Seats of Ease

[stuglo]

Not sure if they fall into the category of furniture or fittings, but always of interest (with a smile) rather like a child's toilet joke.

But were they really used as such?  Imagine 2 or 4 seats for a 100 + ordinary sailors. Imagine making your way forward in the dark over the fore planksheer, over the gratings, shifting or wallowing ship beneath your feet etc not forgetting the soaking from sea spray. Just imagine the frequency of intestinal disease and disorders likely at sea and tell me how these could possibly "ease" the problems. Methinks they just eased the conscience of Milords of the Admiralty 

[allanyed]

More like 200 or 300 or more sailors. 

Buckets aplenty might have been the answer.

Allan

[Bob Cleek]

In fact, both of the above observations are obviously accurate to one degree or another, but more often not likely a seaman's first choice. While I can't provide a citation to the historical record, I believe that in the Age of Sail, as often still today, the common response to nature's call for "number one" for the men aboard, nature having equipped them conveniently with the means, was simply aiming to leeward at the rail in fair weather and to a convenient corner below in foul weather. I read somewhere once upon a time, where I can't remember, that, particularly in heavy weather, the bilges served as the first choice of refuge when nature called for "number two."  Consequently, "mucking out the bilges" at refitting time was an especially disagreeable task! Those keen on absolute accuracy might be well advised to include the latter detail when "weaathering" their fully-framed half-planked models.   

[jud]

Remember the convenient arrangement of the facility's for dumping aboard the Helena, CA 75 was a face to face arrangement of our modern flushing commodes. One day in 62 while tied up at North Island 95% of our 1200+/- man crew got the shits, was blamed on the Scullery not rinsing the soap adequately. Don't know, I started heaving in a bucket I grabbed on a line spool under the tail of Turret 2, which I was attempting to enter. Made it to a head and noticed how handy is was to dump in the pot while pukeing in the lap of the guy across from you and neither one caring. Learned that much thought must go into the placement of those seats of ease. Oh, flu lasted about 2 hours and the ship was, although it was a big job, cleaned up for supper. Photo in Hong Kong 1961

Edited October 27, 2022 by jud

[trippwj]

I heartily recommend the book "Those Vulgar Tubes" for a tour of the various designs.  Did they always use them? Probably not always, but who knows?

[Dr PR]

There are other threads on the forum discussion seats of ease. Someone posted a link to the attached thesis on the subject.

 

Seats of Ease Simmons-MA1985.pdf

[stuglo]

7 hours ago, Dr PR said:

There are other threads on the forum discussion seats of ease. Someone posted a link to the attached thesis on the subject.

 

Seats of Ease Simmons-MA1985.pdf 3.97 MB · 4 downloads

After a quick read, this must be the definitive work on the subject.

Just note the "poop" deck, is derived from the Latin/French, stern or rear -  poop meaning excrement presumable derives from this.

[allanyed]

11 hours ago, jud said:

Photo in Hong Kong 1961

Coranado seems like a less likely place to see this kind of thing than Hong Kong.   I remember HK in the 60's with the many street food vendors with octopus and other goodies hanging on hooks and covered with flies.  I must admit to trying and enjoying some of these and never did get sick. 

 

1200 crewmen!!!! WOW.  On our trip that included HK, our C-4 freighter had a crew of 32 plus the two cadets (my roommate and me)  Good times!!!

 

Allan

[glbarlow]

The attachment above is an interesting read, it answers a lot of questions and dispels a lot of conjecture. 

[AON]

As mentioned... the crew outnumbered the seats of ease and when the weather was too bad or the line too long and they couldn't wait their turn or there was no room in the open grating they went below and "added to the ballast".  This was a chargeable offence so they had to be stealthy and quick about it.

 

Cleaning the bilges was a regular occurrence as the excrement would muck up the pumps.

I cannot imagine the disgust of the Captain seeing this flow out of a pump and across the deck.

Edited October 28, 2022 by AON

[Charles Green]

Poop, as a descriptive term for excrement, appeared in the mid 1700's. 

 

I have two sources that take the origin of 'poop deck' back to the Roman times: Eh, What's That You Said?  Jargon of the Sea, by Don and Johna Marshall, and Origins of Sea Terms, by John G. Rogers. 

 

From them: The French poupe comes from the Latin puppim, the after-part of a vessel.  Puppim was derived from puppis; a doll or image.  Romans, and their predecessors, mounted a sacred image or doll/idol at the stern of their vessels.  From another source I cannot recall, the idol or image was kept in a small enclosure.  From that source, the enclosure was the puppis.

 

So, from these sources: from a puppis kept at the stern, to the stern being named puppim, to the French Poupe describing a stern deck.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

[mtaylor]

And here, I was told (probably not in all seriousness) that the poop deck was named that because by the time you climbed up all the steps from down below... you were "pooped"  as in tired.  

[popeye2sea]

Adding another layer...

to get "pooped" meant to take a following sea over the stern.

 

Regards,

[georgeband]

On HMS Victory there were four seats of ease at the heads to serve the needs of about 800 men. (The officers had their own arrangements.) If all the seats are used throughout the day and night that gives just over seven minutes on average for a seaman to finish his business. Given that many of them would be constipated because of the diet, and in rough weather only the two leeward seats would be in use, it is obvious that they would find alternatives such as the bilge or a bucket or leaning out at the channels. 

Photo below shows the seats on Victory, port side. 

On smaller vessels the Admiralty drawings often show a cupboard-like structure at the stern to port, tucked in the corner between the transom and the bulwark. It is labelled as the 'necessary' which was a common euphemism at the time. Occasionally the seat was left open to the air and any chance of modesty disappeared. 

 

The Simmons thesis, if I remember correctly, also mentions 'pissdales' which are holes through the bulwarks that the sailors could use to relieve themselves without having to open the gun ports. I suspect that there would also be a bucket nearby with strict orders, enforced by the crew, to empty it after you had used it. 

 

George

 

[druxey]

In a naval ship, severe punishment would be meted out to any seaman polluting the bilges!

[Dr PR]

I am modelling a small schooner and I was wondering what "necessaries" they might have had. Most deck plans leave off the heads and other deck furniture, so the lack of heads doesn't mean the ship didn't have them. I think in most cases we will never know for sure unless we find an accurate model that shows the features.

 

I did start a thread about schooner heads that has a bit more discussion if you are interested:

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/29060-schooner-heads-1700s-through-1800s/?do=findComment&comment=829120

 

[AON]

Speaking of punishment, I was surprised to read a paper explaining that punishments were not immediate.  Charges would be laid but the "trial" would be days, or weeks afterwards, giving the offender ample time to think about it.  Then when the trial was over and punishment awarded (what a strange term for it) there would be another delay of weeks or months afterwards.  I also read that the cat-o-nine tails was tied by the offender and used on him for his punishment alone.  It rarely tore up the skin as depicted on movies but did leave the fellow severely battered and bruised.... I imagine akin to going too many rounds with a prize fighting boxer but your hands are tied to upright standing grating so you cannot fight back!

 

Not something I'd want to test and prove.   I had enough as a youngster having to go fetch my fathers wide leather belt and getting my own version metered out too many times on my bottom.  I was a troublesome lad, but grew out of it.

[dafi]

Oh my favourite topic 🙂

 

I am having a good collection of the topic at https://www.segelschiffsmodellbau.com/t866f104-The-Heads.html

 

One can activate the automatic translater if you scroll down the page and on the bottom you will find a button with "Sprache auswählen". Change this to english or the language that you prefer 🙂

 

Especially I like the contempoary grafics and paintings, even two lads doing business in the middle of a raging battle ...

 

:-0

 

XXXDAn

Edited October 31, 2022 by dafi

[bruce d]

On 10/30/2022 at 9:27 AM, AON said:

Speaking of punishment, I was surprised to read a paper explaining that punishments were not immediate. 

I would be interested in this paper if that is possible. 

[AON]

Yup.

I will dig it up this afternoon and PM you.

[rshoker]

Anyone have any idea on the USN’s sanitary arrangements on mid 19th century ships. I know that the shift to the “round” bow still allowed for seats of ease forward. Specifically, I am thinking of the Brig USS Perry. I am building a semi scratch version from an old Boucher (pre blue jacket hull). Both the Boucher and Blue jacket plans show a bow with no gratings or seats of ease. There are no visible  facilities anywhere. I am not sure there would not have still been a grating at the bow with a head. But I am certainly not an 19th century expert. The excellent PDF on seats of ease that was posted on this forum seems to leave open the possibility of a grating with seats of ease in 1843. Anyone have any thoughts on this?  Thank you.