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on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander
with any comments or queries. |
Ships’
pursers
Not all Cort's clients are officers:
other ranks and post-holders appear, notably pursers.
Read Rodger's account of a
purser's tasks in The
Wooden World, and you will be struck by the scale of their
responsibilities, which include maintenance of ship's stores and distribution
of items such as tobacco to the ship's company.
Pursers have to keep records of
stores and purchases, and advance money from their own accounts to cover
costs. Their records are submitted for
scrutiny, leading to long delays in recouping these advances. On a bad day they may suffer huge financial
loss.
True, there are also
opportunities for profit-making, but that in turn leads to mistrust from their
shipmates. You may well wonder why
anyone should wish to be a purser.
Nevertheless they crop up
regularly in the Cort story, showing that people are willing enough to take on
the job. Jeremiah
Attwick, Thomas Morgan and Valentine Nevill are
all pursers.
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Rec’d 22 October 1785 Tobacco £77.10.1 due to the late Mr Jeremiah Attwick (signed) Eustace Kentish
for Samuel Dawson Exr Entry in Isis pay
book |
Captain Michael
Becher (not Richard – someone’s handwriting must have been misread) of the Goree
sloop takes on the purser’s job too: it being wartime, and the ship rather
small, a separate purser is a luxury not available to her.
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Capt Richard Beecher Commander and Purser being dead
Mr Cort the Executor's Agent made application to
pass this Account by Estimate having produced an affidavit from the Surgeon
that the Room in which were lodged all the Accounts and papers belonging to
the said Captain were destroyed by fire and the captain's papers all burnt. From a
report of deviations from the navy's normal method of accounting for stores,
which gives some interesting clues about eighteenth-century pursery. |
There is a revealing entry in
the Guernsey‘s paybook for 1762.
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Rec'd the 20 Jan 1762 £61.13.5d for the Tobacco issued on
this Book & due to Mr William Dixon for Messrs Batty
& Cort Atty, (signed) Adam Jellicoe.
Entry in Guernsey paybook. |
William Dixon is the purser, and
uses Batty & Cort to collect his pay.
Incidentally, he has a servant named Thomas
Morgan.
The book shows his income from
sales of tobacco to crew members: the cost will be deducted from their pay, and
credited to his account with his agent.
When he needs to buy tobacco, the cost is drawn on this account. If all goes well, income will exceed
expenditure.
The Valentine Nevill story is
also illuminating, particularly his attitude to his wife.
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I give and bequeath the sum of one
shilling and (out of charity) what goods of mine her house of Widow at Lewes
in Sussex may be furnished withal to my wife Rachel... who has been all along
Uniformly faithless and Disobedient to me.
From will of Valentine Nevill |
His will includes several small
bequests, including two to former commanders who have since become admirals.
Most of his money is left to his
son John and his cousin Thomasin, who has been his housekeeper for several
years. Her portion is dependent on her
remaining unmarried. Ten guineas are
left to "my trusty friend Henry Cort of Crutched Friars, my sole agent for
several years". Cort and Thomasin
are named as executors.
After Nevill’s death she manages
to win administration of the estate.
Cort raises a complaint against her under her married name of Seibert.
Ignoring the terms of the will,
she has claimed her share despite having married in the meantime. She compounds the villainy by failing to
hand over money owed to Cort by Nevill at the time of his death. I leave to others the task of discovering
whether the court upholds Cort’s complaint (PRO,
C12/1685/2).
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Related pages |
henrycort.net
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