by Peter Rindlisbacher and René Chartrand

Royal Navy Officers’ Dress Uniforms, 1814–1815

This plate is from an oil painting showing HMS Dragon off Tangier Island, Virginia, in June 1814. This 74-gun ship-of-the line having a crew of 640 men was part of the British squadron cruising in Chesapeake Bay under the command of CAPT Robert Barrie enforcing the blockade. She was the 11th bearing that name in the Royal Navy, launched on the Thames in 1798, served with distinction off the coast of Spain and came to the Chesapeake Bay area in 1813 taking part in various minor operations over the next year—for instance raiding the small town of Lower Marlborough in June 1814 to burn large quantities of American stores there. At that time the British squadron also included smaller vessels, a few of which were among some eighty-five small American ships that were either destroyed or taken as prizes. At right is the armed schooner HMS St. Lawrence and the tender Catchup-Little, both previously captured American schooners. In the background at right, Tangier Island is visible in the distance with the British temporary naval base that included Fort Albion (marked by the flag) with barracks and other buildings; it was a good anchorage and became a busy center of operations for British warships patrolling Chesapeake Bay. HMS Dragon thereafter went up to Halifax and, in August and September, with three other warships and ten troop transports, successfully went up the Penobscott River and captured Castine, Maine.1

In the longboat at the center is Captain Barrie (holding a spyglass) and a lieutenant wearing the Royal Navy’s dress uniform. A sub-lieutenant is the more distant longboat at left.

On March 23, 1812, new dress regulations for the officers of the Royal Navy were announced. These gradually became known as ships arrived from Britain, but it was probably not until 1813 that the changes had been implemented. The new dress uniforms were as follows:2

Admirals: dark blue coat with white cuffs and lapels edged with gold lace and also the buttonholes on the lapels and cuffs were laced with gold. The cuffs had two laces for a rear admiral, three laces for a vice admiral, four laces for an admiral. Dark blue collar edged with gold lace all around. Gold epaulettes with one silver star for a rear admiral; two silver stars for a vice admiral; three silver stars for an admiral.

Captain and commander: dark blue coat with white cuffs and lapels, alterations to rank designation which were now: gold epaulets on both shoulders, but the two grades of captains were to have, for “Three Years Post Captains … a Silver Crown over a Silver Anchor,” for “Captains under Three Years Post … the Silver Anchor without the Crown. The Epaulettes of Commanders to be plain.”

Lieutenant: same as captains and commanders, but without any lace and with the addition of a plain gold epaulette on the right shoulder.

Sub-lieutenants had same uniform for all occasions, which was the undress uniform of lieutenants: dark blue coat with blue cuffs, lapels, and collar, all edged with white piping a plain gold epaulette on the right shoulder. Midshipmen wore a plain dark blue coat with a rectangular collar patch for all occasions.

All had white waistcoat, breeches, and stockings with black shoes with gilded buckles. Gold-laced bicorn hats bearing a black silk cockade. All also wore the new gilt button stamped with the crown over the fouled anchor in an oval.

The painting was commissioned from the artist by the city of Barrie, Ontario, which bears this name since 1833 in commemoration of Sir Robert Barrie (born in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1774 and died at Swarthdale, England, in 1841) who was the senior British officer on the Great Lakes after the War of 1812. He returned to England in 1834 and was knighted for his services, was promoted rear-admiral in 1837, and in 1840 was created KCB (Knight Companion of the Order of Bath).3

Art: Peter Rindlisbacher Text: René Chartrand

1. Halton Stirling Lecky, The King’s Ships (London: Horace

Muirhead, 1913), II: 264–265; HMS St. Lawrence, 12 guns, was the former American privateer Atlas as per Faye M.

Kert, Privateering (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2015), 47–48 and J. J. College, Ships of the Royal Navy (London:

Greenhill, 2003), 274. Catch-up-Little is not listed in the Royal Navy or as a privateer. It was used by Barrie as a flagship tender. 2. John Mollo, Uniforms of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic

Wars (London: Hugh Evelyn, 1965), 29–33; W. E. May, The Dress of Naval Officers (London: National Maritime Museum, 1965), 5, 26, 40. MUIA plate 319 (1968) “Royal Navy, 1814, Full Dress” by Roy

Manser showed a physician, a vice-admiral, a surgeon, and side-back view of a captain. This present plate shows front views of a captain and a lieutenant as well as an accurate reconstruction of the ships and the coastline. 3. Thomas L. Brock, “Barrie, Sir Robert, ” The Dictionary of Canadian

Biography, online at: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_ nbr=3232.