Category: Mission to Seafarers

What would 19th-century missionaries think of your New Year’s Resolutions?

Posted on by ka23004
Courtesy: Royal Museums Greenwich

Happy New Year from the Mariners project! Are you starting the New Year off full of promises to make changes to your life?

Maybe you’re hoping to drink less after an indulgent few weeks of wine, beer or even rum? Take up some new hobbies to cut back on your screen time? Or trying to travel or exercise more?

Not so fast! Some of these typical New Year’s Resolutions might be inciting you to vice or spreading corruption without you even realising, according to some historic sources.

We’re here to help, with some historical insights into your New Year’s Resolutions. Want to know what 19th-century Christian mission groups would have thought about some of the most common ones?

1) Dry January

19th-century missionaries would have loved Dry January! No drinking for a whole month would have seemed a great idea. But why stop at just January? Why not avoid alcohol and pubs altogether?

Groups trying to improve the welfare of seafarers often worked hand-in-hand with the temperance movement against alcohol, encouraging sailors to stop spending their money on drink.

Drinking was held up as one of the greatest social evils of the age. Sailors were encouraged to avoid the hundreds of pubs along the waterfront and around the Sailor’s Homes, since drinking was led to violence, gambling and sexual immorality. Mission groups reported incidences of men who spent all their wages in two days, leaving nothing for their families, or who ended up in drunken brawls.

One tract, which was handed out to sailors in 1871 and written by the wine-merchant Mr Lavington who helped run the Bristol Seamen’s Mission, told them in no uncertain term to “Avoid Public Houses and bad company. Drunkenness and other wickedness will ruin your happiness in this world and the world to come.”[1] That selling wicked alcohol was how Lavington had helped fund the Mission to Seamen was not commented upon…

For women, drinking was perhaps even more threatening, since it was said that “a woman that drinks will do anything”.[2] Many women who became sex workers in the 19th century also claimed that it was starting to drink alcohol years previously that had first led to their “immorality” that had finished with street sex work.

If you really want to go to the pub, why not try this one in Hull, converted from the old Seamen’s Mission?

2) Read more novels

Be careful with this one! Novels and other books were thought to “corrupt the morals, inflame the imagination, and excite the passions,” according to the magazine published by the Committee of the Maritime Penitent Female Refuge, which attempted to rescue women from prostitution.[3] Sentimental or romantic novels were thought to particularly dangerous and corrupting for young women, and many mission groups held them responsible for the rise in women selling sex to sailors around British ports. If you want to read more in 2026, beware of the “fatal influence of pernicious novels”![4]

Far safer to stick with reading a magazine produced by a Mission group, such as The Word on the Waters published by the Mission to Seafarers or The New Sailor’s Magazine, published by the British and Foreign Seamen’s & Soldier’s Friend Society and by G. C. (“Boatswain”) Smith launched after being forced to step down as editor of The Sailor’s Magazine. Easily found at the British Library or the Hull History centre, and much more improving!

3) Travelling

Another one to watch! What if you meet unsavoury or immoral characters during your travels? Missions to Seamen worried as much in 1890, when the committee’s secretary wrote that “the close assemblage on board ships of men of many nationalities, some of whom may be low moral characters, is itself contaminating”[5]. And when you arrive in a new port or a new city, there is even more possibility of moral danger. It was claimed that being away from home lead to the “opportunity for sensual indulgence without the knowledge of relatives and friends, especially in strange ports and on foreign shores.”[6]

Mission groups trying to protect seafarers in the 19th century believed that global travel allowed for the spread of vice, corrupted those who took part in it, and led to a rise in drunkenness.

Being in a new place meant the opportunity to take part in sin, as well as the possibility of danger. If you really have to travel, make sure that you go straight to the Sailor’s Home or other respectable lodgings as soon as you arrive, to avoid vice and wickedness as much as possible.

4) New hobbies

If your new hobbies include magic lantern lectures, concerts or recitals, then you should be absolutely fine. Missions to Seamen thought that these were “suitable and harmless secular entertainments.”[7]

However, if you’re thinking about joining a theatrical group or going to the theatre… think again! Acting and theatres were strongly associated with drinking, prostitution, and immorality, which were particularly dangerous for sailors who had just been paid. With their wages in their pocket, a trip to the music hall could easily turn into a booze-soaked few days where they could be robbed or victim to crimping.

In 1835, the committee for the Maritime Penitent Female Refuge described theatres as “dens of infamy” and quoted John Tillotson, who had been Archbishop of Canterbury in the 17th century when he called playhouses “the devil’s chapel, a nursery of licentiousness and vice”.[8] And in 1891, Missions to Seamen banned all “dramatic entertainments” from its institutions, explaining that it couldn’t allow any “amusements” with the potential for “degenerating” into anything that went against the society’s values.[9] Maybe theatre should be off the table for 2026?

5) Learn to cook

But if your new hobby is something like learning to cook, then wonderful. Maybe you could even go professional, and join the London School of Nautical Cookery. The Sailor’s Home in Wellclose Square, opened by “Boatswain” Smith in 1823, later opened the School of Nautical Cookery in 1893 to teach sailors how to be ships’ cooks. Learning how to peel potatoes properly and cook safely on a ship for hundreds of hungry sailors? No mean feat.

When the new Shipping Act changed in 1906, that law stated that every ship that travelled outside of British waters needed its own cook, which meant that the school had a huge boost in popularity. 19th-century missionaries would also have wholeheartedly supported this goal for 2026.

Courtesy: London Metropolitan Archives

The Mariner’s Project wishes you the best for 2026, whatever your New Years resolutions and regardless of whether you want to follow 19th-century advice. Godspeed!

by Catherine Phipps

 

[1] Hull History Centre, UDMS/13/1/6, The Word on the Waters, 1871, p.74.

[2] James Miller, Prostitution Considered in Relation to its Cause and Cure (Edinburgh: 1859). Cited in Paula Bartley, Prostitution: prevention and reform in England, 1860-1914 (Routledge, 2000), p.18.

[3] “Advocate of Moral Reform”, The Refuge: conducted by the Committee of the Maritime Penitent Female Refuge, August 1835, vol 3:8, p.179.

[4] “Ought This Magazine to be Generally Circulated?”, The Refuge: conducted by the Committee of the Maritime Penitent Female Refuge, November 1835, vol 3:11, p.243.

[5] Hull History Centre, UDMS/13/11/1, “Promotion of Purity Amongst Seamen”, W. C. Dawson, 12th May 1890.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Hull History Centre, UDMS/13/11/1, “Entertainments in Seamen’s Institutes”, 17th February 1891.

[8] “On the Moral State of London”, The Refuge: conducted by the Committee of the Maritime Penitent Female Refuge, December 1835, vol 3:12, p.266.

[9] Hull History Centre, UDMS/13/11/1, “Entertainments in Seamen’s Institutes”, 17th February 1891.

Joyful All Ye Seamen Rise

Posted on by ka23004

“Joyful all ye seamen rise,
Join the triumph of the skies,
Hail the heav’n born prince of peace,
Hail the son of righteousness”

The Sailor’s Hymn Book was a selection of different hymns and religious verses put together by the famous Reverend G. C. Smith.[1] Printed in East London from 1822 and sold for one shilling, it was meant to be distributed to as many sailors as possible to be used during services. Even though it was tiny, it was packed with over 345 hymns all adapted for maritime life.[2] This including tweaking some of the lyrics of well-known Christmas carols to make them more adapted to life at sea. As well as the hymn above, adapted from Charles Wesley’s Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, other songs sang about how “seamen their songs employ/ while field, and floods, rocks, hills, and plains/ Repeat the sounding joy”. It is easy to imagine these carols being sung by groups of sailors in the forecastle of a rocking ship.

But far away from their families and often in the middle of the sea, what was Christmas like for seafarers in the 19th and 20th century? And what did Christian missions do during one of the most important holidays of the year?

In The Word on the Waters, the magazine regularly published by the Mission to Seafarers that is held in their archives at the Hull History Centre and which Claire Wetherall has discussed in more depth here, gives us some ideas. One sailor wrote a letter to the magazine recount his experience of Christmas Day in 1885: “well, dear friends, I have not told you of our Christmas. I hope you spent a happy one.” He very nearly did not.

For this man and the rest of his crew, Christmas was a day that was just as dangerous as any other. The crew finished work on Christmas Eve a couple of days sail from Plymouth, and happily settled down for their tea at 7pm that evening. As midnight struck on the 25th, the night was still and calm, but as Christmas Day dawned the weather turned. An enormous wind began to blow, “increasing all the time till it blew a heavy gale”. The ship was pitching so much that all the cargo that they had just taken on board, and had not yet had the chance to secure, was tossed everywhere. The crew spent hours just trying to keep the ship afloat and the cargo held down: “just imagine, coals and locust-beans on deck to fill up, loose spars, spare ones, ropes and cables, all washing about, and we working to get the decks clear… That is how we spent our Christmas.”[3]

The crew finally sat down to their Christmas meal a few hours later. Thankfully the sailor had thought to make the traditional plum pudding the night before the Christmas Eve storm, which they sat down to eat utterly exhausted: “we had our Christmas pudding anyhow, or somehow, and I hardly know how”.

For British sailors in overseas ports, Christmas was a time to benefit from the volunteer work that many upper-middle class women undertook. A few years later in 1888, from the other side of the world, one Mrs Austen wrote to The Word on the Waters to describe her experience in Yokohama, one of the treaty ports in Japan open to foreign trade. Just before Christmas, she had sent out 55 letters across the British Empire asking for money for a Christmas dinner and Christmas tree for British sailors in Japan. Women like Mrs Austen would have spent weeks planning Christmas events to try to improve the difficult lives of sailors far from home. On this Christmas Day, she went to four hospitals to bring a small present and a card to each sailor there: “Oh! To see their faces lighten, to know that they were remembered, though far away from home and loved ones.”[4]

The next day, on Boxing Day, Mrs Austen and another “lady helper” woke up early to start decorating a Christmas tree at 7am. Sailors soon began arriving for the free Christmas dinner that she had spent weeks organising: “seventy three persons enjoyed a splendid dinner- the best of everything; and after we had cleared all that away we had the tree, each man receiving a nice gift”. The sailors most in need received gloves, warm socks, and clean handkerchiefs, while others received small Christmas ornaments “for their homes in England”. The group spent the rest of the rest of the day playing games and singing hymns till the Mrs Austen’s throat was sore.

Maybe they even sang some of the hymns that Boatswain Smith had made more “sailor-friendly” a few decades previously?

Merry Christmas from the Mariners team. We hope that you too get warm socks, have made your plum pudding early, and spare a thought for those having to spend Christmas at sea far away from their loved ones.

Want to know more about Christmas at sea? The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has shares some stories about Christmas Dinners Past from the Caird library here and the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth tells us about Christmas traditions in the Navy here.

Brett, John; Christmas Morning, 1866; Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum.

 

[1] https://mar.ine.rs/stories/rev-george-charles-boatswain-smith-1782-1863/, Hilary Carey, “Sailors, Societies and Sectarianism: George Charles (‘Boatswain’) Smith and the Formation of the British and Foreign Sailor Society”, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 2025. 76(3):600-624, doi:10.1017/S0022046924000940.

[2] Hilary Carey, “Poor Jack to Pious Sailor: Religious Literature for British Seamen, 1815–C.1850”, Cultural and Social History. 2025. 22(4): 485–504, doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2025.2514785.

[3] Hull History Centre, UDMS/13/1/9, A Lay Associate, “Christmas Day at Sea”, The Word on the Waters, January 1886, 177, pp.54-58.

[4] Hull History Centre, UDMS/13/1/9, L. A. A., “British Seamen in Japan”, The Word on the Waters, January 1888, 185, pp. 37-40.

Mariners at the Black Country Museum

Posted on by hilary.carey

I have just got back from a trip to the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley for the 2025 Social History Society annual conference.

Victorian streetscene, Black Country Living History Museum

It was my first visit to the living history museum, and found it very hard to tear myself away from the recreated worlds of the Victorian, Edwardian and – most recently – post-WWII eras to get back to the conference. I wandered in and out of the cottages showcasing the work of women chain makers, the noisescape of the machine press, and the canal with its retinue of coal barges and attendant ducks. There was a strong evocation of the industrial scene (though of course without the squalor, smoke and smells) and I was particularly impressed with the abandoned anchor, a remnant of the anchor makers who used to work in this area. In its own building was a recreation of the mighty Newcomen engine which, having once lived in a street (in Newcastle NSW) named after the great engineer, I found particularly impressive.

Anchor making was one of the Black Country industries on display in Dudley.

The conference was a packed schedule with up to five parallel streams around these broad themes, each curated by experts in their field.

  • Bodies, Sex and Emotions
  • ‘Deviance’, Inclusion and Exclusion
  • Difference, Minoritization and ‘Othering’
  • Heritage, Environment, Spaces & Places
  • Inequalities, Activism and Social Justice
  • Life Cycles, Families and Communities
  • Politics, Policy and Citizenship
  • Work, Leisure and Consumption

I enjoyed catching up with Emily Cuming, who gave a splendid paper on ‘sailor’s daughters’ which analyzed working class women’s memoirs of absent, and sometimes abusive, sailor fathers. Other highlights were presentations by four curators from different ‘living history’ museums: Simon Briercliffe, director of the Black Country Museum, Kate Hill, from the Cregneash Isle of Man Folk Museum , Natasha Anson, on the Beamish North East England museum, and educationish Megan Schlanker on the use of living history in schools. While we spoke, the Dudley museum was full of teams of school children so it was clear new learning memories were being laid down in these places. The curators pushed back robustly on calls to avoid nostalgia, or to answer calls to highlight or ignore particular aspects of the past. I was also very happy to listen to papers by Bristol colleagues, Marianna Dudley (on the history of wind turbines), and Will Pooley (on queer magic in 19th century rural France).

Kate Hill from the Isle of Wight Living Museum discussing the challenge of representing the past.

As part of the ‘inequalities, activism and social justice’ theme, my paper was in the last session of the last day, and I was grateful to those who stayed the course. It was a privilege to talk about the Mariners project to this engaged and active group of researchers. My topic was ‘Missions to Mariners’, and I spoke about the challenge for reformers of pushing back against the old stereotype of ‘Jack Tar’ in order to promote the value of the pious sailor. There is a wealth of printed and archival sources relating to the movement, much of which we have been exploring for this project, but it is much more difficult to understand the values of working sailors themselves. This is part of my conclusion:

The maritime mission movement would leave a visible mark on British port landscapes, with its floating chapels, on shore seamen’s churches, institutes and bethels, and provision for education, housing and other forms of welfare. Although very little of this religious infrastructure remains, it initiated a revolution in the image of the sailor, from ‘Jack Tar’ to sober worker, which by the end of the century had largely displaced the drunken caricature of an earlier era.

My paper will be included in the Special Issue of the Social History Society journal, Cultural and Social History. The revised papers from the Mariners conference held on the ss Great Britain are now coming in and we hope the whole collection will soon be available, online and fully open access.

Word on the Waters – from the Mariners conference

Posted on by hilary.carey

The following post is written by Claire Weatherall, the archivist responsible for  the Mission to Seafarers collection at Hull History Centre and a member of the Mariners Advisory Board. In the post, they explore the question: What can we glean about the lives of sailors from the first publication of the Missions to Seamen? This was presented as part of the Mariners conference, at the ss Great Britain on 12-13 September.

Introduction 

Whilst cataloguing the archive of the Mission to Seafarers I learnt much of the lives of the chaplains and lay readers who undertook the daily work of the organisation. Regular reports and correspondence from port stations to head office capture the activities of these missionaries in ports across the world. We might similarly expect to find the archive littered with references to individuals aided by the organisation. However, details of the lives of seafarers that the Mission sought to help are rarely captured in the official record. 

We must think creatively to uncover the lived experiences of seafarers as revealed through interactions with missionary organisations. When cataloguing a series of publications produced by the Mission, I noticed that extracts from chaplains’ diaries, since lost to time, were often included in the early magazines. These extracts record encounters between chaplains and individual seafarers. 

The Mission’s first known magazine, The Word on the Waters, was published in 1858 (Hull History Centre Reference: U DMS/13/1/1). It was intended for circulation amongst seafarers and supporters of the Mission’s aims. With this in mind, we should consider that content was likely selected to demonstrate successful outcomes from the Mission’s work and to expound its Christian objectives. Nevertheless, the details captured in chaplains’ accounts can help us piece together narratives of seafarers’ lives.

First volume of The Word on the Waters  1 (1858) and illustrated issue from The Word on the Waters, new ser. 33 (1897) whoiwing ‘A mission-cutter at work’. MTS Archive, Hull History Centre.

The lives of seafarers 

So, what kind of details can we learn? 

Firstly, we find that life in port away from home could leave seafarers vulnerable to unscrupulous individuals. An extract from the correspondence of the Mission’s first chaplain describes meeting a sailor in a ‘forlorn’ state whilst walking in the street. The sailor is said to have recounted coming ashore with several months of wages, being helped to buy new clothing and find somewhere to stay, where he was plied with alcohol and women, before receiving a huge bill that he was having to go back to sea to work pay off (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.34-35). The description matches a practice known as crimping, which many seafarers in port are known to have experienced. Whilst the anecdote is used to caution against the dangers of drunkenness and lewd behaviour, the details help us understand how easily sailors in a strange port could be taken advantage of. It also helps us understand factors contributing to financial hardship faced by some individuals. 

Extract from Word on the Waters: ‘Surely the owners of ships should have more regard to the lives of seamen’.

We can glimpse details of physical conditions endured by seafarers. For example, a Bristol Channel chaplain records encountering a man onboard ship who was placed in irons and kept to a prison diet for striking the ship’s mate, thus revealing something of punishment at sea in practice (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.68). The same extract also notes that the chaplain was able to help secure the man’s release. Another extract highlights the lack of medical care available to seafarers: In the extract, a chaplain to the English Channel recounts visiting a vessel whose crew had been struck down by fever. The chaplain states that he found one man to be particularly ill but that the captain refused to allow him to be taken ashore for medicine. He describes rowing back at night with a surgeon friend and medicine to help the man (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, pp.116-119). Incidentally, in both examples, intervention by a chaplain led to physical improvements in the individual’s situation, suggesting that missionaries had a role to play in safeguarding the physical welfare of seafarers as well as their spiritual welfare. 

Extracts also reveal details of working conditions experienced by some seafarers. For example, an extract from the journal of a Bristol Channel chaplain recounts the plight of a shipwrecked Scottish crew. He notes that the loss of their ship ‘was occasioned by overloading, and especially by having pine logs on the deck, which, getting adrift in a gale, stove in and carried away everything, rendering it dangerous and impossible also for the men to work the pumps steadily’, continuing ‘owners of the ships should have more regard to the lives of seamen. It is the overloading of vessels which causes a considerable part of the destruction at sea and loss of life’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.68-69). 

We see evidence of literacy amongst seafarers. For instance, a Bristol Channel chaplain records meeting a sailor from Calcutta who had been baptized and educated by British missionaries. He notes that the two shared a book to read prayers and exposition during a service (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.67). Another example is given by a chaplain working on the Mersey, who recounts meeting ‘a black cook who had learnt to read English at Demerara’ having ‘obtained an old Bible from a sailor’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.187). The same chaplain also describes visiting an American ship and meeting a crew eager to receive reading material and converse with him: ‘All the sailors were blacks… I believe they could all read; they were very civil and respectful’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.255). As the above instances relate to seafarers of non-British origin who appeared to engage with Christianity, it is possible their inclusion is part of a narrative informed by missionary colonialism. Nevertheless, the accounts are evidence of reading ability amongst seafaring populations. Indeed, there are numerous instances describing British sailors reading religious texts and discussing the content with chaplains. 

Extracts from the archives reveal how remote seafarers’ lives could be. For example, the honorary chaplain for Plymouth recounts a visit made by himself and female helpers to deliver books to the crew of a lightship. His description suggests such crews had no visitors and welcomed their visit for the conversation and company it brought (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, p.191). Similarly, the description of a visit by a chaplain at Great Grimsby to the lightkeeper and lifeboat crew at Spurn Point states that the inhabitants were 5 miles across sand to the nearest house, that they never had visitors, and the lighthouse keeper complained that ‘no one cares a straw for us poor souls, we may die and the sea bury us for ought others care’ (The Word on the Waters, Vol.1, 1858, pp.85-86). In both instances, the chaplains describe difficulties reaching their destinations and the isolation in which lightkeepers lived. Reading between the lines we can see that missionary staff might have been the only regular company received by some isolated seafarers. 

Final thoughts 

To summarise, the brief entries we find in magazines such as The Word on the Waters can help us reconstruct the lived experience of both British seafarers and sailors of non-British origin. The surviving evidence reveals details of the dangers of life in port, working conditions, literacy, physical welfare, health care, and social contact, in addition to seafarers’ experience of interacting with missionaries. We don’t have space here to consider what conclusions we might draw from such evidence as regards the project’s themes of colonialism, race and religion, but hopefully this quick look has done enough to highlight that missionary magazines are a valuable research resource allowing us to explore these subjects. 

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.