‘EXMOUTH.’—(Grays, Thames.)
This vessel accommodates 600 boys, and was substituted for ‘The Goliath,’ which was burned two years ago (as was also the old ‘Warspite’ at Charlton). The latest report (which is more full and clear than that of several other ships) deals with the ten months ending the 31st of December, 1877, when 545 boys were under training. These were sent from the Poor Law Unions of Poplar, St. Pancras, Stepney, Marylebone, Woolwich, and others, under the special Act, which very properly requires Metropolitan Parishes to contribute towards the maintenance of the ship, whether they use it or not. A brigantine, the ‘Steadfast,’ is attached as a “training tender,” and accommodates thirty boys, who cruise in the Mouth of the Thames for a week at a time, when ten of them are changed. A causeway from the shore improves the approach to the ‘Exmouth,’ and a small house and office near the London Docks enables eight boys to be taken daily for engagement in ships.
From March, 1876, to December, 1877, 689 boys were admitted, seventy-nine were discharged to sea service, twenty-one to the Army as musicians, forty-three to their respective Unions, and one absconded.
“Every boy in the ship soaps and washes himself all over every morning with carbolic soap, and then goes through a plunge bath under inspection, having a clean towel every time he washes.” The lads are remarkably healthy—there was not one death in the year. The charge for maintenance and clothing has been at the rate of 1s. per head per day. The swimming bath is sixty feet long by thirty feet broad, and the boys are classed by the number of “bath-lengths” they can swim at a stretch. At the beginning of the swimming season, 340 could not swim at all, but there were only 56 in this predicament at the end of the season. Music is taught carefully, and a band of about 60 boys plays twice a week for the other boys to dance. Of 242 boys absent from one to seven days to see their friends, only one broke his leave, and he absconded altogether.
‘FAME.’—(Greenwich Royal Hospital School.)
Established 1872.
This land ship is part of the splendid establishment at Greenwich for training sons of seamen and marines of the Royal Navy. Candidates must be between 10½; and 13 years of age, physically fit, able to read an easy sentence, and with some knowledge of arithmetic.
The origin of the school was in 1692, when, after the victory of “La Hogue,” an asylum was established for seamen’s widows and orphans at the suggestion of Queen Mary, who died before it was accomplished.
In 1712 ten boys were instructed (in the buildings of the present Naval College, part of which had been erected in 1618), and in 1783 there were 60 boys. In 1805, there were 200 boys, and the institution was no longer a charity, but admitted officers’ sons.
Another school, “The British Endeavour,” started in 1798 as a private venture in London, was transferred to public management in Greenwich.