In 1900 there were six Admiralty-run boy seaman training establishments in operation. Originally, all of these utilized the hulks of old warships for accommodations and classroom space. As the old hulks reached the end of their useful existences, they were replaced by newer relics, but the establishment name was always transferred. The establishments existing in 1900 included HMS Implacable, the original boys training ship at Devonport ( opened1855), which had been joined by HMS Lion in 1871 and HMS Impregnable (ex-HMS Howe of 1860) in 1886. This was probably the largest of the boys pre-sea training establishments and appears to have been described collectively as "HMS Impregnable". HMS Britannia (ex-Prince of Wales) a first rate used for training naval officer cadets, arrived at Portland Roads in 1862. The conditions there proved unsuitable and in 1863 she was moved to the River Dart. The 70-gun third rate HMS Boscawen, a training ship for boy seamen, arrived at Portland in October 1866 having previously served at Southampton. She proved inadequate and in February 1873 was relieved by a larger ship, the first rate HMS Trafalgar, which then assumed the name Boscawen. Shore training facilities were opened on the side of Portland Bill above the dockyard in 1882 and the establishment took on the additional duty of gunnery training school for the port. Two retired ironclads later joined the old wooden ship, Minotaur in 1893 and Agincourt in 1904, to become Boscawen II and III respectively. HMS St. Vincent, a Devonport-built first rate, opened in Portsmouth harbour in 1862 while HMS Ganges received her first boys at Falmouth in 1866 and then moved to Harwich in 1899. HMS Caledonia (ex-HMS Impregnable, a one-time 98-gun second rate) opened in Scotland in the Firth of Forth at Queensferry in 1896 while the ironclad HMS Black Prince was established at Queenstown (Cobh) in the same year. She was renamed Emerald in March 1904. In 1906, HMS Ganges was moved ashore near Shotley on the Suffolk coast. The new training base was called "RN Training Establishment, Shotley" until the original name was re-instated in 1929 after the old hulk was scrapped. In time, the others either followed suit or were closed. Boscawen and Caledonia closed altogether in 1906 and Emerald followed suit in 1910. The hulk St. Vincent was sold for scrap in 1906 and the establishment appears to have been closed (although there is some evidence that it may have remained afloat until closing in 1923). St Vincent re-opened ashore in 1927 in the old Royal Marines Light Infantry barracks in Gosport. Impregnable closed in 1929. Although the name appears to have been revived a few times ashore under canvas, it was never opened for very long. With the final closure of St. Vincent in 1968 and Ganges in 1973, separate boys training ceased in the Royal Navy. Although youths as young as fifteen-years and nine-months are still recruited (2001), their training is now given at HMS Raleigh in parallel with adult new entries and they are accommodated in the barracks there.
About twenty-five per cent of the total new entry intake for the RN came from the Admiralty-run boys training establishments. At the turn of the century, boys were being accepted between the ages of fifteen and sixteen and-a-half. The main qualifications for acceptance were the parents’ signed permission, the ability to read and write, a character reference from a professional person and a clean record. They also had to pass an academic assessment, be of a certain height and build and pass a thorough medical examination. The prospective boy’s parents or guardians were responsible for arranging the medical examination and for acquiring the necessary documentation, all at their own expense. The acceptance ratio was about one in every four applicants. The basic training of a boy lasted anywhere from nine to fifteen months. Boys held up for illness or other acceptable reasons were back-classed. Once their training was completed, they were promoted to Boy Seaman First Class. They were either sent to the fleet to join a boys mess aboard ship or remained in the training ships to serve out their boy’s time as senior boys. At the age of eighteen, they were rated-up to Ordinary Seaman at which time their twelve-year Continuous Service engagement as men commenced. Boys trained in the naval establishments were generally well regarded in the fleet. Boys time was never considered when calculating time served for pension purposes.
In response to demands for trained recruits for both the RN and the Merchant Navy, there were also two dozen or so privately run training establishments for boys. Many of these were profit-making institutions, others were purely philanthropic and a few fell somewhere between the two. These establishments ranged from fee-paying, seagoing, training ships for prospective Merchant Navy officers, to church-run reformatory training establishments for under-privileged juveniles. Generally, boys were accepted at fourteen and a half for a two year term and at sixteen and a half for a one year term and some establishments accepted boys as young as eleven years of age.
One of the latter was Mount Edgcumbe, a privately run philanthropic industrial training ship for destitute children that accepted boys from age eleven upwards. Mount Edgcumbe was originally HMS Winchester and she arrived at Devonport in 1876.
A good example of the diversity of these pre-sea training facilities for boys could be found on the Mersey not far from Liverpool. The first to arrive was a frigate, HMS Conway, which was moored near Rock Ferry in 1859. She was established to train Merchant Navy officer cadets under the aegis of the Mercantile Marine Service Associations and with the blessings of the Admiralty which provided the ship. The original vessel was replaced by HMS Winchester in 1861 and, proving too small, this hulk was in turn replaced in 1876 by the old first rate HMS Nile. The ship in service being renamed Conway with each change. The Conway establishment acquired land for sports fields and later built an entire school ashore while retaining the ship for use as a dormitory. The old hulk remained in use until 1953 when it went aground, broke its back and was stripped and burnt. A victim of the drastic decline in British shipping Conway closed its door for good in 1974. In 1865, two reformatory training ships, the Protestant Akbar and the Catholic Clarence, joined Conway near Rock Ferry. In the same year, the training ship Indefatigable was also located there with space for 300 boys. Most of the boys from these ships were taken into the Merchant Navy.
Mostly the students wore naval uniform, or outfits based on the uniform, and the daily routine loosely followed that of the navy. The curriculum included basic academic subjects, parade ground and rifle drill, small arms shooting, sports and seamanship. Generally, these establishments provided a good grounding in academic subjects as well as seamanship and shipboard discipline, but often there was no commitment required on the part of the boys to actually join the navy. Corporal punishment was common but, except for the reformatories, was not administered as frequently or as severely as in the naval training ships.
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