Part 2 The Queen's Shilling

Part 2 The Queen's Shilling

Eight years later at the age of twenty on 1st November 1859, Horatio followed the call of his nautical name, he accepted the Queen’s shilling and enlisted in Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Royal Navy.

HMS Edgar was to be the young Horace’s first ship, he was signed onto the crew by Captain James Katon. The Edgar was part of the Channel Squadron, based around the south coast of England. His enlistment papers from the time show that he was 5’ 5 ½” tall (short by today’s standards), fresh complexion, with brown hair and blue eyes.  He had two tattoos described as a woman and an anchor on his left arm and a sailor and anchor on his right arm. He must have been keen to become a sailor, already having nautical tattoos on his arms, or perhaps he already worked on boats or at sea. Maybe he had worked in London’s busy ports?

Life in the Victorian British navy was tough, it was still a time of rum, sodomy and the lash. Disease and death was common. Living conditions were unsanitary; food would have been dried and salted though canned food was just coming in to use.

The period in which he served is sometimes called the forgotten period of the Royal Navy. The days of his namesake Nelson, Trafalgar and the great sailing ships were coming to an end.  Horace served on some of the first steam powered, screw propeller ships.  Early in his career they were still however of wooden construction. The days of the great iron and steel ships were still some years off. These steam powered ships would have been hot and dirty, with the continual risk of fire from the ships boiler.

At the end of 1863 Horace transferred to HMS Conqueror (formerly known as HMS Waterloo) under Captain Luard. He sailed halfway round the world to the Orient to join the China stations based out of the British colony of Hong Kong.  His oriental adventures had begun.