The Chatham Chest

[Mission]

I was fooling around looking for images for my next article when I came across the Chatham's Chest. I had no idea there actually was a real, physical Chatham's Chest! I thought it was more theoretical and less metal. How about that?

For those who have never heard of it, I will regurgitate the description on the National Maritime Museum's website:

"The Chatham Chest was established in 1590 by Sir John Hawkins and others to provide pensions for wounded seamen. The fund was supported by compulsory deductions of 6d a month from seamen's wages. The iron chest was ordered in 1625 to hold the money for a mutual benevolent fund for disabled seaman and was deposited with Greenwich Hospital by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in 1845. The iron chest has five locks: a disguised keyhole in the top, which operated an elaborate lock covering the entire interior of the lid, and four hasps for padlocks. The keyhole in the front of the chest is false. The origional key survives with this chest."

For those who've never explored the National Maritime Museum's website, prepare to waste many of you upcoming hours...I am.

[Mission]

By George if I didn't just come across more on this in the book I am currently reading: Poxed and Scurvied: The Story of Sickness and Health at Sea by Kevin Brown.

"A mutual medical aid scheme on a nation scale, known as the Chatham Chest, was established by Francis Drake and John Hawkins in 1590 for the aid of sick and disabled mariners. Each parish in England contributed a small weekly sum for the maintenance of invalid sailors born of living within that parish, and seamen were invited to make their own voluntary contributions. In 1604 a compulsory deduction of 6d a week was made from the wages of all seamen serving in the navy. Additional funds came from prize money and the fines levied at courts martial. The money raised was kept in a strong brass-bound chest in the parish church at Chatham, and the five keys to it kept by a master attendant, a shipwright, a boatswain, a purser, and a principal officer of the navy who appointed his four colleagues. It was then down to the individual sailor in hardship to apply for assistance from the fund and he had to attend in person at Chatham, where the governors of the Chest met only once a month." (Kevin Brown, p. 43)

[PoD]

I am in the process of making a replica of that very chest. I'll be using it to keep my tent in for transportation purposes but as set dressing ones I am set up for trading.