PRESS GANGS
Press gangs were used by the Royal Navy as a crude and violent method of recruiting seamen into naval service, often against their will.
Recruiting sailors vounlarily was difficult as the conditions on board ship were poor and serving in the navy, especially at time of war, was dangerous.
The word press gangs derives from the term impressment, which can be defined as, the act of coercing someone into government service.
Impressment was used from as early as Elizabethan times and was last used during the Napoleonic wars 1803-1815.
The press gang, a group of 10 - 12 men, led by an officer, would roam the streets looking for likely 'volunteers', merchant seamen were particularly prized as they
already had seagoing experience and needed less training.
The area of Spice Island, in Old Portsmouth, seems to have been a favourite
recruiting area due to the large number of pubs, hostelries and other establishments that existed there.
Certain groups were exempt from the impressment process, apprentices were exempt.
Officially foreigners could not be impressed, although
they could be persuaded to volunteer and there was an age limit 18 to 55 years. But the rules were often ignored so that the press gang
could earn their reward, they were paid by the head. Often men were knocked unconscious or threatened and often violent fights
broke out as groups tried to prevent friends or workmates being impressed into service.
When the press gang had seized a man, he was offered the King's shilling as a reward for volunteering, but often the coin was issued in
devious and underhand ways, such as slipping the shilling into a pocket, or dropping it into his drink.
If you were in possession of the shilling
then that was good enough for the press gang. It is for this reason that glass bottomed tankards became popular, so that you could check your
drink didn't contain a shilling before drinking it.
Not surpisingly corruption was rife, many wealthier men escaped impressment by simply bribing the press gang, other men would play the
dangerous game of taking the King's shilling and then running away and repeating the act elsewhere.
After 1853 the need for press gangs diminished, at this time the navy introduced continuous service for sailors with a more structured career
and a pension on retirement, this led to more men joining on a vountary basis and reduced the need for impressment.
