ABSTRACT
Rodney Dobson has reminded us that before the factory system the most important employers of labour was the government and the largest units of industrial organisation were the naval dockyards. It is hardly surprising that observers of eighteenth century military dockyard management often found it ill equipped to control large numbers of civilian employees subject to desperate activity during times of war and redundancy for all but the most skilled when peace was restored. Morale was often low and absenteeism, indiscipline and conflict rife. The familiar system of petitions was hardly sufficient to dispose of grievances, pay was often inadequate and ill-administered and strikes were all too common.
