ABSTRACT
Governmental reform was a feature of this period. To Samuel Bentham, dockyard industrial culture suffered from collective responsibility, a lack of theoretical educational provision and vested interests in private benefit and the status quo. By 1798, his frustrations with yard management prompted him to take advantage of the Admiralty’s need to implement the recommendations of the Commission on Fees and perquisites, and to introduce into the dockyards his own principles of individual responsibility, education and the pursuit of the public interest. Private interests were in part financial – almost every yard transaction was facilitated by a perquisite – but also derived from the power of patronage. This power reinforced the influence members of the Navy Board had over yard officers and their subordinates. It was aided by the distribution of apprentices (and their earnings) who worked with the artificers, by the prices granted for piecework on repairs and by allowances for overtime. Vested interests gave rise to creative accounting in the calculation of earnings. The Comptroller of the Navy Board objected to Bentham’s proposals for reform, but Admiralty permitted him to follow the abolition of perquisites in 1801 with the introduction of individual responsibility for Timber Masters and a reorganisation of apprenticeship. Moreover, St Vincent’s Commission of naval inquiry investigated frauds and vested interests in yard earnings, and the subsequent Commission of naval revision revised wage rates, price setting and measurement in piecework. Between 1803 and 1809, dockyard earnings became a matter determined by the public, not private, interest.
