STAFF AT THE Victualling Board’s yards were of two types: clerical and manual, each type being supervised locally by persons known as officers. The officers responsible for the main accounting and clerical functions in each yard were known as ‘superior’ officers, those responsible for the manual workers were known as ‘inferior’ officers. The number of these inferior officers varied, according to the manufacturing activities carried out at the yard. At the outports, both sets of officers reported to the agent victualler who in turn reported directly to the board of commissioners; at Deptford the chief officer was known as the superintendant until 1809. In the yards abroad, although responsible to the board of commissioners, agents victualler were also required to take instructions from the local commanderin- chief and, after 1809, the local resident naval commissioner.

As with the staff at Somerset Place, the supervisory and clerical levels at the yards saw changes to the salary structure in 1800, and to hierarchical structures and retirement arrangements in 1809. The manual workers in the yards at home also saw changes during the twenty-three year period to working practices, wage payments and retirement arrangements.

The clerical staff at the victualling yards both at home and abroad are, to a large extent, like those at Somerset Place, shadowy figures. Many of the agents victualler and clerks in the yards abroad had worked in head office or the yards at home, and returned to these locations when the wars ended; a few of the tradesmen in the home yards also went to the yards abroad and returned to the home yards in due course. Very little is known about the manual workers, mainly their names and trades, but for some yards there are ‘description’ books, which contain physical descriptions of the workers with age, height, hair and eye colour and other distinguishing marks; these were probably to prevent unauthorised persons attempting to claim a worker’s wages. With very few rare exceptions, such as Grace George, who split twigs for the coopers at Deptford, all the workers in the victualling yards were male.

Supervisory staff in the yards at home

The main British yard was at Deptford, with others at the outports of Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, Dover and, later, Cork.