ABSTRACT
Whether the decision to found an alternative means of recruiting young officers arose directly from the shortcomings of the schoolmaster scheme is not known for certain, but it seems likely. What we can be sure about is that the Portsmouth Naval Academy, conceived in 1729 and opened four years later as a school for young officers, was an institution that the Admiralty hoped in the fullness of time would prevail over the schoolmaster scheme. It was explicit in the founding proposal that sea going instruction should be ‘totally laid aside as soon as the establishment here proposed can be put in execution’.1 This of course represented a particular administrative point of view, an attempt by authority to impose order on an otherwise informal system. While it never came near to achieving this, it did place the education and training of young officers on a more organised basis and introduce a degree of regulation on who should enter the Navy and what sort of standards they should achieve.
