The Marine Society is a British charity, the world's first established for seafarers. In 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Years' War against France, Austria, and Saxony Britain urgently needed to recruit men for the navy. Jonas Hanway (1712–1786), who had already made his mark as a traveller, Russia Company merchant, writer and philanthropist, must take the chief credit for founding the society which both contributed to the solution of that particular problem, and has continued for the next two and a half centuries to assist many thousands of young people in preparing for a career at sea.

HMS Warspite was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1807. She served in the Napoleonic Wars and was decommissioned in 1815. She was re-rated as a 76-gun ship in 1817 and then circumnavigated the world in 1826-27, visiting Australia. She was cut down to a single decker 50-gun frigate in 1840 and was decommissioned in 1846. She was lent as a boys' training ship to The Marine Society and was lost to fire in 1876.