Hi How would a boy, born in about 1833 in Thrapston, Northamptonshire in the English Midlands (and about sixty miles from the nearest bit of sea, at Kings Lynn) embark on a career which led to him becoming a commercial sea captain? (First Officer of the "Bangalore" by 1872, Captain of the "Tanjore" by 1877.) There was no sea-going tradition in the family; his father was a draper. Would he have started in the Navy, or were there apprenticeships or other training schemes for commercial officers? Regards Roger