Expertise and naval administration: Lord Mulgrave and the Victualling Board, 1807–10

Abstract

This article is concerned with the recognition of expertise and the degree to which this influenced public appointments in the early nineteenth century. It focuses on a number of appointments made between 1807 and 1810 to the Victualling Board, the department responsible for supplying the navy with food. Coming during a time of war, and amid a long-running debate about the role of public office-holders, these appointments proved to be politically and publicly sensitive, and were discussed in parliament and reported in the press. Some appointments were criticised for their blatant preferment, while a number of others suggested that the navy was increasingly keen to bring individuals whose expertise was conferred by their proven abilities as pursers and administrators. The appointments reveal much about the navy, and indeed British society during the Napoleonic Wars, as statesmen and public servants struggled to reconcile long-standing traditions of patronage and preferment with the pressing need to appoint men of ability. By looking at the personal papers of politicians, parliamentary records and newspapers, this article situates these decisions within early nineteenth-century debates about public office.