Search Results

This chapter provides a survey on aggregate data on maritime labour in the Netherlands. It explores the existing historical record on maritime labour and argues for an increase in micro-level research. The general aspects discussed include: levels of employment; the size, structure and productivity of shipping; the geographic origins of crews; and the movement of Dutch labour abroad.

This final chapter concludes the volume with a commentary on the previous essays. It praises the collaborative work of experts for providing a database of interpretation and case studies that offer more than a medley of bare fact. The chapter also provides a summary of the contributions in the collection, covering maritime labour power; economic and maritime developments; the labour market; the hunting and fishing industry; navy; war; technology; recruitment; quantifying the seafaring pool; ages; and wages.

This initial chapter attempts to provide a survey of the Western European maritime labour market between 1570 and 1870, but in doing so addresses the difficulties in finding reliable and precise information. The report considers the usefulness of estimation and scattered numbers and suggests alternative methods of information discovery in the form of analysing social influences, geographical settings and economic factors.

This chapter explores the modes of the recruitment of seamen in European countries with changing economic positions from the sixteenth to nineteenth century. It discusses the four divisions of recruitment policies: mixed systems of free and unfree labour; national recruitment of free labour; national recruitment of unfree labour; and international and national recruitment of free labour, and analyses the influence of labour migration, war, imperialism and internationalisation.

This chapter describes the competition Britain faced in its two century journey of becoming the possessor of the world’s largest trading fleet and the world’s most powerful navy. It stops at several important benchmark dates in European shipping trade history, including the growth of the East Coast coal trade; trade with the Mediterranean; oceanic fishing off the coast of Iceland and the Newfoundland Banks; voyages to the Indian Ocean; colonization in North America and West Indies; increase in demand for timber and marine stores; and the rapid expansion of slave trade from West Africa. The chapter also documents the increased employment levels as a result of trade growth, and estimates at the number of sailors employed at significant dates in maritime history, and investigates their geographical origin, wage, and approach to teamwork.

This chapter addresses Danish maritime history over 300 years, from 1570 to 1870. It reports ship and crew sizes in the Danish merchant marine, deep-sea fishery and whaling industries, and describes the voyage patterns of the merchant marine. While the article acknowledges the wealth of existing literature on shipping routes and cargoes, types of ships, and political aspects of Danish participation in international shipping, it also recognises that Danish sailors and their lives have been allotted little room in literature on Danish maritime history. Therefore, this article attempts to ask who the sailors were, and employs research into their nationality, ages, wages and range of experience. The chapter also looks at the role Danish sailors played in European and overseas maritime trade markets.

This chapter discusses the growth in the French shipping and fishing industries between 1661 and 1789, and focuses in particular on the French seafaring population and role of naval conscription administration. It discusses the demand for labour during this period; the sources of labour supplying; dealing with the social and geographical origins of the seafarers; changes in wage rates and their relation to demand for seamen’s services; factors affecting the labour supply; links between wages and migrations; and the question of the outward migration of sailors from France, whilst emphasising the usefulness of centralised and uniform administrative documentation.

This chapter explores the lives and social status of seamen in the Southern Netherlands and Belgium, and provides insight on the respective country’s labour market. It sheds light on the sailor recruitment process; influence of the industrial revolution on maritime growth; the government’s attitude toward maritime affairs; size of merchant fleets and the navy; working conditions; wages; and opportunities for promotion.

This chapter uses the biography of Jens Jacob Eschels, a North Frisian sea-farer, to build a report of what a career at sea involved. Discussed in the chapter are the decisions and factors for and against working at sea; various seafaring trades; state regulations influencing the numbers of recruits at sea; age as a contributing factor; opportunities for upward mobility; and loss of life at sea as a result of danger and war.

This chapter provides a discussion of the various labour conditions for sailors in the sixteenth to nineteenth century. It analyses the skewed relationship between employer and labourer and, in some cases, presents a bleak picture of the risks and dangers involved in the career of a voyager.

This chapter describes Spain’s relationship with the sea over the years 1570 to 1870. The article concentrates on the reported numbers of sailors working in Spanish fleets and discusses their lives; characteristics; culture; origin; salaries and recruitment process. Also discussed in the chapter is the involvement of the government; group formation and striking; and mobility between seafaring careers.

This chapter explores the German shipping industry during the years 1650–1900, and places focus on Hamburg’s merchant fleet in particular. It investigates the lives of the fleet’s sailors, including their origin; wages; group formations; and mobility between occupations, and provides details of recruitment policies and restrictions. The article also researches the involvement of German sailors within international fleets and discusses the strained relationship between Denmark and Hamburg that came as a result of limiting recruitment policies and the Danish King’s decision to forbid his subjects to enrol in fleets abroad.