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The Myth of the Press Gang: Volunteers, Impressment and the Naval Manpower Problem in the Late Eighteenth Century
Overturns the generally held view that the press gang was the main means of recruiting seamen by the British navy in the late eighteenth century.
SHORTLISTED for the Society for Nautical Research's prestigious Anderson Medal.
The press gang is generally regarded as the means by which the British navy solved the problem of recruiting enough seamen in the late eighteenth century. This book, however, based on extensive original research conducted primarily in a large number of ships' muster books, demonstrates that this view is false. It argues that, in fact, the overwhelming majority of seamen in the navy were there of their own free will. Taking a long view across the late eighteenth century but concentrating on the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1793-1815, the book provides great detailon the sort of men that were recruited and the means by which they were recruited, and includes a number of individuals' stories. It shows how manpower was a major concern for the Admiralty; how the Admiralty put in place a rangeof recruitment methods including the quota system; how it worried about depleting merchant shipping of sufficient sailors; and how, although most seamen were volunteers, the press gang was resorted to, especially during the initial mobilisation at the beginning of wars and to find certain kinds of particularly skilled seamen. The book also makes comparisons with recruitment methods employed by the navies of other countries and by the British army.
J. ROSS DANCY is Director of Graduate Studies in History and Assistant Professor of History at Sam Houston State University
SHORTLISTED for the Society for Nautical Research's prestigious Anderson Medal.
The press gang is generally regarded as the means by which the British navy solved the problem of recruiting enough seamen in the late eighteenth century. This book, however, based on extensive original research conducted primarily in a large number of ships' muster books, demonstrates that this view is false. It argues that, in fact, the overwhelming majority of seamen in the navy were there of their own free will. Taking a long view across the late eighteenth century but concentrating on the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1793-1815, the book provides great detailon the sort of men that were recruited and the means by which they were recruited, and includes a number of individuals' stories. It shows how manpower was a major concern for the Admiralty; how the Admiralty put in place a rangeof recruitment methods including the quota system; how it worried about depleting merchant shipping of sufficient sailors; and how, although most seamen were volunteers, the press gang was resorted to, especially during the initial mobilisation at the beginning of wars and to find certain kinds of particularly skilled seamen. The book also makes comparisons with recruitment methods employed by the navies of other countries and by the British army.
J. ROSS DANCY is Director of Graduate Studies in History and Assistant Professor of History at Sam Houston State University
228 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
About the author
J. Ross Dancy
3 books1 followerJeremiah Ross Dancy is the Associate Provost for Research at the U.S. Naval War College
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 21, 2026
C. S. Forester’s novel Ship of the Line opens with his hero, Horatio Hornblower, confronting a problem that is endangering his promising career. Though he has been just named captain of a 74-gun ship of the line, he does not have enough sailors to man her. Facing the prospect of the loss of his command and relegation to half-pay for the rest of his life if he is unable to fill out the ship’s compliment, Hornblower employs every tactic at his disposal. But with recruitment posters and forcible transfers from other ships producing an insufficient number of seamen, Hornblower has no choice but to turn to that most desperate of devices – the press gang.
It is because of works such as Forester’s that people today commonly assume that the crews of British warships in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were comprised of men swept up off of the streets of port towns and kept in line through the carrot of the rum tot and the stick of the lash. While acknowledging that impressment was a necessary recruitment device employed throughout the wars of the era, J. Ross Dancy argues that the Royal Navy’s reliance on it has been grossly exaggerated. Using a statistical analysis of ships’ muster books, he shows that the vast majority of the crew serving aboard these vessels were not forced into the service by squads of thugs clubbing them into service but volunteers motivated by pay and the prospect of advancement.
This makes a great deal of sense, as a warship as complex as a sailing vessel was unlikely to possess the level of competence and camaraderie among the crew necessary for it to function if it was little more than a waterborne prison of unskilled landlubbers. Yet manning such vessels in wartime was not only a persistent challenge for the Royal Navy throughout the eighteenth century, but one the scope of which grew with the shifting demands placed on it. During the wars of the Restoration era, the navy required 20,000 men mobilized on a seasonal basis for operations that were largely confined to the North Sea. Little more than a century later, five times as many personnel were needed to man ships year-round for operations not just in nearby waters, but in stations as far afield as the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and the Indian Ocean. It did not help that parsimonious British governments during this period did not increase pay for sailors, and kept the naval establishment small in peacetime. As a result, wars brought a surge of long-term demand for skilled seamen that needed to be filled quickly.
Compared to its main opponents, France and Spain, the British had a relatively large population of trained sailors upon which to draw. The challenge came with competition from the merchant marine and the fishing fleet, which faced parallel increases in the demand for more personnel during wartime. Recognizing this, bounties were offered to encourage seamen to sign up. Not only was this cheaper than the cost of the impress, it ensured that the recruits were experienced and not “landsmen” who required training and whose contributions aboard until then were limited to basic physical labor. While the prospect of prize money was a further incentive, Dancy observes that, much like a lottery, the odds of earning the amounts that fired the imaginations were long. And as with a lottery, this did not discourage many from taking their chances by enlisting.
These incentives, as well as the overdue increase in pay following the Spithead mutiny in 1797, still were not enough to satisfy the Royal Navy’s seemingly insatiable need for skilled sailors. This points to another of Dancy’s arguments, which was that the press gangs did not just grab any able-bodied men they could find. With the Quota Acts of the 1790s providing enough landsmen for the ships, the gangs focused on topmen and other sailors whose specific skills their crews were lacking. While their means of doing so could be brutal, Dancy argues that this, too, is an aspect of impressment that appears to have been overstated when the recorded cases are set against the total number of men impressed. This statistical infrequency did little to mitigate the controversy surrounding their activities, though, which fed the disrepute in which press gangs were held.
These views hardened after the Napoleonic wars into the general beliefs that, in the absence of statistical data, defined assumptions about impressment. Dancy is modest enough to note that his is just an initial foray into the massive amount of data available about Royal Navy crews and the insights they hold into their recruitment. And while his call for further work on the social history of the Royal Navy is welcome, it does not diminish the effectiveness of his work as a counter to the traditional beliefs about impressment during the age of sail. Though repetitive in places, it is a solid study that goes far towards giving its readers a more accurate understanding of how the navy crewed their warships at a critical moment in Britain’s history.
It is because of works such as Forester’s that people today commonly assume that the crews of British warships in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were comprised of men swept up off of the streets of port towns and kept in line through the carrot of the rum tot and the stick of the lash. While acknowledging that impressment was a necessary recruitment device employed throughout the wars of the era, J. Ross Dancy argues that the Royal Navy’s reliance on it has been grossly exaggerated. Using a statistical analysis of ships’ muster books, he shows that the vast majority of the crew serving aboard these vessels were not forced into the service by squads of thugs clubbing them into service but volunteers motivated by pay and the prospect of advancement.
This makes a great deal of sense, as a warship as complex as a sailing vessel was unlikely to possess the level of competence and camaraderie among the crew necessary for it to function if it was little more than a waterborne prison of unskilled landlubbers. Yet manning such vessels in wartime was not only a persistent challenge for the Royal Navy throughout the eighteenth century, but one the scope of which grew with the shifting demands placed on it. During the wars of the Restoration era, the navy required 20,000 men mobilized on a seasonal basis for operations that were largely confined to the North Sea. Little more than a century later, five times as many personnel were needed to man ships year-round for operations not just in nearby waters, but in stations as far afield as the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and the Indian Ocean. It did not help that parsimonious British governments during this period did not increase pay for sailors, and kept the naval establishment small in peacetime. As a result, wars brought a surge of long-term demand for skilled seamen that needed to be filled quickly.
Compared to its main opponents, France and Spain, the British had a relatively large population of trained sailors upon which to draw. The challenge came with competition from the merchant marine and the fishing fleet, which faced parallel increases in the demand for more personnel during wartime. Recognizing this, bounties were offered to encourage seamen to sign up. Not only was this cheaper than the cost of the impress, it ensured that the recruits were experienced and not “landsmen” who required training and whose contributions aboard until then were limited to basic physical labor. While the prospect of prize money was a further incentive, Dancy observes that, much like a lottery, the odds of earning the amounts that fired the imaginations were long. And as with a lottery, this did not discourage many from taking their chances by enlisting.
These incentives, as well as the overdue increase in pay following the Spithead mutiny in 1797, still were not enough to satisfy the Royal Navy’s seemingly insatiable need for skilled sailors. This points to another of Dancy’s arguments, which was that the press gangs did not just grab any able-bodied men they could find. With the Quota Acts of the 1790s providing enough landsmen for the ships, the gangs focused on topmen and other sailors whose specific skills their crews were lacking. While their means of doing so could be brutal, Dancy argues that this, too, is an aspect of impressment that appears to have been overstated when the recorded cases are set against the total number of men impressed. This statistical infrequency did little to mitigate the controversy surrounding their activities, though, which fed the disrepute in which press gangs were held.
These views hardened after the Napoleonic wars into the general beliefs that, in the absence of statistical data, defined assumptions about impressment. Dancy is modest enough to note that his is just an initial foray into the massive amount of data available about Royal Navy crews and the insights they hold into their recruitment. And while his call for further work on the social history of the Royal Navy is welcome, it does not diminish the effectiveness of his work as a counter to the traditional beliefs about impressment during the age of sail. Though repetitive in places, it is a solid study that goes far towards giving its readers a more accurate understanding of how the navy crewed their warships at a critical moment in Britain’s history.
September 23, 2017
I had read pieces of this before but just went all the way through for the first time. Really good quantitative work that enables a substantial revision of much of the historiography of manning and impressment, which had been based largely on anecdotal evidence.
December 6, 2017
This is an incredibly detailed look at the methods and effectiveness of gathering men to serve in the growing Royal Navy from 1793-1815, the years of England’s conflicts with France during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Readers become aware of the various methods used, the ages and homes of these men, and their levels of skill when they were assigned to their first ship.
The front cover shows a painting on display at the National Maritime Museum entitled “Seaman Leaning on a Gun on the ‘Pallas’.” I found it odd that a book about recruiting thousands of men would show only one man on a ship. At the same time, I expected more color pictures throughout the text. Unfortunately all illustrations are pie charts, bar charts, tables, line graphs, or segmentation graphs. These accompany a very detailed narrative with many footnoted quotations to demonstrate the author’s point. A bibliography and index are also provided.
Dancy explains that the level of detail and accuracy of his study could never have been done without the aid of modern-day computers. As a result, he postulates, that over the years even respected historians have created the “Myth of the Press Gang,” which wrongfully asserts that impressment was the main source of recruitment and that Press-Gang operations were by-and-large much worse than actually occurred.
The various statistics presented are based on the muster books from ships put into commission each year between 1793 and 1801. Three are selected from each of the naval ports of Chatham, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. Annually at each port, the ships used were a ship-of-the-line with a complement of 491 to over 850 men, a frigate with 145 to 350 men, and a sloop carrying 76 to 125 men. Altogether information was gathered for 81 ships and 27,174 men, a statistically significant base.
After the introduction, the reader learns the history of how the Royal Navy was formed and manned and how the Naval Administration grew to keep pace with this growth and increase in responsibilities.
Next is a chapter on manning statistics, which describes the different recruitment methods used and various portrayals of the petty officers and lower-deck crews: their ages, skill levels, places of recruitment, and nationalities. (England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were treated as separate nations.)
Each recruitment method has its own chapter. First covered is Volunteering, which means signing-up at a station set up for that purpose and receiving a monetary bonus as a result. It was necessary to pay skilled sailors this bonus as the Royal Navy was competing with the Merchant Marine for men already trained at working a ship. The highest bonus was paid to Able Seaman and Ordinary Seaman received more than untrained Landsmen. A detailed analysis of Volunteering includes the same types of information found in the overall manning statistics.
Part of the Press-Gang myth was the portrayal of warships as “floating-hells” that were so bad no one would ever volunteer to serve! This reality was far from the truth, especially as compared to a commoner’s lot ashore. The statistics on the number of volunteers shows this was not the general perception at the time.
The chapter on Impressment begins by mentioning the various misconceptions about the Impress Service and how the author’s research and data enable him to refute each one in turn. The historiography and fiction on the Age of Sail typically describe “oversized brutal men wielding clubs and walking the streets under the direction of a sadistic lieutenant looking for any man unfortunate enough to stumble across their path.” (120) Most people think the majority of men were pressed into service, but Dancy’s study seems to prove otherwise.
One popular myth, or truth, not covered was the taking of the King’s Shilling. Boys and big, strong men are often tricked into accepting a coin for an errand only to find themselves enlisted in the Navy as a result.
The history and growth of the Impress Service, along with its methods of operation are presented. In addition to statistics on the numbers of men each manning method provided, the information on pressed men is broken down by age, geography, skill level, and more.
Last to be discussed, the Quota Acts are explained as a method of naval manning put forth by William Pitt and Parliament in 1795, which assigned each county in England a specific number of men they must recruit for naval service. Again the history and literature describe this as a way for each magistrate to send the local “bad-eggs” and convicts out of their districts as most of the recruited quotamen. Historians and naval officers have claimed they were men of dubious character and virtually useless aboard ship. These same quotamen were even blamed as the main sources of The Naval Mutinies of 1797. As with Impressment, the author shows this not to be the actual case once the data is presented. An additional statistic I found interesting is the prior occupations of those who were recruited under the Port of London’s quota (175). It helped answer the stormy weather question asked aboard, “Who’d be a sailor.”
The final chapter called “Conclusion” restates the author’s position on the quantity, quality, and methods of the Royal Navy’s recruitment efforts. Central to this is how untrue perceptions of the Impress Service have colored fiction and non-fiction since that time and how these untruths may finally be set aside.
Had this book been entitled “A Study of Royal Naval Manning from 1793-1815” and Dancy not devoted so much attention to disproving “The Myth of the Press Gang,” it would be considered by all to be an excellent collection of information never before presented to naval historians and an important contribution to naval literature.
Unfortunately this is not the case. This book will probably only attract devoted readers of the Royal Navy and the Age of Sail. Like me, they may find fault with the limited “perfect-world” nature of this study, which only looks at empty ships receiving their original complement of men at the main naval ports in England. This ignores replacing men lost to illness, injury, or death throughout the wars. Also ignored are ships operating on foreign stations or seeking replacements or additions to their allotted complement every time they met a merchant ship or arrived at any port, including these same naval ports.
Another problem is the author’s statements about the navy only needing young and agile men who could be trained to climb into the rigging and set the sails, and how landsmen were unskilled “sailors” who needed to be on-deck to do the heavy work like raising the yards. Completely ignored is the fact that vessels in the navy were warships and many men were needed just to work each of the cannons -- the ships’ main reason for existence. None of the men manning the guns needed any prior experience on sailing ships.
In the end, I was not convinced by Dancy’s reasoning or his conclusions.
Review Copyright 2015 by Irwin Bryan
Pirates & Privateers www.cindyvallar.com/pirates.html
The front cover shows a painting on display at the National Maritime Museum entitled “Seaman Leaning on a Gun on the ‘Pallas’.” I found it odd that a book about recruiting thousands of men would show only one man on a ship. At the same time, I expected more color pictures throughout the text. Unfortunately all illustrations are pie charts, bar charts, tables, line graphs, or segmentation graphs. These accompany a very detailed narrative with many footnoted quotations to demonstrate the author’s point. A bibliography and index are also provided.
Dancy explains that the level of detail and accuracy of his study could never have been done without the aid of modern-day computers. As a result, he postulates, that over the years even respected historians have created the “Myth of the Press Gang,” which wrongfully asserts that impressment was the main source of recruitment and that Press-Gang operations were by-and-large much worse than actually occurred.
The various statistics presented are based on the muster books from ships put into commission each year between 1793 and 1801. Three are selected from each of the naval ports of Chatham, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. Annually at each port, the ships used were a ship-of-the-line with a complement of 491 to over 850 men, a frigate with 145 to 350 men, and a sloop carrying 76 to 125 men. Altogether information was gathered for 81 ships and 27,174 men, a statistically significant base.
After the introduction, the reader learns the history of how the Royal Navy was formed and manned and how the Naval Administration grew to keep pace with this growth and increase in responsibilities.
Next is a chapter on manning statistics, which describes the different recruitment methods used and various portrayals of the petty officers and lower-deck crews: their ages, skill levels, places of recruitment, and nationalities. (England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were treated as separate nations.)
Each recruitment method has its own chapter. First covered is Volunteering, which means signing-up at a station set up for that purpose and receiving a monetary bonus as a result. It was necessary to pay skilled sailors this bonus as the Royal Navy was competing with the Merchant Marine for men already trained at working a ship. The highest bonus was paid to Able Seaman and Ordinary Seaman received more than untrained Landsmen. A detailed analysis of Volunteering includes the same types of information found in the overall manning statistics.
Part of the Press-Gang myth was the portrayal of warships as “floating-hells” that were so bad no one would ever volunteer to serve! This reality was far from the truth, especially as compared to a commoner’s lot ashore. The statistics on the number of volunteers shows this was not the general perception at the time.
The chapter on Impressment begins by mentioning the various misconceptions about the Impress Service and how the author’s research and data enable him to refute each one in turn. The historiography and fiction on the Age of Sail typically describe “oversized brutal men wielding clubs and walking the streets under the direction of a sadistic lieutenant looking for any man unfortunate enough to stumble across their path.” (120) Most people think the majority of men were pressed into service, but Dancy’s study seems to prove otherwise.
One popular myth, or truth, not covered was the taking of the King’s Shilling. Boys and big, strong men are often tricked into accepting a coin for an errand only to find themselves enlisted in the Navy as a result.
The history and growth of the Impress Service, along with its methods of operation are presented. In addition to statistics on the numbers of men each manning method provided, the information on pressed men is broken down by age, geography, skill level, and more.
Last to be discussed, the Quota Acts are explained as a method of naval manning put forth by William Pitt and Parliament in 1795, which assigned each county in England a specific number of men they must recruit for naval service. Again the history and literature describe this as a way for each magistrate to send the local “bad-eggs” and convicts out of their districts as most of the recruited quotamen. Historians and naval officers have claimed they were men of dubious character and virtually useless aboard ship. These same quotamen were even blamed as the main sources of The Naval Mutinies of 1797. As with Impressment, the author shows this not to be the actual case once the data is presented. An additional statistic I found interesting is the prior occupations of those who were recruited under the Port of London’s quota (175). It helped answer the stormy weather question asked aboard, “Who’d be a sailor.”
The final chapter called “Conclusion” restates the author’s position on the quantity, quality, and methods of the Royal Navy’s recruitment efforts. Central to this is how untrue perceptions of the Impress Service have colored fiction and non-fiction since that time and how these untruths may finally be set aside.
Had this book been entitled “A Study of Royal Naval Manning from 1793-1815” and Dancy not devoted so much attention to disproving “The Myth of the Press Gang,” it would be considered by all to be an excellent collection of information never before presented to naval historians and an important contribution to naval literature.
Unfortunately this is not the case. This book will probably only attract devoted readers of the Royal Navy and the Age of Sail. Like me, they may find fault with the limited “perfect-world” nature of this study, which only looks at empty ships receiving their original complement of men at the main naval ports in England. This ignores replacing men lost to illness, injury, or death throughout the wars. Also ignored are ships operating on foreign stations or seeking replacements or additions to their allotted complement every time they met a merchant ship or arrived at any port, including these same naval ports.
Another problem is the author’s statements about the navy only needing young and agile men who could be trained to climb into the rigging and set the sails, and how landsmen were unskilled “sailors” who needed to be on-deck to do the heavy work like raising the yards. Completely ignored is the fact that vessels in the navy were warships and many men were needed just to work each of the cannons -- the ships’ main reason for existence. None of the men manning the guns needed any prior experience on sailing ships.
In the end, I was not convinced by Dancy’s reasoning or his conclusions.
Review Copyright 2015 by Irwin Bryan
Pirates & Privateers www.cindyvallar.com/pirates.html
May 10, 2026
An impressive work.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews