Quote Origin: The Only Traditions of the Royal Navy Are Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash

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Winston Churchill? Harold Nicolson? Paddy Leigh Fermor? Anthony Montague Browne? Apocryphal?

Four Bottles of Rum

Question for Quote Investigator: According to legend a British statesman was once criticized for disregarding naval tradition. The statesman responded with the following zinger:

 The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy, and the lash.

This line has been attributed to Winston Churchill, but I am skeptical because I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in a diary entry written by British diplomat Harold Nicolson on August 17, 1950. Nicolson stated that British travel writer Paddy Leigh Fermor told him the following story about Winston Churchill. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

. . . when Winston was at the Admiralty, the Board objected to some suggestion of his on the grounds that it would not be in accord with naval tradition. ‘Naval tradition? Naval tradition?’ said Winston. ‘Monstrous. Nothing but rum, sodomy, prayers and the lash.’

The evidence above was not direct. It was thirdhand. Fermor heard the anecdote and told Nicolson who wrote it in his diary in 1950. The diary was published in 1968.

Churchill quotation expert Richard M. Langworth has reported that Winston Churchill denied making this remark. Langworth published the important reference work “Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations” which contained an entry on this topic. The initials WSC correspond to Winston S. Churchill:2

Naval tradition
Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, buggery [sometimes “sodomy”] and the lash.
Circa 1914-15, Admiralty.

In dinner conversation ca. 1955, private secretary Anthony Montague Browne confronted WSC with this quotation. “I never said it. I wish I had,” responded Churchill. (AMB to the editor.)

The evidence above was also indirect. Anthony Montague Browne spoke to Churchill and subsequently described the conversation to Langworth. Currently, the available data is discordant. Thus, QI is uncertain whether Churchill made this remark.

Below are additional selected citations organized chronologically.

Officially, sodomy in the Royal Navy was considered to be a grave offense. For example, the 1792 work titled “A Treatise of the Principles and Practice of Naval Courts-Martial” listed the “Articles of War” in an appendix. The 29th article described the penalty for sodomy:3

XXIX. If any person in the fleet, shall commit the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery or sodomy, with man or beast, he shall be punished with death, by the sentence of a court martial.

In 1849 the New York periodical “The Spirit of the Age’ printed a short item about a meeting of people who wished to “abolish the liquor rations and flogging in the navy”:4

Watson G. Haynes, an experienced seaman, who has taken the field in vindication of sailors’ rights, with particular reference to the abolition of rum and the lash in the Navy, addressed the meeting.

The item above was about the U.S. Navy which inherited traditions and norms from the U.K. Navy.

In 1937 Holdridge Desmond published “Witch in the Wilderness” about a yacht which was stranded in the Amazon jungle. The term “’baccer” corresponded to tobacco:5

He turned to the men. “Nothing seems to have happened, but keep your guns with you. We’ll get on with floating this baby—but no more Sunday School. When we get her off we’ll just leave that bunch right here in the bushes and take the ship to some island somewhere where we won’t be bothered, and life’ll just be rum, bum, and ’baccer.”

The book “Running the Gauntlet: An Oral History of Canadian Merchant Seamen in World War II” contained a germane remark from Canadian merchant seaman Paul Brick who went to sea in 1941. Brick used the phrase “rum, bum and ’baccy girl”:6

You had some leave; I think it amounted to about half a day a month. When you went ashore, there was the rum, bum and ’baccy girl. She was there for that purpose, she knew what her job was, she knew it well.

In 1950 Harold Nicolson wrote a diary entry containing the quotation attributed to Churchill as mentioned previously in this article.

In 1959 John Winton published “We Joined the Navy” which described his experiences as an officer in the Royal Navy. Winston recorded the following saying. The term “baccy” meant tobacco:7

“The Navy,” said the Chief Bosun’s Mate, “runs on three things. Rum, Bum, and Baccy. You lot remember that and you’ll all be admirals.

In 1962 English journalist Maurice Richardson published a book review in the journal “New Statesman”. While discussing books about the Royal Navy, Richardson credited Churchill with a version of the quotation:8

They leave me almost as much in the dark as ever about the mystery of the 18th and early 19th-century British navy: how with all that brutality and the tradition of ‘rum, buggery and the lash’, as Churchill is said to have described it, it yet managed to be so effective.

In 1963 Lewis Broad published the second volume of a biography titled “Winston Churchill: The Years of Achievement” which described a meeting of Churchill and his military staff during which Churchill employed a version of the quotation:9

There was the occasion, apocryphal maybe, when he was set on an assault on a Mediterranean island. He had received no support from his advisers and he brought up the question for formal decision at a Staffs meeting.

Each of Churchill’s advisers presented reasons for opposing his plan:

Churchill, with a withering glance, surveyed his non-cooperative advisers.

“First Lord,” he burst out, “do you mean to tell me that the Royal Navy is completely unable to see this through?”

The First Lord excused himself. “The tradition of the Navy——” he began, when Churchill broke in.

“The tradition of the Navy!” he exploded. “Do you know what is the tradition of the Navy? I will tell you. Rum, sodomy, and the lash—that is the tradition of the Navy.”

In 1966 “Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations” compiled by Robert Debs Heinl included the following entry:10

Traditions of the Navy? I’ll give you traditions of the Navy—rum, buggery, and the lash.
Winston Churchill: To the Board of Admiralty, c. l939

In 1977 English jazz singer George Melly published the book “Rum, Bum and Concertina” which began with the following epigraph:11

Ashore it’s wine, women and song
Aboard it’s rum, bum and concertina.
Old Naval Saying

In conclusion, there is some evidence given in a 1950 diary entry and in a 1963 biography that Winston Churchill made a remark of this type; however, there is also evidence that Churchill denied making the remark. All this evidence is indirect; hence, it is not strong, and QI remains uncertain.

Image Notes: Picture of four bottles of rum from Alexas Fotos at Pixabay. The image has been cropped and resized.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to the participants in a 2011 mailing list thread on this topic including: Laurence Horn, Dan Goncharoff, Jonathan Lighter, Douglas G. Wilson, and James A. Landau. Thanks to researchers Richard M. Langworth, Nigel Rees, and Fred R. Shapiro who pointed to key citations. Also, thanks to Luther Mckinnon whose inquiry gave further impetus to QI to formulate this question and complete this exploration.

  1. 1968, Diaries and Letters by Harold Nicolson, Edited by Nigel Nicolson, Volume III: The Later Years: 1945-1962, Diary entry dated August 17, 1950, Quote Page 193, Atheneum, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
  2. 2008, Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations by Winston S. Churchill, Compiled and Edited by Richard M. Langworth, Appendix 1: Red Herrings, Topic: Naval tradition, Quote Page 577, PublicAffairs, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  3. 1792, A Treatise of the Principles and Practice of Naval Courts-Martial by John McArthur, Appendix, Number 1: Articles of War, Quote Page xiv, Printed for Whieldon and Butterworth, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  4. 1849 November 3, The Spirit of the Age, Edited by William Henry Channing, News of the Week, Quote Page 286, Column 2, Published by Fowlers & Wells, New York. (Internet archive; archive.org) ↩︎
  5. 1937 Copyright, Witch in the Wilderness by Holdridge Desmond, Quote Page 244, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. (Verified with scans; Thanks to University of Florida’s George A. Smathers Libraries) ↩︎
  6. 1994, Running the Gauntlet: An Oral History of Canadian Merchant Seamen in World War II by Mike Parker, Chapter 1: The Fourth Arm, Section: Paul Brick, Quote Page 37, Nimbus Publishing, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  7. 1960 (1959 Copyright), We Joined the Navy by John Winton, Chapter 3,  Quote Page 47, The Companion Book Club, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  8. 1962 July 27, New Statesman, Pre-Hornblower by Maurice Richardson, (Review for four books including “Hornblower and the Hotspur” by C. S. Forester), Start Page 121, Quote Page 121, Column 2, The Statesman & Nation Publishing Company, London, (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  9. 1963, Winston Churchill: The Years of Achievement by Lewis Broad, Book One: Allies in Catastrophe, Chapter 5: Running The War – Summer 1940, Quote Page 72, Hawthorn Books, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  10. 1966, Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations, Edited by Robert Debs Heinl, Category: Royal Navy, Quote Page 210, Column 2, United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
  11. 1978 (1977 Copyright), Rum, Bum and Concertina by George Melly, (Epigraph for the book), Quote Page 5, Futura Publications Limited, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎