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Does anybody know where the toilets are?
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Redfish



Joined: 03 Dec 2007
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Location: Arnhem

Post Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:11 pm    Post subject: Does anybody know where the toilets are? Reply with quote

I would really like to know how and where the crew, ESPECIALLY THE MIDDIES, and the senior officers ON A SIXTH AND FIFTH rate frigate relieved themselves during the revolutionary war (1793 - 1802) I am writing a book that is set in that period and it would be a great help if anybody would know "where the toilets were" in those days. Even Brian Lavery in "nelson's navy" is vague on the subject. He assumes that senior officers on a frigate might have kept and used a chamber-pot in their cabins. Did the middies share one in their respective larboard- and starboard berths? Or did they share 'seats' with the hands? And where exactly did they go?
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PMarione
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is a book on the question that we can consider as definitive Confused Those Vulgar Tubes by Joe J. Simmons III, Chatham Publishing, 1997 ISBN 1-86176-043-4.

For the captain there were quarter galleries. On multiple decked ships these extended on the lower decks for the use of the other officers.
There also were round-houses (not to be confused with the poop - pun intended) at the bow for warrant and petty officers and I suppose young gentleman.
In frigates and smaller ships the deck was flush so no round-houses and I suppose that the only place was the seats at the head.
There also were pissdales.

A careful examination of contemporary models at NMM or elsewhere may give the exact answer.

Another question in the same vein: what did they use as toilet paper?
Old Navy Lists?

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PMarione
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In Falconer:
Quote:
round-houses appelation given to two convenient places built near the head of the ship; the one on the larboard side being appropriated to the private use of the mates, midshipmen, and warrant officers; and the other on the starboard side, to the use of those in the sick-bay.


Peter Goodwin also has some pages (215-218) on the heads in the Construction of the Sailing Man of War, 1650-1850, Conway, 1987 ISBN 0-85177-326-5

By 1780, a primitive form of water closet was fitted in the quarter galleries with a water cistern. It was also used to take showers. But "officers only".

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Redfish



Joined: 03 Dec 2007
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Location: Arnhem

Post Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On the VOC ship Batavia they used a wet rope that was hung at the seat at the head to wipe clean. But that was in "ancient" days. Time truly is a relative thing. How by the by did they apply pisdales at a stormy sea? I happen to be a women, but if I were a man, I truly would have preferred to sit down. Practical side-effect would be that you did not need a rope to do the job. Most likely the waves would take care of it... Very Happy
Does your last reply indicate that the petty and senior officers actually had some privacy on the privy?
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PMarione
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

According to Peter Goodwin's drawings, pissdales looked quite like modern urinals: not many women on board.
I suppose that in stormy seas it was very dangerous to use the seats of ease at the bow!

The quarter galleries certainly were private: difficult to imagine Nelson keeping his autority if he have to relieve himself in front of everybody.
The round-houses were closed rooms and allowed some privacy.

But again in the case of frigates there was no round-houses for the young gentlemen: no place for them with only one deck.

From a previous post on sodomy in the RN, from the (scarse) CM on the problem it appears that cases of "uncleanlinesses" took place in the round-houses at least in the case of petty officers and midshipmen. It was in fact one of the only private places on board. Even the cabins were not private often only canvas walls.

In the same book, there is a case of a marine fetching 200 lashes for "pissing from his hamac". As it's a case of CM one can imagine that such a conduct certainly was not allowed on board and punished by the officers and that the ships were kept as clean as possible. There was enough reasons for them to be stinking hells without that.
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Redfish



Joined: 03 Dec 2007
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Location: Arnhem

Post Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If a Captain was not expected to relieve himself without privacy, also , from a point of authority, the same should apply for lieutenants. Yet in a frigate the lieutenants faced the same lack of round-houses as the midshipmen did. I presume that indeed Brian Lavery is right that they must have resorted to chamber-pots or the like. If so, than surely midshipmen would have done so as well. Since midshipmen, especially the older passed midshipmen/master's mates, had their share of authority on board a man of war, the issue of authority must have counted for them as well...

And what about the women that were on board. They were really there (David Cordingly wrote an interesting book about it: Women sailors and sailor's women). Warrant officers's wifes would have shared a cabin with their spouses, but what about the ships with lenient Captain's, who allowed each mess to take along one women. And the "lobsters" who were allowed to take one "wife" on every so many men? Etcetera...


Last edited by Redfish on Thu Feb 14, 2008 1:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PMarione
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There I have no answer.
I suppose you're right and that chamber-pots did the trick.

For women on board I recommend She Captains by Joan Druett.
The worst case probably was for the (not many) women who enlisted as seamen or marines. Of all the cases that I have read about, they always were discovered after having been wounded and examined by the surgeon. So we can conclude that there was some privacy even for the crew members. The other hypothese being that all the crew did know about the gender of the woman.

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Redfish



Joined: 03 Dec 2007
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do not think that in many of these few cases the crew knew the truth about their shipmates: Hannah Schnell lasted for many years as a sea'man' without being recognized as a woman. And there is also the case of "William" Brown, who actually managed to literally moved up (she became captain of the foretop). She joined as a seaman about 1804 and at no one discovered her true sex until 1815.

Do you think that she and Schnell would have had an easier job hiding their sex if they had been pretended to be young gentlemen and joined as midshipmen (provided they could have taken someones else's identity)?
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PMarione
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No idea. I suppose so.

They certainly didn't look like our anorexic models, more like truck drivers.

Certainly a problem with the pissdales!
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