A widow's man was a fictitious seaman kept on the books of

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

ships during the 18th and early 19th centuries so that their pay and rations could be redistributed to the families of dead crew members. This financial arrangement helped keep

widow A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has Death, died. Terminology The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed ''widowhood''. An archaic term for a widow is "relict," literally "someone left over". This word ...

s from being left destitute following the death of their seafaring husbands.

Practice

The number of widows' men on a ship was proportional to the ship's size. A

first-rate In the rating system of the British Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a first rate was the designation for the largest ships of the line. Originating in the Jacobean era with the designation of Ships Royal capable of carrying at ...

might have as many as eighteen, while a

sixth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works and ...

might have only three. The ratio was reduced by

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

order on 25 October 1790. The existence of widows' men served as an incentive for men to join the

, rather than the Merchant Navy, as they knew that their wives would be provided for if they died.

Historical research

This procedure can lead to some confusion to modern students of history. For example, the

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

carried 153 men on its voyage exploring

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

, but the widow's man brings its official complement to 154. dead link Aug 2018 Reportedly, in 1738 the sloop ''Wolf'' discharged its widow's man when the company was reduced, but whether this was an accident or an attempt to maintain crew strength is difficult to determine. dead link Aug 2018

References

Accounting systems Legal fictions History of the Royal Navy Widowhood in the United Kingdom {{UK-navy-stub