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Empire of the Seas
College at Dartmouth, overlooking the town and replacing the aged wooden ships of the line. Just as grand was the new officers’ mess at Portsmouth, built in Flemish style with turrets and a Tuscan-style entrance porch. Inside, the visitor was likely to be impressed by the grand staircase carved with the names of Britain’s naval victories. There was a great dining hall with a hammerbeam roof, and numerous battle scenes by the marine artist W L Wyllie. Fisher was determined to integrate the engineer officer into the naval structure, and under the Selborne Scheme, started in 1903, all officers including Royal Marines were to be trained in common. Later they could specialise in engineering, navigation or gunnery. As they reached higher rank, all would be eligible to command ships and for promotion to admiral. But ultimately the scheme failed, and the engineer remained a specialist on the fringes of the navy. The turbine engines were not much more fuel-efficient than the older engines, and their great horsepower demanded large quantities of coal, which had to be manhandled by the crew. Ships normally coaled up as soon as they came back from operations, when the men were already tired. It was a filthy, laborious business involving almost everyone on board. As Commander William James wrote, ‘the one maxim which is always true is that every soul who can possibly take part should do so for large coalings.’42 Life was as hard as ever for the stoker. The new ships also needed great numbers of them to load the coal into the fires, and by about 1910 they outnumbered seamen in the navy. They were recruited to lower standards and did not have the early disciplinary training of the seamen, which led to problems. In 1906
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