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

The Professionalization of French Naval Shipbuilders
though the whole question of superiority is highly subjective, we may
still ask how French warships acquired the qualities so admired by
contemporaries.
Earlier positivist historians claimed that the superiority of French
warships followed government initiatives to import technology and
sponsor scientific research into shipbuilding problems during the latter
part of the 17th century.1 But cause and effect were assumed. Just
how these enterprises led to superior ship construction has never been
made clear. Military and naval requirements
in the 16th and 17th
centuries demanded growing scientific awareness and technical ability
among executive and administrative personnel in the armies and
navies of European powers.'2 But there can be no assumption that the
demand was met or that utilitarian concerns necessarily improved the
application of science to war making and to the impedimenta of war.
According to John U. Nef, war does not stimulate progress in the
sciences or technology but rather retards it.13 William H. McNeill,
however, claims quite the reverse; military demands on the British
economy, especially for iron production, did much to shape later
phases of the Industrial Revolution.14 But McNeill refers to technology,
and, when science was applied to gunnery, navigation, and even to
naval education, little improvement occurred.15 On the other hand, the
French met with such success in the matter of ship design and warship
construction that they can be said to have established the profession of
naval architecture. How and why the French achieved such envied and
often-imitated quality in their warships during the first half of the 18th
century demands explanation.
Several historians have emphasized the absence of connections be-
"John Fincham, A History of Naval Architecture to which Is Prefixed an Introductory
Dissertation on the Application of Mathematical Science to the Art of Naval Construction (London:
Whittaker and Co., 1851), pp. vii-xxviii, provides a classic illustration.
'2Frederick B. Artz, The Development of Technical Education in France, 1500-1850 (Cambridge,
Mass., 1966), pp. 40-55, provides a useful introduction to the topic and to the
early literature.
'3J. U. Nef, Western Civilization since the Renaissance: Peace, War, Industry and the Arts
(New York [1950] 1963), pp. 220-21.
'4William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D.
1000 (Chicago, 1982), pp. 211-12.
'5A. R. Hall, Ballistics in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1952), pp. 158-59, concludes
that, far from an example of early science being directed by utilitarian considerations,
ballistics served only as a mirror reflecting much of the most advanced scientific
thought; its application to the art of war awaited the engineering revolution. On naval
education, see Roger Hahn, "L'Enseignement scientifique des gardes de la marine au
XVIIIe siecle," in Enseignement et diffusion des sciences en France au XVIII' siecle, ed. Rene
Taton (Paris, 1964), pp. 547-58.
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