General Ships Cleaning Equipment, HMS Victory, 1805

[tmj]

One thing that I have never seen depicted, in sectional models, are the general 'every day' items used to keep the ship's decks clean, etc. There's no such thing as a ship without proper 'janitorial' tools!

Other than brooms, mops and buckets... what other janitorial 'devices' would have been found on the decks of HMS Victory in 1805? Also, weren't certain 'stones' used to occasionally 'grind' the surface of the decks to a smooth, splinter free surface? Where would this kind of gear/equipment typically be stowed upon the different decks of a ship like this?       

[allanyed]

I have no ideas where the gear was stored when not in use, but found the following very interesting.  From Brian Lavery:

 

Holystoning was a routine activity on Royal Navy vessels until the early 1800s. The practice reached its height in 1796 when Admiral St Vincent recommended to his captains that the decks of all ships in the fleet be holystoned "every evening as well as morning during the summer months."  For a ship of the line, the practice could take up to four hours.

 

St Vincent's successor, Admiral Keith, rescinded the order in 1801, finding that "the custom of washing the decks of ships of war in all climates in every temperature of the air, and on stated days let the weather be what it may" was so onerous as to be damaging the health and lives of the crews.  The practice was subsequently limited to once every seven to fourteen days, interspersed with sweeping.  

The after hold was the common area for ready to use things other than food and spirits so MAYBE that would be appropriate. 

 

I too would be very interested in finding out where these things would be stored based on contemporary sources.

 

Allan

[HAIIAPHNK]

Stones for grinding decks were certainly used. Water + sand and this mass was rubbed on the deck with stones. Then it was washed off with clean water. Cleaning was necessary not so much because of splinters, but rather to remove salt from the deck. Which harmed bare feet much more often, because it was all over the deck. Remember in the movie about Captain Aubrey the moment with the cleaning of the deck?
As to the question, what could there have been but brooms and mops? What else do you need for cleaning? You can think of scoops or trowels, of course. 
A ship is no different in this process than any home. If these simple tools are enough, what else do you need to clean a ship? 
The process itself is also quite predictable. Today, many people who are forced to clean simply pretend to clean. And instead of a proper process, they sweep the trash where it is less visible. I think people are still the same in this and many used to do much the same thing. And some of the trash gradually migrated lower and lower on the decks. And eventually ended up in the hold. As they say, ballast is also needed on the ship, I brought some more 😄.
The tools were stored in the bosun's room. Next to rags, ropes and tar.

 

We can mention one more item related to cleaning. I don't know how appropriate it is to equate this with the usual brooms and mops this item is, but it is also part of the cleaning process. This is a limber rope. It's a long rope that was knotted at intervals. This rope was inside the limber hall, at the very bottom of the ship. Sooner or later all kinds of debris would fall to the bottom and get clogged up in this drainage channel. That's what the cable was for. It was used to clear the debris. When it was clear from the condition of the rope that it was beginning to rot, a new one was tied to one of the ends and pulled into the limber hall in an understandable way. 
This conduit is not often mentioned. But it's interesting. There were different designs at different times. The Dutch were very different from the English or French. It seems like an insignificant detail, but without it, the ship could rot much faster. I've gone beyond the boundaries of your interest. But maybe this also fits into the topic of cleaning....

[tmj]

26 minutes ago, HAIIAPHNK said:

I don't know how appropriate it is to equate this with the usual brooms and mops this item is, but it is also part of the cleaning process. This is a limber rope.

This is 'very' appropriate, and yes. I have limber ropes on my list of needful things to display on my sectional build. I'm going to have short, about 1cm to 1.5cm lengths of knotted ropes hanging out of the limber channels on both ends of my model. Greetings and thank you for chiming in!

[Bob Cleek]

1 hour ago, HAIIAPHNK said:

Stones for grinding decks were certainly used. Water + sand and this mass was rubbed on the deck with stones. Then it was washed off with clean water. Cleaning was necessary not so much because of splinters, but rather to remove salt from the deck. Which harmed bare feet much more often, because it was all over the deck.

There are certainly far more knowledgeable folks in this forum that I am on the particular practices of this period, but from my own experience, some of these details don't appear correct. I doubt that decks would be rinsed with clean (fresh - not salt) water and particularly not at sea. Fresh water is a precious commodity and is conserved for cooking and drinking and, to a very limited extent, bathing and rinsing salt out of clothing. (where it will attract moisture, keeping clothing continually damp. Decks are swabbed and rinsed with salt water because fresh water leaking below causes fungal decay while salt water does not and, in fact, to a certain extent prevents it. Additionally, the salt in the decks attracts moisture and tends to keep the deck planking swelled and bleached, as well. 

 

Decks were holystoned not to remove salt from the deck, but to remove tar (pitch) from the deck which otherwise would get tracked all over the vessel. As Allan mentioned, in the days when the Admiralty placed a high-value on its ships being highly maintained, Admiral St. Vincent even went so far as to order every ship to holystone her decks "every evening as well as morning in the summer months." The reason for holystoning twice in the summer months was because the heat in the summertime increased the amount of tar that dripped from aloft and tracked all over the ship. Pine "tar" (pitch, actually) was applied liberally to the rigging for its preservation and heated and poured as "stopping" on top of the oakum caulking material hammered into deck planking seams. In the summer sun, the dark brown, nearly black actually, pitch would liquify and drip down from the top hamper where it thickly coated everything and it would soften in the deck seams and get spread all over the deck. Holystoning decks would cause the sand to pick up the pitch and in removing the sand, a fair amount of the pitch would be removed as well. In the early 1800's, a couple of significant developments caused an evolution of practices in the Admiralty. One was that England broke free from her from dependence on the Scandinavian boreal forests as a source of naval stores such as shipbuilding timber and pine tar, competition for which exerted a great influence over European politics. England's American colonies exceeded the entire European supply of naval stores freed England from dependence on what was called "Stockholm tar" and the citizens of then heavily pine forested colony of North Carolina went into the pine tar business thereby earned their nickname, "tar heels." In 1840, an enterprising British inventor, Alfred Jeffery, discovered that bitumen or "coal tar" which was beginning to replace "pine tar" for some purposes, when melted and mixed with another relatively new material which also became commonly available around that time, latex or natural "rubber," produced a greatly improved deck seam stopping. The major advantages of Jeffrey's "marine glue," as he called it, was that it could be melted and poured into a seam and when it cooled, it would still stick to the wood, but was "rubbery" and would stretch when the seams opened and closed as the wood moved. Mr. Jeffery took his product to the Admiralty which immediately specified it for every deck seam in the British navy from then on. Jeffery's Marine Glue is still made in England today. (Check out the post at https://forum.woodenboat.com/forum/tools-materials-techniques-products/252396-for an old Jeffrey and Company's instruction manual PDF. It explains in detail all about deck seams from about 1840 on.)

 

1 hour ago, HAIIAPHNK said:

As to the question, what could there have been but brooms and mops? What else do you need for cleaning? You can think of scoops or trowels, of course. 

I expect that most of the holystoning detritus and sweepings would be flushed and/or swept overboard through the deck scuppers.

 

1 hour ago, HAIIAPHNK said:

We can mention one more item related to cleaning. I don't know how appropriate it is to equate this with the usual brooms and mops this item is, but it is also part of the cleaning process. This is a limber rope. It's a long rope that was knotted at intervals. This rope was inside the limber hall, at the very bottom of the ship. Sooner or later all kinds of debris would fall to the bottom and get clogged up in this drainage channel. That's what the cable was for. It was used to clear the debris. When it was clear from the condition of the rope that it was beginning to rot, a new one was tied to one of the ends and pulled into the limber hall in an understandable way. 
This conduit is not often mentioned. But it's interesting. There were different designs at different times. The Dutch were very different from the English or French. It seems like an insignificant detail, but without it, the ship could rot much faster. I've gone beyond the boundaries of your interest. But maybe this also fits into the topic of cleaning....

While a rope would obviously serve in a pinch, I'd expect that a knotted rope would serve no purpose because the knots would foul in the limber holes more often than not and require accessing the entire length of the bilges to locate the hang-up and free it, thus defeating the purpose of the entire exercise. More over, the rope would rot rather quickly and result in a rather nasty job of removal, since it wasn't uncommon for seamen to use the bilge for a latrine when convenient. (A trip to the heads was no fun in foul weather in the Age of Sail!) This question was raised recently in another post and I don't think it was answered, but while I have always heard of and dealt with "limber chains," I've never heard nor encountered a "limber rope." Modernly, limber chains are made of non-ferrous metal, usually copper or brass to avoid corrosion. I don't know if this was the case in days of old, but there's no reason they couldn't have been. 

[Morgan]

To add to the conversation, First Rates like Victory had 850 crew, it was necessary to keep them busy and not allow them to stew over their confinement. Cleaning ship was one means of keeping otherwise idle hands busy and from fermenting trouble, so they did lots of it.

 

There are no gun deck storage areas for cleaning equipment, this would have gotten in the way of having a clear area from stem to stern when cleared for action, so these items would have been stored in the hold.

 

Gary

Edited September 27, 2023 by Morgan

[tmj]

14 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

While a rope would obviously serve in a pinch........

Hmm, back to those limber chains, again. "I remember that discussion!" It was mentioned that chain was prohibitively expensive back then, therefor knotted rope was most likely used, so I switched from chain to the rope idea. Now, rope is a bad idea and something like copper chains were likely used! I'm glad that I haven't added any limber 'things' yet! 😁 

[Morgan]

Tom,

 

Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine, 1815 Edition: -

 

“Limber-rope, a long rope, frequently retained in the limber holes of a ship, in order to clear them by pulling the rope backwards and forwards, so as to loosen any dirt by which they may occasionally be choked.”

 

Bob does say his experience is of modern practices.

 

I would imagine the limber rope may have had periodic knots, but can’t be certain.  A rope in a silted contained channel could just pull through its own area and not actually move anything, but a knotted rope would provide the surface area to dislodge silt.

 

Gary

 

 

 

[tmj]

Gary,

Is there any chance that maybe a 'hybrid' system could have been employed? A limber system using short lengths of rope as the main component, with a link of heavier chain tied in the middle, for extra weight, to deal with the more 'stubborn' sediments and blockages? I'm reaching, I know, albeit. I can actually see a rope simply gliding over a lot of heavy sediment with little effect, just as Bob explained. I can 'also' see a knotted rope doing almost the exact same thing unless the knots were tied large enough to occupy most of the internal space within the limber channel. Maybe a rope with a heavier chain link tied into it could have been employed for dislodging any clogs? Sailors can be rather resourceful when it comes to making dirty jobs a bit easier. 

This subject is really going to bug me!     

[Dr PR]

I would like to second Gary's comment about keeping the crew busy. It would take only a couple dozen seamen to operate a ship, leaving hundreds of bored sailors and marines nothing to do but get into trouble when the ship was not in combat. Holystoning, fancy rope work, polishing brass, painting and such gave them something to do.

 

That was true when I was in the Navy in the 1970s. We had a crew of 1200 and only a few dozen were needed to run the ship. The primary way to keep sailors busy was chipping paint and then repainting. When I was a brand new Ensign I once asked why the Navy didn't use epoxy paints (like we used in the magazines) topside since it would last a lot longer than the apparently water soluble paint that was used. A senior officer replied that they wanted paint that didn't hold up at sea so they could keep the crew busy.

 

Holystoning also kept men busy, but the primary purpose was to keep the Admiral's decks nice and white. Some type of bleach (we used oxalic acid on a minesweeper,  but I don't recall what was used on the cruiser) was added to the scrub water, and old fire bricks from the boilers were the stones. They were pushed around with broom handles fitted into holes in the stones. I don't recall sand being used. Salt water from the fire mains was used to wash the decks afterwards.

 

 

I don't know how true this is, but I have heard the term "holystoning" came from the practice of stealing tomb stones from a church cemetery in Portsmouth, England. There were no boilers to supply fire brick on sailing ships, and the tombstones were a good material for scrubbing decks.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Dr PR

[Jim Lad]

Phil, I was always told that the term 'holystone' came from the fact that they were sometimes used without handles and the sailors therefore had to kneel to use them.

When I was at sea we had blocks of sandstone that fitted into a dedicated frame with a handle and we also sanded the decks first.

 

John

[Morgan]

9 hours ago, tmj said:

Gary,

Is there any chance that maybe a 'hybrid' system could have been employed? A limber system using short lengths of rope as the main component, with a link of heavier chain tied in the middle, for extra weight, to deal with the more 'stubborn' sediments and blockages? I'm reaching, I know, albeit. I can actually see a rope simply gliding over a lot of heavy sediment with little effect, just as Bob explained. I can 'also' see a knotted rope doing almost the exact same thing unless the knots were tied large enough to occupy most of the internal space within the limber channel. Maybe a rope with a heavier chain link tied into it could have been employed for dislodging any clogs? Sailors can be rather resourceful when it comes to making dirty jobs a bit easier. 

This subject is really going to bug me!     

 

Hi Tom,

 

The only evidence I can find states rope, and no mention of any attachments.  It is important to note that fresh sea water was used regularly to wash down the ship so if these ropes were used in conjunction with wash down water the regular flow of water would prevent silts building up and blocking the limber holes.

 

In relation to this whole topic this is what the Royal Navy ‘Regulations and Instructions Relating to his Majesties Service at Sea’ have to say on the matter:

 

“As cleanliness, dryness, and good air are essentially necessary to health, the Captain is to exert his utmost endeavours to obtain them for the ship’s company in as great a degree as possible.  He is to give directions that the upper decks are washed very clean every morning, and that the lower decks are washed as often as the weather will admit of their being properly dried; they are to be swept twice at least, every day, and the dirt collected on them thrown overboard.  The hammocks are to be carried upon the deck, and the ports to be opened whenever the weather will admit of it, and no more chests nor bags than shall be necessary for the comfort of the men shall be kept on the lower gun deck, that as a few interruptions as possible may be opposed to offer a free circulation of air.  The ventilators are to be continually worked, and the hold and storerooms ventilated by wind sales. The ship is always to be pumped dry, the pumpwell frequently swabbed, and a fire, with proper precautions, let down to dry it. If the weather should prevent the lower deck ports from being opened for any considerable time, fires are to be made in the stoves supplied for that purpose, and the lower decks maybe scrubbed with dry sand.”

 

I note there was a discussion on you limber hole thread about using the hold as a latrine, etc., if someone did so and was caught on a RN Ship they would be flogged, cleanliness was an obsession and there were, as mentioned above, enough hands to make cleaning the ship something akin to perpetual motion.

 

Gary

 

 

 

 

[Bob Cleek]

12 hours ago, Morgan said:

Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine, 1815 Edition: -

 

“Limber-rope, a long rope, frequently retained in the limber holes of a ship, in order to clear them by pulling the rope backwards and forwards, so as to loosen any dirt by which they may occasionally be choked.”

 

Bob does say his experience is of modern practices.

 

I would imagine the limber rope may have had periodic knots, but can’t be certain.  A rope in a silted contained channel could just pull through its own area and not actually move anything, but a knotted rope would provide the surface area to dislodge silt.

I'll defer to Falconer, of course. This is the first I've heard of a "limber rope" but it makes sense in 1815. I'd still expect non-ferrous metal chain to have replaced rope as soon as it became available at reasonable expense. I cannot see there was any likelihood. of knots being tied in the rope, though. The ropes would have run from the pump well forward and aft to the extreme ends of the vessel. That was often quite a distance. The limber holes on smaller vessels may have been just a notch cut off the corner of each floor, the hole being created by the underside of the notch in the floor, the keel, and the garboard, and on larger vessels they would be upside-down "U-shaped tunnels" cut into the lower face of the floor timbers. The Admiralty's standing order to keep bilges dry must have more often been observed in the breach, since large wooden ships are hardly "watertight." While the ship's carpenter would be kept busy chasing leaky seams, there'd still be a fair amount of water that would continually leak in through the underwater hull seams in need of re-caulking and from the decks above. There were also standing orders to sound the bilges and pump regularly, which attests more to the reality of it than does the order to keep the bilges dry at all times! Pulling on a limber rope on a ship-of-the-line probably took a few men to heave on it, owing to the friction and weight of the wet rope laying in the bilge. Tying knots in the rope would almost certainly cause the rope to hang up when pulled up against the floor timbers. We have to keep in mind the totality of context here. The whole point of a limber rope or chain is to make it possible to remotely clear all the limber holes which are at the very bottom of the hold and in many areas would have many areas where the limber holes would be inaccessible without moving large amounts of heavy stores and cargo stowed from one end of the orlop deck to the other. 

10 hours ago, tmj said:

Is there any chance that maybe a 'hybrid' system could have been employed? A limber system using short lengths of rope as the main component, with a link of heavier chain tied in the middle, for extra weight, to deal with the more 'stubborn' sediments and blockages? I'm reaching, I know, albeit. I can actually see a rope simply gliding over a lot of heavy sediment with little effect, just as Bob explained. I can 'also' see a knotted rope doing almost the exact same thing unless the knots were tied large enough to occupy most of the internal space within the limber channel. Maybe a rope with a heavier chain link tied into it could have been employed for dislodging any clogs? Sailors can be rather resourceful when it comes to making dirty jobs a bit easier. 

In a word, "no." The more obstructions on the rope, the greater the likelihood of its hanging up in one or more holes and the greater friction when trying to pull it the length of the vessel. There is no need for "extra weight." The rope need only free up a plugged limber hole to serve its purpose. There would have been a lot of water dammed up behind a plugged hole, but once the primary blockage was freed, the weight of the dammed up water would be more than sufficient to wash the blockage material "downstream" to the pump well. 

4 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Holystoning also kept men busy, but the primary purpose was to keep the Admiral's decks nice and white. Some type of bleach (we used oxalic acid on a minesweeper,  but I don't recall what was used on the cruiser) was added to the scrub water, and old fire bricks from the boilers were the stones. They were pushed around with broom handles fitted into holes in the stones. I don't recall sand being used.

 

4 hours ago, Dr PR said:

I don't know how true this is, but I have heard the term "holystoning" came from the practice of stealing tomb stones from a church cemetery in Portsmouth, England. There were no boilers to supply fire brick on sailing ships, and the tombstones were a good material for scrubbing decks.

I've read that explanation as well. Somebody could certainly have done so, but it would have had to be an awfully large cemetery to keep the Admiralty in holystones at the height of her power. I've also read that the term "holystone" came into the Admiralty vocabulary when Henry VIII broke with the Pope and declared himself the head of the Church of England. At that time, Henry confiscated the property of the various monasteries in England which refused to accept his rejection of the Pope's authority. Many of these monasteries were quite wealthy and had large stone buildings. When they were closed, the stones, which were then Crown property, were often recycled for other buildings and for the Admiralty's use, primarily as ballast. These square cut stones were often the right size and shape for use as deck abrasive blocks and were generically called "holystones." Who knows? The accurate story was probably lost in the passage of time.

1 hour ago, Morgan said:

The only evidence I can find states rope, and no mention of any attachments.  It is important to note that fresh sea water was used regularly to wash down the ship so if these ropes were used in conjunction with wash down water the regular flow of water would prevent silts building up and blocking the limber holes.

The water which would have ended up in the bilge would have been relatively clean and there was always a ready supply of salt water for flushing out the bilges if the water accumulating from leakage wasn't sufficient alone to flush the bilges. There probably would not have been "silts" building up in the bilges in any great amount. More likely than not, it would have been things like dead rats (called "millers" and quite the snack treat when the sailors might catch one) or"tow," which is the bits and pieces of natural fiber rope which break off. The top hamper of a large sailing ship produced a lot of tow which fell to the deck and piled up in the scuppers and everywhere else. This tow is what the "sweepers" were sweeping up. This sweeping had to be done so often that there is actually a specific bosun's call for "sweepers" which is still used today. 

 

The questions about limber holes, ropes, and chains are indeed fascinating to a number of us nautical wonks. There doesn't seem to be much "in the literature" about them. Perhaps someone here in MSW is close enough to HMS Victory or USS Constitution that they could ask a resident historian, docent, or bosun if they know anything more about the subject. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Bob Cleek

[wefalck]

It seems that the term 'holy-stone' came from the fact that the RN obtained their stones from a quarry on the Isle of Wight that also supplied the local cemeteries.

 

I don't recall the exact date and source, but around the middle of the 19th century the RN greatly reduced the 'holy-stoning' as it was found (obviously) that it wears the deck-planks thin prematurely and thus adds to the cost of upkeeping.