George (b.1804), Abraham (b.1813) and William (b.1814). This core group, along with their uncle, Captain John Sutton (b.c.1775) would provide Cork with four generations of master mariners through the nineteenth century. This made a total of more than fifty sailing ship captains, from the Sutton extended family, of which seventeen carried the surname Sutton.
Kinsale
Kinsale, the Cork provisioning port of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, saw most of its naval functions transferred to Cork by 1800. Despite this, Kinsale retained third place in volume of sea-trade after Cork and Youghal, throughout the nineteenth century. However, unlike Cork, Kinsale’s merchant fleet, did not expand in the decades after the Napoleonic War period (1803 – 15) (Thuiller). The second generation of Sutton mariners born to Robert and Catherine moved from Ring to Kinsale. George Sutton became an apprentice, at age twelve, on the Union of Kinsale (47t) from 1816 – 20, before becoming mate on sloop Industry of Kinsale (64t) from 1820 – 6 and finally becoming Master of the schooner Friends of Kinsale (57t) from 1827 – 9. His uncle, John Sutton and his older brother, Nathaniel Sutton, were captains on the Industry , 1824 – 36, with a younger brother, William, as a seaman on the same sloop 1834 –5. This followed William’s apprenticeship on the sloop Nancy (43t) of Kinsale, 1830 – 34, under his older brother, Captain Thomas Sutton. This period in Kinsale for the Suttons witnessed the birth of the third generation of mariners in the family, who moved to Cork city in the mid-1830s.
Shipping out of Cork (1835 – 50)
Fig. 5: Extract from 1835 Register of Seaman, UK Nat. Archives BT120, showing Sutton mariners (Image copyright. Kind permission granted from National Archives, Kew) .
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