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Unfit for service - disability and old age in the British Navy

Posted: Friday 15th May 2026

Unfit for service - disability and old age in the British Navy

Event date: 2 June 2026

Location: Online

Organisers: Royal Museums Greenwich

 

This talk is part of the 2025/6 series of the Maritime History and Culture Seminars. 

In this talk, Dr Manon C. Williams will explore the process of medical invaliding during the French Wars (1793-1815), where seamen, officers, and other naval employees were deemed 'unfit for service' due to injury, illness, or old age. 

The decision about who qualified for support in the Navy's welfare system was an important one. Retired and disabled seamen could receive a place for long term accommodation and care at the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, but there was not enough space for everyone. While many officers were granted comfortable pensions to live at home, the lower ranks of the ship frequently had to survive from meagre out-pensions, charity relief, or casual labour. Many seamen ended up in asylums. 

About the speaker: Manon C. Williams

Dr Manon C. Williams is a historian of maritime health and medicine. She is currently a Pearsall Fellow in Naval and Maritime History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Her research focuses on ship surgeons and the medical administration of the 18th and 19th-century Royal Navy. She has published on the post-mortem examinations conducted by surgeons on naval ships in the British Journal for the History of Science, and is working on her first book, Surgeons at Sea.

In 2025, she was a Caird Research Fellow at Royal Museums Greenwich where she investigated the involvement of medical professionals in assessments for disability and welfare in the Navy.

Please join using the link on the sseminar webpage. 

 

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