ABSTRACT
The notion of an organised officer entry into the Royal Navy – the identification of candidates, a selection process, some form of initial assessment of ability both mental and physical, a structured pattern of training and education towards an identifiable end state – what we understand in the modern context as a ‘system’, may first be identified in embryo in the second half of the seventeenth century. Successive wars against European powers, the French, the Spanish and particularly the three Anglo Dutch Wars fought over more than two decades from 1652, provided a stimulus to manpower reorganisation and reform within the British Navy. During the Commonwealth there was a massive increase in the size of the fleet with more than two hundred vessels added to the 40 or so available at the end of the Civil War. The vigorous ship building programme stimulated and required improvements in pay and conditions of those who manned them and a more methodical approach to the employment of both officers and men. The intermittent periods of peace were equally problematic for they demonstrated the need not only to recruit, but also to retain manpower, in order that those who had demonstrated skill and professionalism in the previous conflict might be employed quickly and effectively in the next. It is in how officers and men were recruited and retained, and how they were encouraged to regard what they were doing as something permanent and professional, that the inklings of a system of training can be found.
