The Marine Society & Sea Cadets

Review by Brian Thomas

This year The Marine Society celebrates its 250th year of support for our nation’s seafarers and what a splendid tribute to an extraordinary record this book is.

…Of Daring Temper is an impressive work. Author Richard Woodman - renowned maritime writer, ex seafarer, and himself a former beneficiary of the Society’s services and inspiration – has used his considerable literary skills and story-telling talents to produce a text that is as eloquent as it is authoritative.

Woodman has drawn upon two and a half centuries worth of archival material to weave a riveting narrative that grabs the reader’s imagination from the outset and never lets go.

For this is a story that needs to be told: a unique tale, peppered with the ingredients of a classic rollercoaster read - courage, ambition, empathy and steely determination – all set against a maritime backcloth.

The story’s principal players across the generations, whilst never being afraid of eschewing controversy or shrinking from radical opinion, always managed to remain in tune with their nation’s fluctuating maritime fortunes.

Herein perhaps lies the key to The Marine Society’s enduring success: it always seemed to deliver what was required at the right time.

The Society’s founder, Jonas Hanway, we are told, was a well-connected merchant and philanthropist who travelled widely overseas in pursuit of his business interests.

Here was a charismatic and pragmatic figure blessed with astute business skills who recognised the value of publicity and was not reticent in his pursuit of it.

Upon the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756 Hanway and a group of associates met at a central London pub.

Uppermost in their minds was a fear that the war would adversely affect trading conditions.

Seafarers, and especially quality seafarers, were in desperately short supply: understandably perhaps - given the appalling contemporary conditions at sea - there were few volunteers for a lifestyle that assured deprivation for all and death for many if not most.

Hanway and his coterie had good reason based upon recent precedent to suspect that the Royal Navy’s press gangs would poach the crews that were so crucially needed to man his and fellow merchants’ ships.

Something had to be done to keep the trade routes open and the merchant ships manned – a familiar enough refrain down the ages!

Hanway’s resourceful solution was to set in motion a scheme to recruit manpower for the Navy that would, at a stroke, secure his business interests and present himself as the benevolent patrician acting in the national interest.

He would rescue destitute boys from the streets of London, give them a smattering of dignity and a suit of clothes, such that they might then be usefully employed in manning the King’s ships.

By so doing, everyone would benefit. ‘Charity and policy united’ became Hanway’s mantra, and a very appropriate phrase it was, too. For this was a shrewd business plan wrapped in an appealing, apparently magnanimous gesture to the disadvantaged.

It was thus, on 25 June 1756, that The Marine Society was created as the conduit for the implementation of the plan.

Jonas Hanway served the Society until his death in 1786. Without his entrepreneurial vision the Society would not have existed but, as Woodman makes clear, Hanway’s zeal and commitment was shared by many others.

The Thornton family (eleven of them) provided the Society with a Treasurer right through until the recent merger with the Sea Cadet Association, with one of the family still a Trustee today.

Similarly, the Romney family provided The Marine Society with a President almost without interruption from 1772 (when the Society was incorporated by an Act of Parliament) until 2004. The present Earl of Romney serves as a Trustee.

There can be few charities in the entire world where such dynastic continuity has perpetuated down the generations. The Marine Society has indeed been fortunate in the calibre and commitment of its servants.

There is an interesting parallel between the aims of Jonas Hanway 250 years ago and the merger at the end of 2004 between The Marine Society and the Sea Cadet Association.

Boys then were supplied to the Navy and the Admiralty reciprocated by supporting the charity in many ways, notably by the provision of training ships.

The Admiralty today continues that tradition of support for the charity, which in turn helps prepare young people for the sea services, and so arguably the 2004 merger was not far removed from a homecoming for The Marine Society.

Richard Woodman has produced a wonderfully rich and illuminating story that is beautifully presented and lavishly illustrated with over 80 original images. It is a book that will appeal to all with an affinity with the sea, and is available at a price which represents remarkable value for money.

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