Ship's boys and charity in mid-Eighteenth Century : the London Marine Society (1756-1772) /Roland W. W. Pietsch.

This study has three principal aims: to research the circumstances of mid-eighteenthcentury ships' boys, to look at the role the sea service played for contemporary youths with no family connections to the maritime world, and to deliver an institutional history of the Marine Society in its early years. Though present in significant numbers on board eighteenth-century vessels, ships' boys have rarely been considered by historians. The lack of research can partly be explained by the lack of source material, which is why the records of the London Marine Society, a charity that had made it its task to recruit boys for the sea service, are so valuable. The Marine Society was one of the most prominent charities in the wave of voluntary associations that emerged in the mid-eighteenth century, and this thesis aims to add to the historiography of the charity movement by investigating the Society's origins, how and by whom it was run and financed, and how successful its work was. [...cont'd via the Electronic Access link]