Navy Board Staff
Principal Officers and Commissioners
Sir Charles Middleton (7.8.78 to 29.3.90) – see separate file
Surveyors
E. Hunt (11.4.78 to 7.12.86) and J. Henslow (13.12.84 to 11.2.93)
Clerk of the Acts
George Marsh (16.7.73 to 3.8.96)
See Journal of George Marsh (http://www.jjhc.info/marshgeorge1800diary.htm)
1735 – When Marsh was 12 years old, he served on his father’s ship, the Nowark, flagship of Sir George Walton.
1737 – Marsh was made an apprentice to Mr Charles Middleton, a Petty Officer in Chatham Dockyard. George spent 6 years learning all about the construction and maintenance of large navy ships.
1745 – Marsh was appointed as a clerk with Commissioner Whorwood at Deptford. This was very quickly followed by a job with Mr Clevland, Clerk of the Acts of the Navy. George was employed in collecting and making a calculation of the expense of Queen Ann's War with Spain. He completed this in four months to everyone’s satisfaction and as a result was then made an ‘Extra Clerk’ to Captain Richard Haddock, Comptroller of the Navy, in his office for bills and accounts.
His job as a clerk came to an end but he managed to get a job measuring and scaling timber being bought by the navy for use in shipbuilding. He did this until 1750 when he again managed to get a job as a clerk, this time in the office for bills and accounts working for Savage Mostyn, the Comptroller of the Navy.
Marsh had also gone into business supplying goods and services to the navy, initially with Pentecost Barker and then later with Henry Creed and eventually with his own son William. He also had as a partner Edward Ommaney, although this did not work out very satisfactorily. As a result, Marsh became a very rich man.
In 1757, Captain James Gilchrist appointed Marsh as his agent to arrange the selling of prizes. More contracts for handing prize ships were to follow and eventually Marsh’s company was handling such a large amount of money that it became a bank in its own right.
In 1763 the Earl of Egmont was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and shortly after he appointed George Marsh as a Commissioner for Victualling and in 1772, George became a full Commissioner of the Navy.
For the next 28 years, until he death in 1800 at the age of 82, George Marsh interacted with the top of London society, including the King and the Prime Minister and being in daily contact with senior officials in the Navy.
He married Ann Long in 1750 and the marriage lasted 34 years until her death in 1784. They had four children, two of whom died young. The eldest George died aged about 41. The other child, William, made the most of the family fortune that his father had built up for him.
Marsh died in 1800 and is buried in the family Church of St Mary Magdalene, Gillingham, Kent. In addition to a memorial tablet inside the church there is also a stained glass window located on the north side of the church, which reads as follows:
"To the memory of George Marsh Esqr. One of the Principle Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy, who died the 27th day of October 1800, Aged 78 Years. He served in various Naval Departments upwards of 64 Years with indefatigable Attention and Fidelity. Was appointed in 1763, one of the Commissioners for Victualling His Majesty's Navy, and by the King's Command, "In Consequence of the Recommendation to his Majesty by the Earl of Egmont upon his Lordship's retiring the office, and signified to him by the Earl of Sandwich, when First Lord of the Admiralty, in October 1772, a Commissioner of the Navy."
(based on Roger Knight, ‘Captivity, Marriage and Influence: the entangled fortunes of the Marsh and Towry Families, 1755-1808’, Trafalgar Chronicle, Year Book of the 1805 Club, 2010 (20), pp.49-57)
Marsh’s career in the Navy Board was as follows:
- Clerk (Bills and Accounts) – paid from 10 Oct 1745 (TNA ADM7/812/10)
- Left office – 25 June 1746 on appointment as Clerk to Commissioner for Deptford and Woolwich Yards (TNA ADM7/812/10 & 29)
- Reappointed – 12 Dec 1750 (TNA ADM7/812/10)
- Clerk (Seaman's Wages) – 1 May 1751 - 31 Oct. 1763 (TNA ADM7/812/11).
- Left office 31 Oct. 1763 on appointment as Commissioner of Victualling (TNA ADM7/814/13; TNA C66/3693).
- Controller of Victualling Accounts – 28 Oct 1772 - 16 July 1773 (TNA C 66/3738).
- Clerk of Acts – 16 July 1773 - 3 Aug. 1796 (TNA C 66/3742).
- Commissioner of the Navy Board – 3 Aug. 1796 - 27 Oct. 1800 (TNA C 6/3930)
- Died – 27 October 1800 (Gentleman’s Magazine (1800), Vol.lxx (2), 1110)
(see also J.M.Collinge, Navy Board Officials, 1660-1832, 1978)
Extra Commissioner
Samuel Wallis (28.12.80 to 11.2.93)
Samuel Wallis had served with Sir Charles Middleton early in their careers, and in 1766-68, he had circumnavigated the world.
Controller of the Treasurer’s Accounts
G. Rogers (19.10.82 to ??)
Controller of the Storekeepers’ Accounts
W. Campbell (7.7.73 to 21.1.90)
Assistant Clerk of the Acts
Joshua Thomas – (18.5.80 to 30.5.89, when he died)
While he was strictly-speaking Marsh’s assistant, Marsh wrote in his journal that Thomas was commonly referred to as ‘Secretary of the Navy Board’. In Middleton’s absence, much of the correspondence was carried on by Thomas.
December 1786 – Middleton wrote of him in his submission regarding the Navy Board made to the Baring inquiry:
"He is intelligent and has been long in office, and has constantly and cheerfully given me every possible assistance in conducting the service. But for his ready help, I could not have accomplished what I have done." (John Knox Laughton (ed.), Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham, 1758-1813, London: Naval Records Society, 1910, Vol.II, p.249)
Thomas was paid a salary of £450, to which was added £50 for a house. (John Knox Laughton (ed.), Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham, 1758-1813, London: Naval Records Society, 1910, Vol.II, p.249, Note 1)
Many of his official papers are found in the US Naval Archives.
George Marsh regarded him as ‘a very able but corrupt bad principled man’. (Journal of George Marsh)
May 1789 – Middleton wrote to Pitt:
"Since writing this copy, Secretary taken ill and dying. He was the only assistant I had, and therefore what was barely practicable before, with unremitting attendance, is now beyond my state of health and strength of constitution, and as others will not determine, I must do so for myself." (John Knox Laughton (ed.), Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham, 1758-1813, London: Naval Records Society, 1910, Vol.II, p.322)
Joshua Thomas died 30 May 1789. It is evident that Middleton regarded him as a personal secretary, which caused George Marsh some unhappiness, and following his death, Middleton turned to the only other person who knew his habits of work so well – George Ramsay.
Marsh provides some interest detail on the manoeuvring that followed Thomas’s death:
"Mr Joshua Thomas my assistant commonly called Secretary of the Navy Board died who was a very able but corrupt bad principled man. Just before his death Sir Charles Middleton acquainted me (who was then the Comptroller of the Navy) that Lord Chatham desired not, to have any recommendation from the Navy Board and myself in particular, as had ever been usual, for a person to succeed to that appointment, who it is always mentioned in the letter from the Navy Board to the Admiralty is approved of by the Clerk of the Acts who also joins with the other members of the Navy Board in the recommendation by signing the letter and applies too personally for the person so recommended. However as Sir Charles had delivered this message to me, I did not apply immediately to the Navy Board to join in writing a letter to the Admiralty to recommend Mr John Margetson my head clerk for this appointment, which they would have most readily have done, as they approved of him as well as myself. But in the course of the same week I reflected upon this affair and thought it extraordinary that Lord Chatham should send such a message to me and therefore waited upon his Lordship, who told me he had not sent such a message, but that Sir Charles had requested of him not to appoint any person immediately to succeed Mr Thomas, whereupon I recommended Mr Margetson as the properest person for that employment in which the Board also joined me, but his Lordship desired it might rest 'till some Naval arrangement then before the Council should be settled.
"Soon after this a person named Ramsay died at Sir Charles Middleton's house who was said to be a Methodist parson, who it was also said Sir Charles wished very much to have this appointment, but be that as it may it was not made 'till 28th December 1789, when Mr Ambrose Serle produced his Warrant to me, and said Lord Chatham particularly directed him to follow my orders. I replied to Mr Serle that I was very sorry for his appointment, for if I could have had my wish my first clerk should have had it, but as superior interest had prevailed, I would nevertheless give him every information and rendering him my utmost assistance in the business of the Office and dayly advice for his conduct in the execution of it (for I conceived he was no way to blame to endeavour to obtain so valuable tho' very laborious confined an employment.) This very uncommon appointment was brought about by the very great interest of Sir Charles who artfully go the Earl of Dartmouth to ask Lord Chatham for it, for Mr Serle (who was said to be a Methodist) so that it might not appear to be done by him." (Journal of George Marsh)
Blake describes Ramsay as having been Middleton’s ‘confidential secretary’:
"While Middleton was preoccupied with reforming the Navy Office in the 1780s Ramsay worked alongside him, copying memoranda, editing documents, and occasionally initiating preliminary drafts." (Richard Blake, 'Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815', Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2008, p.58)
He includes in this category, the ‘Memorandum – Duty of Captains in the Navy’, undated, but dated by Laughton between December 1783 and July 1784. (Blake, p.61; John Knox Laughton (ed.), Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham, 1758-1813, 3 Volumes, London: Naval Records Society, 1907-1910)
Blake also claims:
"They worked together over plans for the First Fleet to Botany Bay: while the Comptroller was responsible for finding the shipping, Ramsay selected a team of naval surgeons for the voyage and for establishing medical facilities in the new settlement. Again Ramsay proposed that a free black community in West Africa should be made economically viable with British help and protection: the idea appealed to Pitt and eventually inspired the Sierra Leone project beloved of the Clapham philanthropists. . ." (Blake, p.62)
Blake provides no sources to support these claims, and indeed, there are none. This is mere supposition on his part, perhaps supported by the speculations of Sir James Watt, who also failed to produce supporting evidence. (James Watt, ‘Surgeon James Ramsay, 1733-1789: the Navy and the Slave Trade’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (1994) 87, pp.773-776)
Nevertheless, the fact that Middleton was trying to appoint Ramsay as the de facto ‘Secretary to the Navy Board’ in 1789 tends to confirm his ongoing role as an adviser to Middleton through the period when the First Fleet was being commissioned.
Chief Clerk to the Clerks of the Acts
R. Gregson (12.6.80 to 12.12.88, when John Margetson was appointed)
Resident Agents at Deptford
See separate pages on George Teer and James Bowen.
