THE BUSINESS OF A SEAMAN

DID YOU KNOW THAT the 4 Menzies sisters, Annie, Jessie, ‘Netta and Maggie each married men remarkably like ‘the man who married dear old Mother’; they were all sailors who had become ships captains, or ‘Masters’. Old George Menzies must have had a great influence on them because they all followed very similar career paths even though there was a span of 24 years between them. As well as this one of the girls’ brothers, William Menzies, also became a captain.

In the early 1900s the crews of British ships were frequently composed of fit, young men and it was rare to find an ‘ancient mariner’ among them. Even the ships’ captains were young men with drive and energy and many rose to command after only 7 or 8 years at sea. The rules in British ships required that a man had to be 17 years old before he could hold a 2nd Mate’s Certificate, 19 years for a 1st Mate’s Ticket and 23 before he could hold a Master’s Ticket. The careers of the seaman who married into the Menzies family followed this pattern fairly closely.

AGE WHEN GAINING CERTIFICATES

Ernest Warner, Bill Menzies and Tom Carson first went to sea as ‘apprentices’ or trainee officers between 14 or 16 years of age. The exceptions were Tom Aubrey and Albert Brew who both came to captaincy ‘through the hawse pipe’ as they used to say, meaning from ‘the lower deck’. Both were disadvantaged at an early age; Tom’s father was killed in an accident in a horse cart when he was 8 years of age and Albert’s father drowned at sea when he was 7 years old. Albert ran away to sea when he was 18 without telling his widowed mother and he always said that except for a ship’s captain who took an interest in him he would have finished up in gaol. Tom went with his mother’s blessing but only after a ship’s master who was a family friend took him ‘under-his-wing’. These boys underwent a form of apprenticeship because friendly captains watched out for them. It may be just co-incidence but Tom Aubrey made his decision to go to sea in 1908, the year that his Uncle Bert Brew, by then a Master, took his ship “Halewood” to sea with his Aunt Maggie aboard. No doubt Tom was encouraged by what he saw Bert had acheived.

The families of apprentices had to outlay between £20 and £30 for a 4 year apprenticeship. The shipping company then paid the apprentice an annual wage of about a quarter of this which repaid this sum. In addition they had to equip the young apprentice with a double breasted suit, boots, cap, working clothes, oil skins a horse hair mattress measuring 2m x 600mm and eating utensils, which probably cost as much again.

The company undertook to teach the apprentice ‘…the business of a seaman…’ and to provide his food. The diet for seaman was strictly regulated by law in British ships and included a daily issue of lime juice to prevent scurvy, a debilitating disease which caused gums to swell and teeth to fall out and could in extreme cases lead to death. Contrary to some views, the seaman’s diet was substantial. It included 2.7kgs of beef and 1.7kgs of pork each week (on alternate days) and a 420gms or half a loaf of bread everyday. But of course it was far from fresh. The meat was pickled and stored in casks of brine and to make it in any wise palatable it had to soaked in sea water by the ship’s cook who’s skills sometimes left a lot to be desired. The cook in Tom Aubrey’s “Forfarshire” was only 23 years old and the cook in “Halewood” was 25.

The other problem with this diet was its monotony and to vary it, the men themselves sometimes produced dishes called ‘cracker-hachis and ‘dandy-funk’. Both were made from dried biscuit that was put into a canvas bag and crushed to powder with a belaying pin. To make ‘cracker-hachis’ the biscuit was mixed with finely chopped pork and dripping and then a little water was added to make a kind of dough which was put into the oven with some thin slices of bacon laid on top. On the other hand dandy-funk’ was powdered biscuit to which was added a little butter, brown sugar and marmalade or if none of this was available then molasses was used. It came out of the oven black and soggy but it was the nearest thing the crew got to pudding.

Scale of Provisions per man in Crew agreement for the ship “Halewood” c 1906

The apprentices were taught how to steer, how to drop an anchor and when at sea when to take in sails and in what order when the wind got up. They were taught to tie knots and splice ropes and to look for wear and tear in the ship’s gear which might give way in a hard blow. They were taught how to decide which course the ship should sail to make the most of the ever changing direction of the wind. Most vessels could not sail closer to the wind than 60 degrees which meant they could only sail obliquely across the wind and had to follow zig-zag courses frequently ‘tacking’ or ‘going about’ which meant changing the settings on the yards and their sails. They were taught to recognize navigation lights and to plot a course on a chart to keep away from dangers like reefs and shoals. They also had to master sufficient mathematics to find their position at sea using a ‘sextant’, and a chronometer.

The British Board of Trade conducted the examinations for the necessary certificates and maintained high standards. After more than 4 years of sea time Bert Brew first sat for the examination for a 2nd Mate’s Certificate in Liverpool in Feb 1902 but failed in the seamanship section. He sat again 7 months later when next back in Liverpool and after paying the £1 fee passed ‘with flying colours’. After a trip around the world in a barque called “Bankburn” as 2nd Mate, he got back to Liverpool in December 1903, paid another fee and passed the examination for 1st Mate. He then joined the ship “Wavertree” as 1st Mate and it was while the ship was lying in San Francisco Bay that the owners transferred its master to another of their ships. Bert was told to see the British consul and ask him to convene an interview panel of 3 masters of British ships in the harbor to examine him for a temporary Master’s Certificate. He was told that if he could manage this he should take his ship to Sydney NSW and then sit for the Master’s Examination in that port in the normal way. This was most unusual but after a couple of weeks of intensive study at a San Francisco nautical school he managed it and was awarded his Master’s Certificate of Competency by the NSW Department of Navigation in March 1904. It is thought that his brothers-in-law obtained their certificates in a more orthodox way.

As to the skills required to be the Master of a ship, if they didn’t have them they didn’t last long. In 1908 the master of Tom Aubrey’s first ship, “Fifeshire” decided to follow an unusual course from Newcastle to San Francisco and ran his ship aground on an uncharted reef off the Gilbert Islands north of Fiji. A Marine Court of Enquiry took a dim view of the Master’s lack of judgment and his certificate was suspended for twelve months. It’s interesting to recall that Bert Brew was also shipwrecked in his first ship “St Cuthbert” when a sudden hurricane-like wind knocked her down close to Buenos Aires in 1897. Both men were returned to their home ports as destitute sailors but they didn’t hesitate to go back to sea. Tom Aubrey even suffered shipwreck a second time, in 1913, when fire broke out in the cargo of coal his ship, "Battle Abbey", was carrying and she had to be abandoned en route from Newcastle to Vancouver.

What did they earn? Not very much. In 1906 in Bert’s ship “Halewood” the 1st Mate was paid £7/10/- per month, 2nd Mate £6, the ship’s carpenter £5/5/-, the cook £4, the sail maker £4/10/-, the Bosun £4, the able bodied seamen (ABs) £3 and the ordinary seamen (ODs) £2. The Master, it is thought, was paid about £13/10/- per month or about £160 pa. When Ernest Warner was a pilot in the Port of Newcastle he was paid £208 pa. When Bert Brew was appointed Master of the Pilot Steamer, “Ajax”, in Newcastle in 1914 he was paid £216 pa but when he was appointed a pilot in 1919 his salary, like other pilots, was £375 plus 2 annual increments of £50 each to follow. This was at a time when the basic wage in Australia was about half that. According to the State Library of Victoria the average wage of a male factory worker in 1920 was £204pa. The 1920s was a time of great industrial unrest particularly among seaman and wages including that of the pilots rose rapidly. By 1922 they were being paid more than £500pa.

The old captains were quiet, natural gentlemen who had the self confidence of someone who had climbed his ‘Everests’ for indeed they had, considering what they had overcome on the wild oceans of the world. They had an air of authority and trustworthiness and were respected members of society. They were always well dressed and had an aroma of leather and pipe tobacco about them. When on dry land they walked like drunken men and to ride in a car they were driving was a hair raising experience. We will never see their like again.

“…the sailor of the sail, breed of the oaken heart,

who drew the world together and spread our race apart

whose conquests are the measure of thrice the ocean’s girth

whose trophies are the nations that necklace half the earth.

Lord of the bunt and the gasket, master of the yard,

To whom no land was distant, to whom no sea was barred”