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#sailor #ships #maritime #captain #mariner #MasterMariner

A question for all you experts in maritime history.

In the mid-19th century, were the rules that applied to boys entering the Royal Navy applicable to the Merchant Navy too?

For instance, by 1851 a 14-year-old needed to be 4ft 8in to gain a position in the navy.

My 2x great-grandfather (5th left-right bottom row) adult height was only 5ft 4in. He was 14 in 1851, so I imagine that he would have been under the expected height for the Royal Navy, but would he have been rejected for the merchant navy?

He did join the merchant navy, and by 1870 he had gained his Master's Certificate

#familyhistory #maritime #royalnavy #merchantnavy #nautical #sea #ships #seacaptain #mastermariner

One family history chapter ends, and another begins - I am still in Par in Cornwall and it is 1837.

The growth of this village is credited to one man, Devon born Joseph Treffry. Treffry was a mine owner and industrialist whose acquisitions of a number of copper mines led to the building of smelting works and a harbour that was in use by 1833.

In 1837 Treffry purchased the pier and harbour of Newquay and three years later the harbour in Par was fully operational. The last improvement planned by Treffry, but completed after his death in 1850, was an extension of the railway along the canal bank to the harbour.

It is from this little port that my 3x great grandfather began his twenty-five-year career at sea.

#19thcentury #familyhistory #cornwall #par #port #maritime #trade #mastermariner