Interwoven with the chaplains’ department and sometimes independent of it, several aspects of evangelical piety could be found in the navy. Eventually, when convinced of its harmlessness and even persuaded of its value, the Admiralty conceded a place for it – probably to counter more radical tendencies. If this sounds like a more tolerant attitude on the part of the authorities it must be set against the Admiralty’s continuing reluctance to do anything much for other denominations. Evangelical elements were given more room but still within a context of Anglican dominance.

Daily prayer and a private place

When Tucker introduced daily morning prayers in the Revenge for the watch on duty it was disliked at first, accepted after a week and welcomed within a month or two: ‘there was a general feeling that the service carried comfort with it, not to say a spirit of subordination and submission’ – aided perhaps by the captain’s habit of attending these early morning devotions in his dressing gown. It was an isolated experiment at the time but it pointed the way to the future. The custom became more general in the 1850s when existing currents of lay piety were strengthened by a reinvigorated chaplains’ branch. No great upheaval was involved when a prayer or two was included in the routine of mustering by divisions at the start of the day’s work, especially if a chaplain were present, and the coming of war with its heightened danger sharpened the desire to participate. The trend perhaps began with Lord Clarence Paget, commanding the Princess Royal in the Baltic Fleet in 1854: when he invited all who wished to join him in daily prayers with the chaplain, almost everyone off duty attended.Several other ships’ companies copied the practice.

During the land campaigns of the Indian Mutiny the chaplain of the Pearl’s naval brigade led a ten-minute prayer time each day after the men had been paraded – in conscious imitation of a practice which he describes as ‘not unusual’ aboard ship. Pearl’s captain Edward Sotheby, a known supporter of NMBS and Christian causes, might well have expected prayers in a combat zone, but the comment of chaplain Williams implies that thecustom was already reasonably widespread by the late 1850s.