Hired Tenders

[Cy]

Throughout the 17 and 18C the royal navy hired vessels to act as tenders. Some to serve as support vessels for larger units and some for other purposes. These often included use by the impress service. They were usually commanded by lieutenants.

These vessels are not well recorded, so if anyone has information on royal navy tenders I would love to know.

I am particularly interested in the period of the Seven Years War (1756-1763).

[Grammont]

On 10 October 1756 on the tender Boulton, then at Hoylake Roads, four members of the crew mutinied and killed the mate, resulting in a reward of £50 per head for their apprehension.
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/9643/page/1

[Cy]

Thanks, there are records on the national archive discovery site that give the name as Bolton not Boulton. Commanded by Lieutenant John Siddall and seems to have been in service from Feb 1755 to Sept 1759.

I'll add her to the main site. https://threedecks.org/index.php?displa ... p&id=27313

[Grammont]

Remarkably, a second mutiny took place on the Bolton tender in 1759. The London Chronicle of July 14-17 1759 states:

Dublin, July 10. Sunday the impressed men who were on board the Bolton tender in the harbour, rose upon the crew, in order to make their escape, when a most desperate engagement ensued, in which several were killed and wounded; however, the crew after a long and obstinate resistance got the better.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... 0;size=200

[Cy]

It seems to be a trend among press tenders, logically if you think about it. There was a famous case in 1760 on the John and Thomas, Lieutenant Robert Sax which required the intervention of a sloop to resolve. N.A.M. Rodger wrote an article for then Mariner's Mirror about it.

[AvM]

There were not only hired vessels used as tenders
Not all ale described by Rif

I will look for spome examples

[Grammont]

As specialised bomb vessels had a limited storage capacity they required tenders to carry their munitions and here is a list of 6 such tenders from 1702 and the 5 bombs they supplied. It includes the quantities of munitions that each tender could carry. I assume the relatively small amounts of powder each carried was to cut down the risks of explosions.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... up;seq=182