Research Note
Protective Coating-18th-Century Cannon
Ruth Brown
From the late 17th century cannons in the British navy were treated with a
coating of lacquer, which seems to have been a mixture of linseed oil and black
lead. It seems this treatment was intended for guns in service as well as in
store. In the 1750s the Navy wrote to the Board of Ordnance who cared for the
guns to ask what the composition of the lacquer was as they were experimenting
with coatings for anchors. From about this period, there starts being slight
variations as Captains began asking for guns to have different coatings- for
example the guns of the Southampton had their muzzles painted red while the
guns in the Great Cabin of the Alcide were to be white.
In the 1780s the Ordnance tried Lord Dundonald's coal tar but this experiment
was abandoned when the ships' Captains wrote to have their old black lacquer
back because of the "disagreeable smell". Shortly after this they began using
Henry Cook's "anticorrosion powder" which they were still buying from Cook's
daughter Elizabeth in the 1800s. It seems it was the normal practice to repaint
the guns and carriages when the ships came into the naval docks.
{Ruth Brown}
Back?