At first the Blue Light programme had restricted appeal for the officer class: the simple maintenance of discipline was a demanding enough task without adding moral reconstruction. As the nineteenth century progressed it became increasingly evident that their approach opened up a way into some of the most pressing issues that the profession had to address – discipline, punishment, popularity, alcohol abuse, health, education, sexual behaviour, leave. Where once Blue Light conviction had seemed irrelevant it was gradually perceived to be an extraordinarily prescient and serviceable creed. The nineteenth-century naval profession was slow to catch up with evangelical thinking and wary of adopting the full panoply of its religion, but it was demonstrably following in the path that Kempenfelt, Middleton and Penrose had advocated. Though focused primarily on the mid-decades, this chapter will therefore make reference to the earlier history of the movement: the moral economy of the nineteenth-century navy was constructed in the shadow of Lord Barham.

Piety and professional debate

In post-war professional discourse answers were sought to the troubling question of how the fleet might be manned in any future emergency, with attendant debate about its popularity and discipline, sharpened by uneasy awareness of shortcomings in the American War of 1812. The Naval Chronicle or The Naval and Military Magazine provided a forum for professional opinion, while printers newly released from political censorship did a brisk trade in pamphlets, and half-pay officers in the House of Commons contributed to parliamentary debates. The field of dispute was not theological, and religious comments generated the resentment appropriate to gratuitous advice – until piety was found to have utility and the naval profession heard a message it began to like.

A vital issue to determine was whether naval discipline had deterred professional seamen from volunteering, and if so whether it was safe to ameliorate its severity. Informed opinion knew that traditional methods of raising manpower would not serve for the future. There had often been unease and resentment about the operation of press-gangs, however necessary for manning the fleet in emergency, but it was clear to most that neither parliament nor public would stomach it again. How then could the navy attract volunteers in a future conflict? There was debate about the supposed unpopularity of naval service and why so many seamen opted for trade or even a foreign flag in preference.