The Admiralty Slop Contracts

[Fox]

SO I've got myself a bigger version of that picture, and blown it up as far as I reasonably can, and mucked about with the contrast and whatnot to crisp up the lines a bit, and I gotta tell you I'm damned if I can make out anything under his coat sleeves in enough detail to say with any confidence what it is.

I'm not saying that it's a waistcoat, or a shirt cuff, or an elephant, there just ain't enough detail to tell.

[Slopmaker Cripps]

Foxe,

Thanks for giving it a shot. I wish my computer would stop being a _itch and allow me to post and email pics (so I can share details pics). It is very hard with all the clutter there, but I'll tell you how I came to the conclusion that I did. I'll start from the top and go down. Just in front of the cuff and right behind his thumb is a small triangle of white. Just below that and seperated by a horizontal dark line, behind the shirt cuff and before the jacket cuff, there are two squares with a distinct dark line seperating them vertically. Below the two white squares, there's another horizontal distinct dark line with a white triangle beneath it, on the hand side of the vertical, and before the cuff. Where another white square would be, on the jacket cuff side of the vertical, the artist decided to sketch in some shadowing and the area is darkened along with the area under the armpit, side, and upper thigh area of the trousers. The artist would not have left these squares and triangles white unless he's trying to represent a pattern (which in this case looks just like window pane check, which is period and seen on other artwork and described in deserter ads etc). The artist also distinctly darkened the shirt cuff so as to contrast with the patterned part of the shirt coming out from under the cuff, which also gives us another example the narrow cuff widths used on early style sailors shirts. I still stand by my belief that it's a window-pane checked linen shirt for the time being.

Cheers,

Adam C., Slop-man

P.S. I also play with a magnifying glass a lot......:-)

[Fox]

On Sleeveless Waistcoats

I must confess to being a little bothered by the assertion that ASC waistcoats (and indeed seamen's waistcoats in general) were always sleeveless. If we look at this 1689 picture of a seaman from Admiral Torrington's achievement of arms we can see that the garment he is wearing quite definitely has sleeves:

This picture is quite an important one, because unlike most others we also have a contemporary description of what he's wearing, not just our own interpretations:

"...a waistcoat, buttoned, azure; wide breeches argent, double striped crosswise crimson; hose and shoes sable; neckcloth silver..."

The question is whether he is wearing slop garments or not. I believe the most recent set of ASC specs prior to 1689 was that of 1672, which included "blue suits". Of course, we don't know what form those blue suits took, but in 1690 blue suits were still on the list at 5s. The 1699 list also includes blue suits at 5s, and describes them as including "waistcoats", but no coats - coats are dealt with elsewhere in the list, an arrangement perhaps similar to the 1706 sets of matching red breeches and waistcoats and non-matching coats. There is, then, a reasonably good chance that our figure is wearing a slop waistcoat. In addition, all the other garments he is wearing can be found in the ASC specs of the later 17thC (striped suits at 11s6d, red caps at 1s1d etc. even his rather natty collar might well be one of the "French falls" which we know were issued as slops in the 1670s at 5s) IF he is wearing slop clothing then we have evidence of sleeved waistcoats prior to 1705 in the ASC specs, if he is not then we still have evidence of seamen wearing sleeved waistcoats.

I'm not suggesting for a minute that this proves the 1706 and subsequent ASC spec waistcoats had sleeves, but it certainly throws doubt on any statement that they definitely didn't.

Also, although we've discussed this privately it hasn't been thrown open to public debate: this painting (which has already been posted but it's on a different page) clearly shows two men aboard ship wearing apparently identical ticking waistcoats, with sleeves. The mere fact that they are the same suggests a common source, and the most obvious common source of clothing for men aboard ships is the purser's packs of slop clothing.

It might be argued that the men in the captain's cabin are probably officers, but there are two obvious objections: firstly, neither of them are wearing what might be called fashionable clothes as one would expect officers to be, and the fellow standing at right is wearing a very tatty looking round hat; and secondly, there was not, so far as I am aware, any rule prohibiting officers from buying and wearing slop clothing anyway.

Personally I suspect, because of the way they are dressed and because they are the only two figures without chairs, that the two men in ticking waistcoats are warrant/petty officers - working men like a boatswain or a gunner, rather than commissioned officers like lieutenants. Alternatively it may be that they are commissioned officers, but they are clearly not wearing their "best" clothes and are probably in their working gear. Without a more detailed contemporary description it is not possible to tell for certain whether they are wearing slop clothing, but the fact that their waistcoats are identical certainly does suggest a common source. Whether they are warrant/petty officers or commissioned officers in working gear there is no reason to suppose that that common source is not the Admiralty spec slop clothing, and reasonable grounds for supposing that it might be.

As before, even if they can positively be shown not to be wearing slop clothing (which they cannot) it does at least show seamen of the era in question wearing sleeved waistcoats.

There is nothing like enough conclusive evidence to say with any certainty that ASC spec waistcoats had sleeves, but neither IMHO is there enough to say that they certainly didn't. :)

One other point: although the ASC's in theory represented the specific garments which were allowed to be supplied to ships and sold by pursers of the RN we know from supply documents that other non-regulation garments were also supplied. The French falls mentioned earlier do not appear on any ASC specs, but we know they were issued; similarly in 1725, for example, we see "under waistcoats" being supplied by William Franklin the slop seller. Is it inconceivable that these "under waistcoats" were sleeveless while the ASC spec waistcoats were not?

[Slopmaker Cripps]

Foxe,

I need to get to bed, as I have to report at 0800 this morning for my coast guard duties.....so, I'll have to make this short.

What I was talking about with the sleeveless waistcoats had to do with the sailor on the far left of the sketch earlier, not sailors in general. Only general comment I made had to do with the neckline. I understand you're trying to leave options open on the ASC, but I was referring to the specific picture and not all sailors as a whole (saving that for some later publications). I'll try and get back online and comment on your post here in the next few days. This is always one of the busiest times of the year for me!

Cheers,

Adam C., Slop-man

[Patrick Hand]

I started making a sort of 1706 slops contract Jacket.....

Shrunck Grey Kersey Jackett, lined with Red Cotton, with fifteen Brass Buttons, and two Pockets of Linnen, the Button Holes stich’d with Gold Colour Thread, at Ten Shillings and Sixpence each

(Shrunck appears to mean water-resistant. Kersey is a very coarse cheap wool)

I'm basing the pattern off of the back view of the sailor watching a hanging.... and the picture that Foxe posted one page back.... (I think it was labled A...) Basicaly it is a modified version of my last Jacket, and I am making a few changes to it so it will be more period correct...(I found out what I did wrong on the last one...), but using my old jacket to draft a pattern.... (well.... marking it with soap on the cloth......)

I'm making it out of a grey Navy blanket that I got at a yard sale for $3.00, and lining it with red cotton ($2.00 per yard...) and some linnen scrap for the pockets....

I have the body and the pockets cut out. I'm cheating and machine sewing it, but hand finishing all of the outside seams (the ones that you can see).... I have one of the pockets and pocket flap sewn, but decided to work on the other side's pocket tomarrow.......

I'm pleased that the blanket, isn't as thick as I thought it would be.... when I topstitched the first pocket, it came out much better than I thought using a blanket would be...... It's only a little heaver than the Kersey that was used for Uniforms when I did American Civil War reenactments.......

The Red lining on the Grey, looks realy good..... I will have to take some pictures of the jacket parts, and as I'm putting it together.....

The reason I call it a sort of 1706 slop contract jacket, is that I'm guessing on a lot of the parts and assembly.... working from pictures..... But it should be warm......

[Patrick Hand]

I think I will move the pictures and how I'm making the jacket into plunder.....

start a new topic.... so we can continue discussing the slops contract info here.... without my aditional .....clutter...

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Wow.. Pat, how bizzare.

I'm basing the pattern off of the back view of the sailor watching a hanging.... and the picture that Foxe posted one page back.... (I think it was labled A...) Basicaly it is a modified version of my last Jacket, and I am making a few changes to it so it will be more period correct...(I found out what I did wrong on the last one...), but using my old jacket to draft a pattern.... (well.... marking it with soap on the cloth......)

I say this because I have been working on a similar coat (for the last 5 months and I have used the SAME picture for my refrence. I also am making/made it out of a blanket... though it was "tan", now that it is in the shape of the jacket (I just have to finnish hand sewing 6 more button holes!) it looks.... "pinkish".

The shrunk kersey.

Devil of a time finding real kersey. Most of the ACW suttlers that have it (and most don't) don't sell the material and those that do seem to want upwards of $30 a yard.

But I think that Shrunk kersey is much like you are describing. I am betting that it is sort of "fulled" to make the weave even closer/water resistant. You can "full" it yourself by throwing it in the washing machine on warm setting with a little detergent.

My suspect about the red cotton though is that it ain't cotton like we know it. They used the term cotton in the 17th/18th century to mean a nappy kind of wool as well.... nappy as in fibers fuzzy on the surface.

Anyone else have any thoughts on that without starting the infamous cotton wars?

GoF

[Patrick Hand]

My suspect about the red cotton though is that it ain't cotton like we know it. They used the term cotton in the 17th/18th century to mean a nappy kind of wool as well.... nappy as in fibers fuzzy on the surface.

Well I figure that even if it was cotton as we now know it, well....... thats why I said it is semi-period..... What I'm using was inexpensive.... without the brass buttons, I have less than $10.00 in materials.

I can't remember where I read it, but it said that cotton came mostly from India, and England didn't want any compitition with thiere linen trade...... so I'm guessing that cotton was around. looking through the slops contracts, there was a lot of clothing made from cotton... but shirts are still linen......

I'd like to know more about period use of cotton also.......

[Fox]

On paper patterns:

While looking for somehting completely different I just found

this from the Concealed Garments site.

A bit late, but patterns cut from newspaper (hey, I do that!) in 1752.

[Slopmaker Cripps]

Foxe,

I should have worded that as commercially available paper patterns.

Sorry for not getting back into the discussion, but I'm lucky to get time to sleep at night anymore. Anyway, I should be back in a few months once summer gets here.....

Cheers,

Adam

P.S. Anyone is welcome to email me at provincialnavy@yahoo.com though I can't guarantee when/if I can get back to you.

[Fox]

Well, I've definitely seen late 17thC paper tailors' pattern so I don't see any reason why the slop makers shouldn't have had them - don't see any reason why they should either...

I really posted the link as a curiosity item. It made me chuckle to think that people were making their patterns out of newspaper 250 years ago too

[michaelsbagley]

Bump...

An oldie but a goodie.

So I've been looking at the slop contracts lately thinking of adding some slop contract clothing items to my slowly growing collection of period garments from the era.... And one item that keep throwing me for a loop is mention of "black buttons" on waistcoats and breeches in the a few iterations of the Slop contracts.

What are "black buttons"?

Are "black buttons" a reference to heavily leaded pewter? It would not be truly black, but much darker than the "white Tinn Buttons".

I seem to recall a discussion about these on a forum, and I thought it was either this Forum or the Pirate Brethren forum, but searches on both forums have not provided me with any good results. And I seem to also vaguely recall someone suggestion horn buttons as a possibility of what "black buttons" may have been. No offence to whomever may have put forth this suggestion, but it doesn't "feel" right to me. But I'm asking here, so obviously, I have no clue.

Are there any other theories out there? Even better, is there any reasonable evidence as to what might have been meant by "black buttons"?

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Good question

From looking at period pictures, the buttons would either be

1)metal with shank

2)cloth buttons

3)thread buttons, like dorset buttons.

1)Metal

When they talk about "white tinn" it usually means pewter. "Gold" buttons would probably mean brass.

If "black buttons" were metal... maybe they were painted metal. I don't feel great about that, but its the only thing I can think of.

I have a collection of original buttons (not necessarily naval), but from the GAoP era, and they are either pewter, brass, or bronze (and a very few are silver).

By far, the majority that I have are pewter (white tinn). None of them show any evidence of ever being painted.

2) Cloth buttons

They still used a lot of cloth buttons in the GAoP as evidenced by period pictures. These would probably be made the same way they were made in the 16th.17th century... here is an example

http://www.vertetsable.com/demos_buttons.htm

The gunnister man's clothing (Short Jacket, Justaucorps, and Shirt) all had cloth covered wood buttons.

3) Thread buttons.

This is a specific style of button, so i think it would be noted as such in the ASC if that is what they meant... something like "15 black dorsett buttons..", but since we don't see that, I say its the least likely possibility.

PS

Yes, this is a great thread.... I very much enjoyed re-reading it and am glad to say most of the players are still here at the pub.

GoF

[michaelsbagley]

Bump again, because it has come up in a paralell thread,

[blackjohn]

How about... horn?

[Matty Bottles]

How about... horn?

I use horn buttons - they hold up, but oddly the thread doesn't. I think that sharp edges of the thread holes in the buttons wear at the thread until it breaks. However, I make no claim that the buttons I wear (mostly from William Booth - a great guy, BTW, whose I recommend to anyone) are manufactured in the same manner as the originals. Without that, I won't say that the originals suffer the same problem. But the buttons themselves have never broken. In fact, they are sort of flexible. Sort of.

[michaelsbagley]

I found the below quote in this edition of the London Gazette dated to March 1713. I did a little work in the below quote fixing the optical character recognition errors, but some of the stuff is so fuzzy one can only guess as to what it should be.

While the described clothes are seemingly for sailors who are retired (pensioners), I am seeing a lot of parallels to the slops contracts in this (which is why I posted this here). It seems old sailors who lived to retire were expected to die wearing the same things they wore their entire lives.

The Directors of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at

Greenwich, do hereby give notice, That any Persons who

desire to Cloth the Pensioners of the said Hospital, may

bring their Proposals in Writing, Seal'd up, for Suits

of Coat, Waistcoat and Breeches, to the said Directors,

at their Meeting on the 25th Instant at 10 in the Fore-

noon, at Dr. Mapletofi's House behind St. Lawrence

Church, near Guildhall, and they may view the Pattern

Suit, by which the said Cloths must be made, every Day

at the Steward's Lodging in the said Hospital.

[Fox]

The Greenwich pensioners included not only those too old to be useful on a ship, but also those too injured or recovering from sickness. The Pensioners' uniforms would be easier to recreate as there are plenty of pictures, and they remained more or less the same until very late.

Point of interest: the Greenwich Hospital was built, in part, with funds recovered from Capt. Kidd.

[Mission]

Point of interest: the Greenwich Hospital was built, in part, with funds recovered from Capt. Kidd.

Say, that is interesting. Thanks! (That's going into my notes. Got a reference I can cite?)

[Fox]

I could probably find a better reference if I wasn't so damned lazy.

Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (Harvard U.P., 1986, paperback ed.) pp. 232-233

Incidentally, Ritchie's biography is far better than Zacks'.

[callenish gunner]

Since as pensioners and they would be remaining on land don't you think their clothing would be of the sort landlubbers or common citizens might be wearing rather than sailor's clothing. To assume that men would wear sailor's clothes once they were no longer going to sea might be a stretch, since their is no mention that these suits should match admiralty slops contract which would be within the scope of contract tailors knowledge. Just a thought toward not making assumptions.

[Fox]

Absolutely. From the mid-18thC at least the pensioners' uniform consisted of navy-blue breeches, waistcoat, and long coat, topped with a black tricorn.

[Daniel]

While reading through Rodger's Command of the Ocean I found a paragraph on slops on pages 190-91. A lot of it is redundant with what Gentleman of Fortune put in his first post, but a couple of items contain additional detail, such as the mention of shoes having buckles. I didn't read every word in the thread, but I skimmed and this doesn't appear to have been posted yet, so here goes.

There was another sort of problem with slop contracts. Good, stout working clothes were essential to seamen's well-being, and as commissions increased in length,it became necessary to make them available aboard ship. These slops were supplied by contractors, issued by the purser and charged against men's wages. In the 1690s they included blue waistcoats and kersey jackets, white 'petticoat breeches' (a sort of canvas divided skirt) with red stripes, red caps and white neckcloths. Richard Harnage's 1706 contract specified grey kersey jackets lined with red cotton, fifteen brass buttons and the 'buttonholes stitched with gold-coloured thread'; red kersey breeches, red flannel waistcoats, red or striped shag breeches, blue and white check linen shirts, linen drawers, leather caps, grey woollen stockings, gloves and mittens, shoes and brass buckles. In 1711 the range of sizes was increased from three to four, each bale of fifty suits being made up of eight of the smallest size, then seventeen, seventeen, and finally eight of the largest. It suited the Navy to draw contracts by which the clothes were shipped at the contractors' risk until the moment they were issued, though the bales passed out of their control as soon as they were delivered to the Navy Board. Aboard ship they were subject to many hazards: 'he verily believes it is impossible for pursers to prevent such damage, but that slops will become damnified either by the rats eating them or by water coming to them in leaky ships and in hot countries.'⁴⁵ Though pursers were allowed one shilling in the pound on slops issued undamaged, it was the contractor who bore most of the risk, with no control over conditions of storage. Damaged slops were returned for full credit in large and unpredictable quantities, 'so eaten or rotten that it hath not been presently discoverable whether the remains were parts of waistcoats or parts of breeches.⁴⁶ What was issued was paid for long in arrears; in 1709 Harnage was owed £44,553 9s 1d for three years' supplies. So onerous were the terms of this business that no one would undertake it but by selling shoddy slops (as it was complained) at high prices. Public money was saved, and the risk was offloaded on to the contractor, but in the process the actual object of the exercise was lost sight of: giving the men access to the good clothes at fair prices which they needed.⁴⁷

His endnotes, on page 679:

45 PRO: E 134/1 Geo I/Hil/27; Deposition of William Franklin, 10 Jan 1714/5.

46 PRO: E 134/2 Geo I/Mich/27; Deposition of Nathaniel Cutler, 23 Nov 1715.

47 Merriman, Queen Anne's Navy, pp. 191-2. Ehrman, Navy, pp. 121-4. Manwaring, 'Dress of the British Seaman'. PRO: E 134/13 Anne/Trin/10, 1 Geo I/Hil/27 and 2 Geo I/Mich/27, depositions in suit Braddyl, Gough and Dawsonne con Franklyn.

PRO means Public Record Office, so you pretty well have to be in the UK to get at some of these sources.

Notice that at this time the contracts were not in fact Admiralty at all. Rather, the Navy Board was entirely responsible for these contracts to supply the pursers, the Admiralty now being at the lowest ebb of its power and responsibility.

[PoD]

I actually have a copy of the Queen Annes Navy book by Merriman and the details of the slops contract are from a letter from the Lord High Admiral to the Captains and Masters and Commanders of H.M. Ships and vessels.

Interestingly I was also just reading Journals of the House of Commons, Volume 12 which mentions proceedings bought against Richard Harnage for his refusal to account for where the money went that was given to him for a contract to cloth the Army. This was in 1697 though so obviously his accounts were proved to be kosher else he wouldn't have got the contract for the Navy slops in 1706. He was also mentioned several times as an agent (this may mean accountant?) for the Marquis of Camarthen's regiment of marines who had refused to pay members of the regiment their dues. All in All he sounds like a bit of a dodgy character

Ahhh further reading suggests that by 1705 he was rich and a member of parliament. No wonder he got the slops contracts.

The Navy's accounts for the year 1715 show he was paid over £7000 for what I assume was the 1715 Slops contract http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=85260

Edited August 5, 2011 by PoD

[Matty Bottles]

I'm so glad I don't have to bump this. I was just at an event and I stopped by the sign of the unicorn, and what do I see?

Shirt-weight linen, window-pane checked in blue. It's half way down this page:

Man, I have been looking for this tuff for YEARS. I had a lead on some cotton checked with blue from a later period that I was going to take a chance on, but it was discontinued before I could waste my money.