Science, Utility and British Naval Technology, 1793–1815: Samuel Bentham and the Royal Dockyards by Roger Morriss

Abstract

Reviewed by: Science, Utility and British Naval Technology, 1793–1815: Samuel Bentham and the Royal Dockyards by Roger Morriss Phillip Reid (bio) Science, Utility and British Naval Technology, 1793–1815: Samuel Bentham and the Royal Dockyards By Roger Morriss. London: Routledge, 2021. Pp. 404. Science, Utility and British Naval Technology, 1793–1815: Samuel Bentham and the Royal Dockyards By Roger Morriss. London: Routledge, 2021. Pp. 404. Samuel Bentham, with his more famous brother Jeremy, helped develop the moral philosophy known as utilitarianism. While Jeremy focused his intellect primarily on social theory, Samuel devoted his to solving practical and technical problems. He apprenticed himself to shipwrights, learned the principles of ship design and construction, and served as an advisor to the Russian government on naval construction and improvements. In 1796, he was appointed by Britain's Admiralty, the highest governing board of the Royal Navy, to a position created for him: Inspector General of Naval Works. In that capacity, as Roger Morriss details in this thorough account, he conceived, advocated, and implemented innovations in diverse aspects of operations in the Royal Dockyards, where naval vessels were built and repaired during the French Revolutionary and [End Page 937] Napoleonic Wars, when Britain needed her navy as never before. In doing so, he confronted an established industrial culture, vested interests, and an approach to technology based on established precedent. Much of this book is a blow-by-blow account of the conflict between the innovator and the dockyard establishment, a conflict that eventually led to Bentham's ouster in 1807, but not before he had effected significant change on how the dockyards were run and what they did. In first outlining his case, Morriss risks giving the uninitiated reader the sense that British ship design was backward, and that would be a gross oversimplification of a complex subject (N. A. M. Rodger, "Navies and the Enlightenment" (Essays in Naval History, Routledge, 2009); L. D. Ferreiro, Ships and Science, MIT Press, 2006). However, with the important exception of Bentham's experimental vessels, the subject of ship design is subordinate in this book to the social and political construction of a culture of work, and how the application of "utility" challenged an old system of hierarchy and interest in all aspects of dockyard operation. Bentham did, in fact, design some experimental vessels for the navy. He got them built and tested with notable success, but with difficulty and resistance from the Navy Board, the group of officers charged by the Admiralty with the day-to-day running of the yards. With the support of the Admiralty at the top and some talented shipwrights and other technical specialists under him, Bentham overcame objections and introduced a metal mill, a wood mill, and steam power. He oversaw the ambitious expansion and enlargement of wet docks to accommodate warships of increasing size and get them repaired and back in service more quickly. Finally, he advocated new systems of work incentives and compensation to combat fraud, corruption, and inefficiency, though these reforms were mostly implemented after his departure. Bentham's innovations were expensive and risky, at a time when the demands on the navy were relentless and Britain's security situation was dire. Morriss does not present the Navy Board as an obstreperous clique of reactionary dolts. He gives them their say. In fact, he gives the figures in the book far more ample say than most of us who write history give our subjects; the liberal use of long block quotes contributes much to the length of this book. For the reader unaccustomed to eighteenth-century prose, this could make for slow going. No one could accuse Morriss of putting words in the mouths of his subjects, but I do wonder if he would have been just as well served by paraphrasing much of this material. He writes well, and the book is well edited. I read an e-book edition, and as seems to be typical of the format, I found more typos than I would have liked (eleven), though that number is not egregious in a book of this length. Given the level of detail, the ideal reader will bring an interest in the specific subject...