From 'The Illustrated London News', June 24th, 1882

Captain Bourchier, Commandant. This vessel replaced the 'Goliath'. Lay off
Grays, Essex. The crew of the 'Exmouth' consisted of boys drafted from the
various Metropolitan parishes. Since establishment, the 'Exeter' had
received 1,760 boys of whom only 8 had died. 251 had entered the Royal Navy,
560 had joined the Merchant Navy, 133 joined the Army as band-boys and 245
returned to their Unions and friends.

EXMOUTH TRAINING-SHIP

From 'St. James's Gazette', April, 1887

Corduroy trousers much too short, large patches at the knee, and a corduroy
jacket with large and shining brass buttons - such is the costume that,
according to all experience gained either by novel-reading or theatre-going,
the pauper lad should wear. But times change, though writers do not always
change with them. Let us see how far the picture is true nowadays. A run of
little more than half an hour from Fenchurch-Street Station brings us to
Grays. As we walk down to the river-bank the forest of masts is visible on
our left in Tilbury Docks, a mile or two further down stream. We reach the
bank, and walk out along the causeway towards the Exmouth, which lies moored
a cable's length from the shore. We push off in a cutter sent to meet us,
and in two minutes reach the ship. On the deck the whole ship's company,
some six hundred strong, is drawn up for inspection, half in the port watch,
the other half in the starboard; each watch being further sub-divided into
three divisions.

At the first glance it is almost impossible to realise that these smart
lads, with their neat sailor dress and their chevrons and gold-lace badges
on the sleeves of their frocks, are really paupers after all. A close
observer, however, notices in too many cases the deep scars over the glands
of the neck, the unnatural look of the eyelids, or the dwarfish appearance
of the square shoulders, which tell of neglect and privation in their
earlier years. But at present the lads look the picture of rude health. It
is past twelve o'clock though, the captain reminds us, and his crew have
been hard at work since a quarter to six, and, having breakfasted at seven,
are quite ready for another meal. Down below, on the main deck, dinner is
served, as soon as the boys have changed their parade uniform for their
every-day suits. They dine, in messes of twenty, at tables running out from
the sides of the ship towards the centre. The food is abundant and good -
bread and butter and cocoa for breakfast, fresh meat every day of the week
at dinner, and cocoa and bread and cheese for supper. Indeed, were the
dietary less nourishing the boys would not be fit for the fourteen hours'
almost continuous hard work that makes up their daily life.

The mess-deck serves as dormitory as well to some two hundred of the boys.
The lower deck "sleeps" another two hundred while the orlop-deck takes the
rest. In the daytime the lower deck is the schoolroom. Here, with the
different class-rooms separated only by canvas screens, the five
schoolmasters have to conduct their lessons as best they can while gun-drill
or sword-exercise is energetically carried on over their heads and the music
of the brass band or the bagpipes floats up from the band-room in the hold
below. Naturally enough, even the sympathetic inspector of the Local
Government Board cannot report that reading aloud or writing from dictation
is the strongest point in the school course. But literary instruction is
rightly felt not to be the most important matter. School work is much alike
all the world over.

Let us follow the day's work of a "passed-out" boy - one, that is, whose
schooling is finished. He is roused by the bugle-call at 5.45 A M. By six
o'clock his hammock has been lashed up and stowed away, and he is ready to
take his share in giving the ship its morning cleaning from stem to stern.
This lasts till eight o'clock; in the mean time the boy has had his own
scrub from head to foot in warm water, followed by a plunge into a cold bath
afterwards, and got his breakfast. At half past eight the whole crew parade
and are inspected by the captain. Orders are given out, punishments for
offences of the day before are, if necessary, inflicted. Prayers follow at
nine o'clock and then, till noon, instruction in seamanship. From twelve
till two is playtime, then seamanship again till 4.30. From 4.30 till 6,
supper and play. Then another three-quarters of an hour's work, except two
days a week, when dancing to the music of the band takes its place; till,
finally, at a quarter to eight, the bugle sounds to get up hammocks again.
By eight o'clock prayers have been said, boys have turned in, lights (except
in the officers' cabins) are out, and half the boys are fast asleep.

To a landsman the number of subjects included in the training of a sailor is
bewildering. The ship's regulations classify them under sixteen heads.
Cooking, carpentry, tailoring, each of which is supposed to be enough for
one man on shore, are just thrown in as makeweights. On the Exmouth
everything seems to be going on at once. There is one class busy with
big-gun drill, a second with cutlasses, and a third with carbines. In one
corner is a knot of boys clustered round the compass and mastering the
mysteries of its thirty-two points. Close by is a model of a full-rigged
ship, and boys are learning the name of each spar and rope, from cathead to
mizen shrouds. Overhead, sails are being loosed, reefed, furled, or unbent;
while round the ship the water is alive with boats whose crews are
practising rowing, sailing, and steering. On a fine evening a boat-race is a
grand excitement. The course is round two marks and back to the ship,
unlimited fouling being permitted. Nor are the boys confined to row-boats. A
sailing tender, a one-hundred-ton brigantine, is attached to the ship, and
cruises about the mouth of the river from Monday to Saturday during the
summer, with a crew of two men and thirty boys.

And what, it will be asked, is the result of all this training? Let the
figures for the year 1886 (an average year) answer this question. In 1886
three hundred and seventy-four boys left the ship. Forty-nine were claimed
back by the boards of guardians that sent them, in most cases because their
parents were found able to support them. Places for one hundred and seven
were found in the mercantile marine, for fifty-five in the army as band
boys. But the ambition of a training-ship boy is to be admitted into the
Royal Navy. True, the standard is far higher and the requirements more
exacting; but, in return, the pay and position and prospects are all better.
Into the Royal Navy the Exmouth discharged one hundred and fourteen boys.
All the other training-ships in the United Kingdom, with not far from five
thousand boys on board, sent only ninety-five. But even though they fail to
reach the navy standard, the boys often have good careers open before them.
A lad who left the ship six years ago is now, aged twenty-one, an officer on
board a telegraph ship with £150 a year pay besides board and lodging.
Pending the completion of arrangements for their removal en masse to Canada,
juvenile paupers have no reason to complain of the prospect before them
after a year or two's training on board the Exmouth.