Pritchard, James; From Shipwright To Naval Constructor - Iowa State ...

10 James Pritchard
A second important step followed in 1717, when master shipwrights
began to climb the dockyard hierarchy. Designated mattres charpentiers
in the 1689 naval ordinance, shipwrights originally held the same social
status as petty officers, boatswains, and master caulkers and drillers.
But soon after Louis XIV's death the Naval Council, seeking to encourage
fils de famille (sons from respectable families) to enter the trade,
ordered master shipwrights to be known henceforth as master constructors
(mattres-constructeurs). The council also authorized the first
shipwright in each of the three great arsenals to carry the title, "Chief
of Construction and Repair," and to style himself as sieur, or "mister."46
These administrative developments represented a conscious effort to
place the most senior shipwrights in the service in the lowest ranks of
polite society.
The designation maitre harkened back to the earlier, subordinate
social position of craftsman within the naval hierarchy, but the appellation
constructeur foreshadowed the future professional. The double
term illustrates a recognition by the shipwright's "betters" that something
had altered: shipbuilders were no longer mere craftsmen. But, if
naval shipwrights were no longer craftsmen, what were they? They
were not engineers for engineers were already members in good
standing in polite society. With more than 50 percent of their number
in the nobility, there could be no doubt of their standing.47
Moreover, engineers had never built ships and did not know how to.
Colbert had appointed engineers for hydrographic surveys, chart
making, maritime fortifications, hydraulic works, and building construction
in the arsenals. The first naval engineers possessed no common
or uniform title, nor did a corps of naval engineers exist.
Ingenieurs-geographes and architectes ingenieurs coexisted with simple
ingenieurs de la marine. The same person employed on hydrographic
surveys might be found working on the construction of maritime
fortifications. Some engineers had been army officers, teachers of
hydrography, and even naval scriveners, and, in at least one instance, a
former military engineer, Renau d'Elissagaray, obtained senior naval
rank as capitaine de vaisseau.48 But, engineers had nothing to do with
shipbuilding.
Soon after the beginning of the 18th century, however, the naval
shipwright no longer fitted traditional categories of ideological think-
(n. 28 above), p. 731.
46Neuville, Etat sommaire (n. 39 above), p. 396; Anthiaume (n. 19 above), p. 310.
47Anne Blanchard, Les Ingenieurs du "Roy" de Louis XIV a Louis XVI (Montpellier, 1979),
p. 237.
48Neuville, Etat sommaire, pp. 390-92.