Ann Coats & Philip MacDougall 
The Naval Mutinies of 1797 
Unity and Perseverance

A reassessment of the naval mutinies of 1797, arguing that the mutinies were more industrial dispute than expression of French revolution inspired political radicalism.


The naval mutinies of 1797 were unprecedented in scale and impressive in their level of organisation. Under threat of French invasion, crews in the Royal Navy’s home fleet, after making clear demands, refused to sail until their demands were met. Subsequent mutinies affected the crews of more than one hundred ships in at least five home anchorages, replicated in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Ocean.

Channel Fleet seamen pursued their grievances of pay and conditions by traditional petitions to their commanding officer, Admiral Richard Howe, but his flawed comprehension and communications were further exacerbated by the Admiralty. The Spithead mutiny became the seamen’slast resort. Ironically Howe acknowledged the justice of their position and was instrumental in resolving the Spithead mutiny, but this did not prevent occurrences at the Nore and elsewhere.

The most extensive approach since Conrad Gill’s seminal and eponymous volume of 1913,
The Naval Mutinies of 1797 focuses on new research, re-evaluating the causes, events, interpretations, discipline, relationships between officers and men, political inputs and affiliations and crucially, the rôle of the Irish and quota men. It poses new answers to old questions and suggests a new synthesis – self-determination – the seamen on their own terms.


ANN VERONICA COATS is senior lecturer in the the School of Civil Engineering and Surveying at the University of Portsmouth and is Secretary of the Naval Dockyards Society. PHILIP MACDOUGALL is a writer and historian, author of seven books, with a doctorateon naval history from the University of Kent at Canterbury.

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Introduction, Analysis and Interpretation

Spithead Mutiny: Introduction – Ann Coats and Philip Mac Dougall

The Delegates: A Radical Tradition – Ann Coats

What really happened aboard HMS
London? – David W. London

The Spirit of Kempenfeldt – David W. London

Voices from the Lower Deck: Petitions on the Conduct of Naval Officers during the Great Mutinies – Kathrin Orth

Crew Management and Mutiny: The Case of
Minerve, 1796-1802 – Roger Morriss

The 1797 Mutinies in the Channel Fleet: A Foreign-Inspired Revolutionary Movement? – Ann Coats

The Nore Mutiny: Introduction – Philip Mac Dougall

The East Coast Mutinies: May-June 1797 – Philip Mac Dougall

Reporting the Mutinies in the Provincial Press – Philip Mac Dougall

A Floating Republic? Conspiracy Theory and the Nore Mutiny of 1797 – Christopher Doorne

Lower Deck Life in the Revolutionary Wars – Brian Lavery

‘Launched into eternity’: Admiralty Retribution
or the Restoration of Discipline? – Ann Coats

Discipline, Desertion and Death: HMS
Trent 1796-1803 – Nick Slope, Commissioning Editor

‘We went out with Admiral Duncan, we came back without him’: Mutiny and the North Sea Squadron – Philip Mac Dougall

The Influence of 1797 upon the
Nereide Mutiny of 1809 – Jonathan Neale

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Philip Mac Dougall was formerly a Lecturer in the Department of Economic History at the University of Kent. He is the author and editor of several books on maritime history, including The Naval Mutinies of 1797 (Boydell, 2011), Naval Resistance to Britain’s Growing Power in India, 1660-1800 (Boydell, 2014) and Islamic Seapower during the Age of Fighting Sail (Boydell, 2017).