Editing Post-captain (section)

{{short description|Obsolete Royal Navy rank}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{for|the Patrick O'Brian novel|Post Captain (novel)}}
{{One reference|date=December 2024}}

[[File:Royal Navy Post Captain.jpg|thumb|A 1807 depiction of a post-captain.]]
{{Navalranks}}
'''Post-captain''' or '''post captain''' is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of [[Captain (Royal Navy)|captain]] in the [[Royal Navy]]. The term "post-captain" was descriptive only; it was never used as a title in the form "Post-Captain John Smith".

The term served to distinguish those who were captains by rank from:
* Officers in command of a naval vessel, who were (and still are) addressed as captain regardless of rank;
* [[Commander (Royal Navy)|Commander]]s, who received the title of captain as a courtesy, whether they currently had a command or not (e.g. the fictional Captain Jack Aubrey in ''[[Aubrey-Maturin series#Master and Commander|Master and Commander]]'' or the fictional Captain [[Horatio Hornblower]] in ''[[Hornblower and the Hotspur]]''). This custom is now defunct.

In the Royal Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries, an officer might be promoted from commander to captain, but not have a command. Until the officer obtained a command, he was "on the beach" and on [[half-pay]]. An officer "took post" or was "made post" when he was first commissioned to command a vessel. Usually this was a [[Rating system of the Royal Navy|rated vessel]] – that is, a ship too important to be commanded by a, lower-ranked, commander – but was occasionally an unrated one. Once a captain was given a command, his name was "posted" in ''[[The London Gazette]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/documents/0609FamilyHistory|title=The London Gazette – Treasure Trove of Historical Information|publisher=[[London Gazette]]|access-date=2011-05-30}}</ref> Being "made post" is portrayed as the most crucial event in an officer's career in both Forester's [[Horatio Hornblower]] series and O'Brian's [[Aubrey-Maturin series]]. Once an officer was promoted to post-captain, further promotion was strictly by seniority;  if he could avoid death or disgrace, he could eventually become an [[admiral]] (even if only a [[Yellow admiral (United Kingdom)|yellow admiral]]).

A junior post-captain would usually command a [[frigate]] or a comparable ship, while more senior post-captains would command larger ships. An exception to this rule was that a very junior post-captain could be posted to command an admiral's flagship, which was almost always a large [[ship of the line]]. The admiral would usually do this to keep his most junior captain under close observation and subject to his direct supervision. Captains commanding an admiral's flagship were called "[[flag captain]]s". One example of this is the appointment of [[Alexander Hood (Royal Navy officer)|Alexander Hood]] to the command of [[HMS Barfleur (1768)|HMS ''Barfleur'']], flagship of his cousin, Admiral [[Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood|Sir Samuel Hood]].

Sometimes a high-ranking admiral would have two post-captains on his flagship. The junior would serve as the [[flag captain]], listed in the ship's roll as the "second captain", with responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the vessel. The senior would be the [[captain of the fleet]], listed as "first captain", and serving as the admiral's chief-of-staff.

After 1795, when they were first introduced on Royal Navy uniforms, the number and position of [[epaulette]]s distinguished between commanders and post-captains of various seniorities. A commander wore a single epaulette on the left shoulder.  A post-captain with less than three years' seniority wore a single epaulette on the right shoulder and a post-captain with three or more years seniority wore an epaulette on each shoulder. In the O'Brian series, Aubrey "wets the swab" – that is, he celebrates his promotion to commander and the acquisition of his "swab" or epaulette with the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol.