Diet of Sailors in British Royal Navy in 18th Century Included Salt Beef, Sea Biscuits, Beer, Salted Cod and Dried Pork
Posted on March 25, 2012
A new chemical analysis technique has allowed archaeologists to find out the diet of sailors in the British Royal Navy during the late 18th century. During this time period the Royal Navy employed 70,000 seamen and marines. Their diets at sea included salt beef, flour, oatmeal, suet, cheese, dried pork, beer, salted cod and sea biscuits. According to an entry on Nauticapedia, a sea biscuit or "ship's biscuit" was a hard biscuit made with salt and flour.
The research, led by Professor Mark Pollard from the University of Oxford, focused on bones from 80 sailors who served from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries and were buried in Royal Naval Hospital cemeteries in Plymouth and Portsmouth. The team's analysis found that the diet of the sailors was consistent with documentary records such as manifests and captain's logs.
Dr. Pollard says, "An isotopic analysis of bone collagen from the recovered skeletons allowed us to reconstruct average dietary consumption. By comparing these findings to primary documentary evidence we can build a more accurate picture of life in Nelson's navy."
The researchers compared the isotopic data with research on 18 individuals from the Mary Rose, a 16th century royal flagship that sank just outside Portsmouth harbor in 1545. The results revealed that the naval diet was virtually unchanged in 200 years. Sailors in the Royal Navy basically ate the same thing for centuries when they were at sea.
History.com has a detailed article about the diet of British sailors hundreds of years ago here. The research was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.