Disorder, Discipline, and Naval Reform in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain

Abstract

Historians have considered a series of reforms in the mid-1740s to mark a turning-point between British naval failure and British naval success; they have argued that these reforms were commonsensical, and motivated by purely naval concerns. In contrast, this article argues that the form and function of the mid-century Navy were deeply contentious matters with serious ideological implications. The reforms instituted a new professional naval culture based on order, discipline, and obedience and were motivated at least as much by political concerns as by naval. Those who supported these naval reforms also wanted to see similar hierarchical and authoritarian values enforced in imperial governance and in domestic socio-political hierarchies. Those who opposed the reforms did so from fears that a professional Navy would be turned inward on British civilians and would unbalance the constitution by over-strengthening the executive. Rather than a military composed of disciplined professionals, they advocated more widespread civilian participation in both military and political affairs. Contemporary Britons believed that the Navy represented a microcosm of the social order, and they projected their idealised versions of the Anglo-imperial polity onto naval debates.