Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The English Maritime Community, 1500–1650
- 2 The Work of G.V. Scammell
- 3 The Men of the Mary Rose
- 4 Tudor Merchant Seafarers in the Early Guinea Trade
- 5 The Elizabethan Maritime Community
- 6 The Religious Shipboard Culture of Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century English Sailors
- 7 Health and Health Care at Sea
- 8 The Relief of English Disabled Ex-Sailors, c. 1590–1680
- 9 Seamen's Wives and Widows
- 10 Jacobean Piracy: English Maritime Depredation in Transition, 1603–1625
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - The Relief of English Disabled Ex-Sailors, c. 1590–1680
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The English Maritime Community, 1500–1650
- 2 The Work of G.V. Scammell
- 3 The Men of the Mary Rose
- 4 Tudor Merchant Seafarers in the Early Guinea Trade
- 5 The Elizabethan Maritime Community
- 6 The Religious Shipboard Culture of Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century English Sailors
- 7 Health and Health Care at Sea
- 8 The Relief of English Disabled Ex-Sailors, c. 1590–1680
- 9 Seamen's Wives and Widows
- 10 Jacobean Piracy: English Maritime Depredation in Transition, 1603–1625
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
To Alexand[e]r Peterson[,] lately belonging unto ye Leopard[,] who in an engagm[en]t w[i]th ye Holland[e[rs in ye Streights was much burned by Gunpowd[e]r in his hands[,] face[,] legge[,] and should[e]r[,] rec[eive]d a wound in his necke neere ye windpipe by a Muskett bulett[,] six pounds.
I
In the late sixteenth century England created Europe's first national systems of benefits for rank-and-file disabled sailors and soldiers, an important develop-ment which until quite recently has not been given any systematic attention by scholars. This chapter will provide an analysis of the provision made for disa-bled ex-sailors in the period.
The first national system for ex-sailors was the Chatham Chest, founded in 1590. Subsequently, in 1593, an act created a county-based pension scheme for ex-sailors and soldiers that lasted, with changes, until 1679. During the 1640s and 1650s Parliament ran a central fund that provided 350 hospital places at the Savoy and Ely House, as well as 6500 out-pensions to ex-servicemen, war widows and orphans. From 1653, after the First Dutch War, this provision was formally extended to ex-sailors. With the Restoration this central Parliamentary provision ended. In the late seventeenth century the Royal Hospitals of Green-wich and Chelsea were created for disabled sailors and soldiers respectively.
Historians who have considered the state's relief of disabled ex-servicemen in the early modern period have given little attention to the county schemes and, until recently, the Chatham Chest.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Social History of English Seamen, 1485-1649 , pp. 229 - 252Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012