Keith Willshaw wrote:

In fact the RN expected both officers and enlisted men to show
rather more initiative than was common for the period. Come
to that there was a greater degree of social mobility than
was normal as well. James Cook , the son of a farm laborer
joined the RN in 1755 as an ordinary seaman. Within 4 years
he had been promoted to Master and by 1763 he had been
commissioned and given his own command.

I just read a biography of John Paul Jones and in the book
somewhere, it mentions the issue of "social mobility" in
the RN and England in general.

I've already forgotten the explicit time periods mentioned,
but it appears that the ability to be a "self made man"
waxed and waned over several periods in British society (and
the RN).

There were relatively greater possibilities for self
improvement despite birth, during the mid 1700s than during
the later 1700's, when birth reclaimed the ability to
dictate a person's future potential, above self.

Social rigidity in British society wasn't a constant,
dictated by birth at this time, as I had formerly thought.


SMH