from Quorq - 1880s Royal Marines shipboard duties

[a425couple]

Stephen Tempest
April 5
qualified amateur historian
In the Age of Sail, what did the Royal Marines do on board ship while
the ship was underway apart from guard duty?
First, don’t underestimate the requirements for guard duty. On a ship of
the line about 30 marines were required for guard duty — not all at
once, but sentries had to be posted 24 hours a day. The ship’s powder
magazines, liquor stores, and most other important storerooms all needed
to be guarded, as well as a sentry outside the captain’s cabin.

Other marines would spend much of their day the same way soldiers on
land spent their day: in drill practice, marksmanship training, and
maintaining their weapons and uniforms. On some ships the marine
detachment was assigned responsibility for two or more of the ship’s
cannons in battle, so they would also practice gunnery drills.

The marines could also be assigned to help the seamen with tasks that
required a lot of muscle-power, such as raising the anchor, hauling on
the sheets, manning the pumps, shifting ballast or bringing up supplies.
By Admiralty regulation they could not be required to climb the rigging
and go aloft, though they could volunteer to do so.

[Byker]

"a425couple" wrote in message news:s4sed...@news2.newsguy.com...

>
> Stephen Tempest
> April 5
> qualified amateur historian
> In the Age of Sail, what did the Royal Marines do on board ship while the
> ship was underway apart from guard duty? First, don’t underestimate the
> requirements for guard duty. On a ship of the line about 30 marines were
> required for guard duty — not all at once, but sentries had to be posted
> 24 hours a day. The ship’s powder magazines, liquor stores, and most other
> important storerooms all needed to be guarded, as well as a sentry outside
> the captain’s cabin.

Plus they had to keep an eye on the midshipmen to keep brawls from turning
into mutinies: https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/387/580/bhc1118.jpg