Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal:'Samuel Pepys The Professional …

Images(2)

Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal:'Samuel Pepys The Professional Navy'

AssociatedAssociated with Lord Mountbatten of Burma (Frogmore House, Windsor, England, 1900 - 1979)

Medallist John Pinches, Medallists

DateMay 2004

Object NameMedal

MediumSterling Silver

ClassificationsMedals

Dimensions44mm

AcquisitionPresented in 2004 by Dr Joan M Burrell.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDMS072500.14

Keywords

About MeSamuel Pepys is best known as a diarist, but he was also an exceptionally able Secretary of the Admiralty at a critical time in the evolution of the professional navy. When he retired in 1688 his claim that the navy of Britain had never been in such a good condition as when he left it was amply justified.

He lived through the period of the Dutch wars, when the line of battle, with its attendant codes of tactics and discipline, was created and he played an important part in the formation of a hierarchy of naval officers to fight the ships. A man of keen intelligence and insatiable curiosity, his wide interests included navigation, astronomy, cartography and naval architecture.

He was the son of a London tailor, educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where his fine collection of books in glass-fronted cases which he designed is still preserved. He entered the King's service as Clerk of the King's Ships, but by the end of his career as a civil servant he had for many years been Secretary of the Admiralty, the key executive post, which made him responsible for the ships and men of the Stuart navy. It was a difficult task, as he confesses in his diary: 'To regulate and reform the navy seems a work at this day little less than that ascribed to Hercules in his cleansing of the Augean stables.'

The chief problem which he solved was the creation of a class of professional naval officers. Hitherto warships had been commanded either by 'tarpaulins' of little education, or by high ranking amateurs with little experience or knowledge of the sea. He saw that a naval officer must be both a gentleman and a seaman engaged in a permanent career. To provide for such senior officers be instituted an examination for all lieutenants before they could command a ship, and to catch suitable entrants he developed a category of Volunteers-per-Order, or naval cadets, as they would be called today.

He also founded a navigation school at Christ's Hospital, of which he was a governor. One of these boys is seen 'shooting the sun' by using a backstaff, the predecessor of the sextant, to take the altitude of the sun through a mirror, from which he could calculate the latitude.

Other aspects of his interest in navigation which he displayed as Master of Trinity House and President of the new Royal Society were the part he played in the establishment of the Royal Observatory and his commissioning Captain Greenvile Collins to produce the first English book of charts, Britain's Coasting Pilot, published in 1693. By then Pepys had fallen from office (when his patron, once Lord High Admiral, lost his throne as King James II in 1688) and he died in 1703.

The Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea, John Pinches Medallists Ltd.