprisingly, there are no stories from the PLS and Bethel Union, and Smith instead resorted to publishing the sermon delivered by the Rev. William Scorseby, Anglican chaplain to the Episcopal Society for Sailors at Liverpool. Scorseby would soon become celebrated in his own right, as an Arctic explorer, and patron of Anglican missions to seafarers, especially deep sea fishermen.

With the editorial licence of The New Sailor’s Magazine, Smith would  denigrate the efforts of the Episcopal floating chapel in Liverpool and London, and the successful efforts of Anglican Evangelicals to make a success of the London Sailor’s Home, but for now he was dependent on Church rather than Chapel sources to fill the pages of his new magazine.

BFSSFS debt

The first sign of serious problems for Smith and his enterprises appear with the financial report published in the June 1828 issue of the New Sailor’s Magazine following the annual Meeting of the British and Foreign Seamen’s & Soldier’s Friend Society, or Mariners’ Church & Watermen’s Bethel Union (BFSSFS). While each monthly issue  always included a gratifying and minutely detailed list of all donations, big and small, this was the first set of fully audited accounts, as signed by William Hodge, W.G. Barnard, and R. Ward. These showed that from 17 May 1827 to 15 May 1828, income received had reached almost £2000, but there was a heavy debt of almost £800 for printing, stationers and ‘agents’ salaries’, ie payments to those employed full-time to collect funds for the society. Smith could not afford his grand publications, or his vision for a charitable empire based on the Mariner’s Church, nor could he afford to alienate the wealthier patrons who had earlier flocked to the Port of London Society and its signature floating chapel.

FS Accounts 1827-28

The ‘agents’ salaries’ are a particularly worrying feature of the cash account. They show that about 25% of all donations had been expended in salaries to those responsible for raising funds. Moreover, ‘travelling expenses’ amounted to over £200 – more than a year’s salary for many clergy – much of which would have been incurred by Smith on his relentless promotional and lecture tours. This was not sustainable, and the reality was that Smith’s Mariner’s church enterprise, conducted in belligerent rivalry to that of like-minded dissenting and Anglican Evangelical supporters of the same cause, was a white elephant. Yet Smith continued to attract admirers and donations, which the following year, 1828-29, were reported by the Missionary Register as no less than £3462. Twelve months later, the same journal reported that the BFSSFS debt stood at £1500, inflating to £2500 in 1831 and to £3000 by 1832. (Adjusted for inflation, this is the equivalent of over £420,000 today). This was a colossal burden for any small, voluntary society, even today, but was an overwhelming and alarming liability in 1832. Smith’s solution was to exclude any mention of the debt from the New Sailor’s Magazine,  while continuing to solicit new donations and make a show of transparency by listing everyone who made a contribution.

These were heady days for the marine mission movement, with handsome donations and subscriptions recorded by the Missonary Register (1830: 517) for a range of maritime missionary causes, including £3393 for the venerable Naval and Military Bible Society, £597 for the Merchant Seaman’s Bible Society, and £1700 for the Sailors’ Home. Smith’s main dissenting rival, the Port of London Society received a modest £884, reflecting the competition for support especially in London, but was managing to survive and – importantly – remained solvent.

Smith’s legacy

I have scrutinised Smith’s legacy as the leading figure in the maritime mission movement for an article forthcoming in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Smith’s personality has divided critics, with those from within his own Baptist and dissenting tradition, including Kverndal (1986) and Dray (2013) keen to overlook his financial improprieties. I am more critical, not least because hundreds of people of very small means contributed to the cause, and were entitled to know that their donations were spent helping sailors, not chasing Smith’s grandiose and debt-laden ambitions.

It may not be possible to untangle the details at this distance in time, but there is a smoking gun, and a pattern of over enthusiastic promotion, unexplained or inadequately explained debt, and the reality that Smith would eventually be imprisoned four times for debt.

Sources

Dray, Stephen. 2013. A Right Old Confloption Down Penzance (Carn-Brea Media: n.p.).

Kverndal, Roald. 1986. Seamen’s missions: their origin and early growth (William Carey Library: Pasadena, Calif).

CMS. Missionary Register, 17-20 (1829-1832). Yale Mission Periodicals Online

NSM. Soldiers’ Chronicle and New Sailor’s Magazine, 1-2 (1828-29).

 

Mariners conference sails away

Posted on by hilary.carey

Researchers from across the UK, the US, Europe, Australia and India came together  in Bristol to talk and debate issues of race, religion and empire among maritime workers on 12-13 September 2024. From the conference venue we enjoyed a view of the iconic ss Great Britain and, on Friday, followed guides around Brunel’s landmark iron passenger liner.

Delegates took a tour of Brunel’s ss Great Britain.

Over seven lively panels, we encountered the trial of an enslaved black seaman in Victorian London (Umberto Garcia), the pre-history of the Cardiff race riots (Hassam Latif), and the religious background to Birkenhead’s Mere Hall Indian Seaman’s Home (Haseeb Khan). For the British strand, there was a touching account of the emotional lives of children in sailors’ orphan homes (Emily Cuming), and the place of Roman Catholics in the Royal Navy (Michael Snape). Workers’ religious politics in late colonial Calcutta were discussed by Prerna Agarwal, and Florian Stadtler  considered the unique record of Aziz Ahmad and his mission to lascars in Scotland. Justine Atkinson took us to Australia, and the diverse seamen’s missions in the colonial port of Newcastle, NSW, while Houda Al-Kateb provided a rivetting account of passengers on the ss Great Britain – a great way to introduce us to the ship beckoning out the window. Ting Ruan spoke on lighthouses in China, drawing attention to the extreme disparity in the salaries of European and local Chinese workers. The two teams for the Mariners project presented on religion, race and the lascar body, and the soul of the sailor in missions to British seamen.

Haseeb Khan on Birkenhead’s Mere Hall Home for Indian Seamen.

The final session was made up of panels, beginning with archivist extraordinaire, Claire Weatherall, enlightening us on the challenges of knowledge exchange for archives and archivisrts, with examples from the Anglican Missions to Seafarers collection at the Hull History Centre. Asif Shakoor gave a moving presentation on the lascar legacy from the point of view of a community historian, and Brad Beaven and Valerie Burton enlightened us with wit and accumulated wisdom as maritime and social historians of port cities.

We have grand plans for publication, and hope to gather these rich contributions to maritime and religious history into a journal special issue as well as blog posts and contributions to the Mariners website.

 

Bristol Channel Mission – Bristol Archives

Posted on by hilary.carey

I very much enjoyed getting down by the River Avon to explore Bristol Archives, which is part of Bristol Museums.

The Archives are a welcoming place, housed in B Bond Warehouse hard by the River Avon and the impressive engineering works that created the Floating Harbour. I was there to explore the one surviving Book of Minutes, 1843-1844, for the Bristol Channel Mission Society (BCMS), a forerunner of the Anglican Mission to Seafarers.

BCMS Minute Book
Bristol Channel Mission Minute Book. Source: Bristol Archives, 12168/18.

The BCMS originated in the efforts of the Rev. John Ashley to visit isolated maritime communities in the Channel, as well as the much larger number of ships moored in the Channel’s roadsteads waiting for wind and tide to take them to their next port. A ‘roadstead’ or ‘roadstay’ is a nautical term for a sheltered stretch of water, where it is (relatively) safe to anchor. In the Bristol Channel, hundreds of ships could be found anchored at Kings-road off Portishead, the Penarth roadstead, and other locations in the notoriously dangerous waterway. One sailing guide describes a roadstay near Ilfracombe, which was visited several times by Ashley on his lecture tours on behalf of the mission, in this way: ‘Ilfracombe is a little pier harbour, drying at low water; on its western point is a lighthouse…  [O]utside of the pier there is a roadstead with good anchorage from 5 to 8 fathoms. This part is much frequented by coasting vessels; and pilots generally may be had here to conduct you to King’s-road.’ [J.W. Norie, New and Complete Sailing Directions for St George’s and Bristol Channels (London: Norie, 1816), p.1.]

Although Ashley is usually said to have begun his ministry in 1839, it is necessary to rely on newspaper reports for much of the early history of the mission. According to the Bristol Mercury (one of 13 local newspapers serving the busy port city), Ashley was instrumental in creating the first roadstead mission and trying to reach seafarers afloat and at work. It was through his advocacy that funds were raised for a specially fitted vessel, the Eirene, which was built at Pill to Ashley’s specifications in 1841. The Eirene  served not just to visit ships and distribute tracts, but also as a floating chapel. Along the busy roadsteads of the great Severn estuary, Ashley would preach, deliver sermons in aid of the mission, and advocate on behalf of the merchant seaman. Along the ports of the Bristol Channel, ‘it happened that considerable fleets of 200 to 300 sail were detained by contrary winds in Kings-road and the Penarth-roads’. [‘Bristol Channel Mission’, Bristol Mercury, 6 June 1840]. Most were commercial vessels, serving the coastal trade in goods such as coal, as well as imports from the Americas,  sugar, tobacco, wine and spirits, meat, live cattle, fruit and timber. A lithograph in the Bristol Museums collection, dated 29 November 1843, shows the Mission Cutter Eirene, anchored among these vessels off Penarth, signalling that was time for divine service.

The Bristol Channel Mission Cutter EIRENE. from a Sketch taken in Penarth Roads before Monring Service, November 29th 1843, and Dedicated to the Revd. John Ashley, LL.D> Chaplain to the Mission. By James Edward Fitzgerald.
The Bristol Channel Mission Cutter Eirene, 29 November 1843. Source: Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives. Object Number J129.

Ashley would later write about his mission in these terms:

Truly I pass from roadstead to roadstead here; as a dying man preaching to dying men. Every heavy gale that sweeps the sea buries in its abyss some of the Bibles I have sold, the books and tracts I have given, and in the prime and vigour of life, the men whose hands received them from mine. [‘Missions to Merchant Seamen‘, Churchman 4 ( 1881 ), 329.]

The Minute Book shows that Ashley and the BCMS had high-level support in the city, at least at first. The Society was formed ‘under the auspices of the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol [ie. James Henry Monk] for the purposes of sending a Clergyman to officiate among the fleets in Penarth-road, Kings-road, etc.’ [Taunton Courier, 22 Feb. 1842]. A sub-committee held at Sundon House, on 21 April 1843, was chaired by Charles Pinney (1793-1867), a Bristol merchant who had been Mayor of Bristol during the disastrous riots following the House of Lords’ rejection of the 1831 Reform Bill. Like the Ashley family and many wealthier Bristolians, Pinney is listed in the Legacies of Slavery database, and benefitted substantially from slave labour. Also on the BCMS committee was a future Mayor of Bristol, Thomas Porter Jose (1801-1875), a colliery owner and director of the Ashton Vale Iron Company, and George John Hadow (1789-1869), formerly of the Madras civil service and assistant under collector of sea customs. Hadow was an active philanthropist, and in 1838 also served on the committee of the Bristol Asylum for the Blind.  Sundon House was Hadow’s Clifton home. At the second anniversary of the Society, the meetings was held in the Victoria Rooms, and was chaired by the then mayor of Bristol, James Gibbs. [Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, 6 May 1843].

While Ashley was also on the committee, it is evident from the minutes that things were not all as they should be. For undisclosed reasons, Ashley demanded that the captain of the missionary cutter, the Eirene, be dismissed. While he was able to achieve his wish, it was not long before there was  a parting of the ways.

As the Society’s debts mounted, Ashley and the Committee were on a collision course. Ashley failed to attend the Annual Meeting held in the Victoria Rooms on Thursday 25 April 1844. Money seems to have been the main issue. In June 1843, the Society decided to set the chaplain’s salary at £250 – backdated to 31 March 1843.  Ashley seems to have declared war on the Committee, and began withholding subscriptions, including from the Merchant Venturers.

By December 1844, most of the Committee had had enough, and almost all of them resigned. This removed the treasurer, both Secretaries, W.C. Bernard and Jose, as well as the Committee’s leading cleric, the Archdeacon of Wells [Henry Law], along with seven clergy and seven laymen, including Charles Pinney. Ashley promptly offered to fill up all the vacancies with his own choice of officers, but – unsurprisingly – his offer was not accepted. At this rather exciting moment, the Minute Book ends.

Excerpt from BCMS Minute Book
The BCMS Committee resigns, Dec. 1845. Source: BCMS Minute Book, Bristol Archives.

There are press reports of accusations and counter accusations exchanged between Ashley and the Committee, though the pamphlets distributed by the warring parties have not survived. Perhaps this is just as well. In their reply to Ashley, the Committee quoted scripture: ‘He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.” – Proverbs 18, v. 17 [Bristol Times and Mirror, 5 Feb. 1845]

Newspaper cutting
The NCMS Committee v. the Rev. John Ashley, Bristol Times and Mirror, Sat. 8 February 1845.

So what happened? The Society limped on, and Ashley himself went on an heroic fund-raising tour in 1852, moving from ‘town to town’ to support the cause. Ashley’s tour ended in London where, at a meeting chaired by Lord Shaftesbury, Ashley spoke for three hours on behalf of the mission he had founded. [Morning Chronicle, 11 June 1853]:

But it was not enough.  In July 1856, the Bristol Channel Mission Society held its final meeting. There was a very poor attendance as the Committee explained that the Society would be wound up and incorporated into a new national organisation, based in London [Bristol Mercury, 5 July 1856]. With relief, it was also reported that the new Society would take over their debt of £450.  This included all that was owed to Ashley, who had agreed to resign on being paid his full stipend of £400, an enormous salary by the standards of any other missionary society. By this stage, Ashley had already been replaced by three new chaplains, the Rev. T.C. Childs, well known for his mission to emigrants now extended to seamen from his base at Ryde on the Isle of Wight, for the English Channel, the Rev. C.D. Strong for the Bristol Channel, and the Rev. R. B. Howe for the Great Harbour of Malta. Putting on a brave show, the committee reported: ‘Feeling then that the time is come – that already the adequate discharge of our duty as a mission to the seafaring population of Great Britain is entirely beyond our strength as a small local committee, we propose that this society be now dissolved in favour of the society for promoting missions to seamen at home and abroad.’ [Bristol Mercury, 5 July 1856]

The Missions to Seamen (1856), incorporating both the Bristol Channel Mission Society and the Thames Church Mission Society (1844) was launched under new, more effective management. Ashley himself never recovered from the collapse of his vision, though fondly remembered as a pioneer of the Anglican Missions to Seafarers, and the first to attempt a direct mission to seafarers isolated on the roadsteads of the Bristol Channel. Based on the BCMS Minutes, the mission he pioneered succeeded despite rather than because of his involvement with the cause. However, given the many gaps in the record, it may not be possible to understand the full story.

 

Sources

Bristol Archives, 12168/18. Bristol Channel Mission, Minute Book, 1843-1844.

For accounts of the BCMS and the Rev. John Ashley: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, Bristol Times and Mirror, Bristol Mercury, Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, Morning Chronicle (London), Southampton Herald.

Miller, R.H.W. Dr Ashley’s Pleasure Yacht: John Ashley, the Bristol Channel Mission and all that Followed. London: Lutterworth, 2017. [Available as an ebook here]

Miller, R.H.W. ‘Thomas Cave Childs: Pioneer chaplain to female emigrants and the Missions to Seamen’, The Mariner’s Mirror 106.4 (2020), 436-449.

For older views of Ashley:

Strong, L.A.G. Flying Angel: The Story of Missions to Seamen. London: Methuen, 1956

Walrond, Mary L. Launching out into the deep; or the pioners of a noble effort. London: SPCK, 1904.

 

 

 

 

Researching Lascars: Exploring India Office Records at the British Library, London

Posted on by Lucy Wray

In this blog, Lucy Wray discusses her first archival trip for the lascars strand, where she visited the British Library to explore records relating to the Stranger’s Home for Asiatic, held within the India Office papers.

On the week of beginning 15th May, I embarked on my first research trip to London to explore collections relating to the lascar strand of the Mariners’ project. While I concluded my week in the National Archives at Kew, I spent the majority of my time at the British Library. A trip to the British Library is a delight for any researcher, but I was particularly excited as this was my first visit to the site since my doctoral placement, undertaken at their visual arts department in 2020. Despite being in very familiar surroundings, this was my first experience using these archives to research lascars and my first venture in using the India Office Papers .

Gates at British Library, Image Lucy Wray, May 2023

What was I looking for?

Working alongside Dr Sumita Mukherjee, I conduct research for the ‘lascar’ strand of the Mariners project. Lascar is a term often used for non-European seafarers who worked on British ships. Lascars were predominately from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and employed in large numbers by the British Merchant Marine from the nineteenth century. In addition to facing myriad difficulties and injustices relating to pay and conditions aboard ship, Lascars often struggled to secure accommodation at UK ports. For most of the nineteenth century, voluntary religious societies and missions were key providers of support and accommodation for these men. I aim to use visual and print sources to explore gendered and racialised ways missions and lascars interacted across the century.

The British Library is the UK’s National Library and one of the largest in the world, boasting around 200 million items. A researcher’s greatest obstacle is not a scarcity of sources but deciding where to begin. To get the ball rolling and hone my scope, I began by exploring sources relating to one of the best-known and most influential homes that interacted with lascars: Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders. Opened in London’s West India Dock in 1857, the Home provided accommodation, support and mission activity for lascars.

Most sources relating to the Stranger’s Home are held in the East India Office Papers. This is due to two key reasons: The East India Company provided regular revenue to the Home, and a large percentage of lascars were natives of India. Most of the records were, therefore, correspondence between the Home and the Indian Office relating to the finance and running of the Home and the cases of specific individuals from India.

What are the India Office Papers?

The India Office Records are the archives of the administration in London of the East India Company and the pre-1947 government of India. The British Library collection guide for this collection states, ‘The 14 kilometres of shelves of volumes, files and boxes of papers, together with 70,000 volumes of official publications and 105,000 manuscript and printed maps, are public records comprising the archives of the East India Company (1600-1858), of the Board of Control or Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India (1784-1858), of the India Office (1858-1947), of the Burma Office (1937-1948), and of a number of British agencies overseas which were officially linked with one or other of the four main bodies’.[1]

The India Office Papers and Private Papers archive is immense, rich and diverse, revealing details of commerce, politics and migration. They give insight into the lives of many individuals, including civil servants, medical staff, chaplains, missionaries and, of course, mariners.

What did I view?

On this trip, I focused my search on the ‘Public and Judicial Departmental Papers: Annual Files’ IOR/L/PJ/6. These records cover the period 1880-1930 and amount to a whopping 2,024 volumes. I also examined some records from the Economic Department Records, IOR/L/E (1786-1950), comprised of approximately 4245 volumes/files and 960 boxes. Given the volume of these records, it’s safe to say this will be the first of many trips.

Here is an example of a volume of the Public and Judicial papers. Records are organised in Volumes, usually relating to one year, and each ‘item’ is indexed with a reference number. When leafing through these volumes, it’s difficult not to get distracted by other intriguing records along the way.

Strangers Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders, c. 1900. Creator unknown.

Have you encountered any interesting sources?

I am in the process of transcribing the material I viewed and photographed during my visit. Lots of these sources will be essential in understanding the relationship between lascars and organisations like the sailors home for Asiatics. This includes fascinating correspondence between the Stranger’s Home for Asiatics and the India Office in 1902.[1]

Addressing his letter to Mr Wylie of the India office, Mr Chamier of the Stranger’s Home asked if deserters should be admitted. He expressed his view that only ‘the worst of the lascars’ dessert due to their difficult financial positions and provided an anecdotal example of a ‘Goa boy’ who deserted and was currently staying at the Home. Chamier also asked, ‘How long is a destitute of India to receive free board’ suggesting it should be at least one month.

A second letter records Mr Wylie forwarding these queries to Sir Charles Lyall of the India Office, requesting his observations. Here, Wylie states, ‘Deserters have no claim to admission to the Home but if they become destitute after deserting what is to become of them? Are they to be allowed to die in the street? The Home is the only place perhaps where they can be understood’.

In a third letter, Lyall responds to Wylie, Stating, ‘The treatment of Lascar seamen is one for the revenue department, not for the Judicial and public department’. He continues to state his opinion that there was no risk involved in a native of India dying in the street upon refusal to the Home, as the workhouse was ‘always open’ to them, and Indians could be found there in ‘large numbers’.

Lastly, Chamier stated that he had no objection to ‘one month being fixed’ for the lodging of destitute men, provided the case was reported immediately to the India office. (see IOR/L/PJ/6/610, File 1733)

While short, this exchange is telling. It points to the close relationship between government bodies and mission organisations, shows a spectrum of stances regarding empathy and aid extended to lascars and even the lack of clarity regarding which governmental departments dealt with specific matters relating to these mariners. It also references other institutions that housed lascars, such as workhouses.

I look forward to returning to the British Library in July to look at more records.

 

 References

[1] ‘Question of admitting deserters into the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics’ IOR/L/PJ/6/610, File 1733: 15 Aug 1902, British Library, London.

[1] https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/india-office-records

 

 

The Missionary Boat

Posted on by hilary.carey

The mast of our project blog has an image of portside preaching, A Mission to Seamen by Henry Herbert La Thangue (1859-1929). This is probably the best known painting of marine missions from the 19th century.

Another, which deserves to be better known, is ‘The Missionary Boat’, painted in 1894 by Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), part of the Royal Cornish Polytechnic Society’s Tuke Collection, now on loan to Falmouth Art Gallery. Tuke was a member of the Newlyn School of painters, and for a while lived in Falmouth where he had a floating studio on a French barque, not unlike the one in this painting.

Henry Scott Tuke, The Missionary Boat, 1894 (oil on canvas). The Tuke Collection, Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. Wikimedia Commons: Public domain 

Unlike many of Tuke’s marine paintings, this one is of a specific occasion. It shows the arrival of the chaplain, James Canning Badger, neatly sailing the mission yawl Clarice, to meet the French barque Verveine of Marseilles. Badger was a chaplain with the British and Foreign Sailor’s Society (now the Sailors’ Society) in Falmouth frm 1887 to 1916. Tuke depicts Badger as a competent sailor, little distinguishable from the sailors who hail his arrival.

On shore, Badger embraced the image of the sea and marine industry as part of the rhetoric and identity of his mission. The National Maritime Museum Cornwall has a striking photo which shows Badger astride his ship pulpit in the Seamens Bethel & Institute in Falmouth, resting his hand on the wheel.

James Canning Badger, chaplain British and Foreign Sailor’s Society, Seamens Bethel & Institute Falmouth. Source: National Maritime Museum Cornwall.

The most famous literary example of a ship pulpit is that for the sermon on Jonah and the Whale, delivered by Father Mapple in chapter eight of Henry Melville’s Moby Dick (1851). But they were surprisingly common in marine mission chapels and, along with floating ship chapels, they were to be found in both American and British contexts. But that must be the subject of another blog.

Hilary Carey

11/7/23