'These peaceable times are the devil': Royal Navy officers in the post-war slump, 1815-1825

Wilcox, Martin

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2014. During the Napoleonic War, the Royal Navy grew to an unprecedented size, but with the return of peace it dispensed with the services of an also unprecedented 124,000 men. By 1818, around 90% of commissioned officers were unemployed and on half pay. Drawing on the papers of navy agent Robert Brine, as well as Admiralty and Parliamentary sources, this paper sets out the scale of the unemployment problem among commissioned officers and the effects it had upon them, and surveys the options available to erstwhile sea officers and the strategies the deployed to make a living amid the post-war slump.

Citation

Wilcox, M. (2014). 'These peaceable times are the devil': Royal Navy officers in the post-war slump, 1815-1825. International Journal of Maritime History, 26(3), 471-488. https://doi.org/10.1177/0843871414543445

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Acceptance Date: Jun 16, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Jul 24, 2014
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jun 11, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 27, 2022
• Journal: International Journal of Maritime History
• Print ISSN: 0843-8714
• Electronic ISSN: 2052-7756
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 471-488
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0843871414543445
• Keywords: Royal Navy: Officers; Unemployment; Napoleonic Wars; Navy agents
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1970915
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0843871414543445
• Additional Information: This is the accepted manuscript of an article published in International Journal of Maritime History, 2014. The version of record is available at the DOI link in this record.