Letters written by Benjamin William Hotine to his family in Bethnal Green, 1877-1879. During this period Hotine was undergoing training by the Marine Society and then engaged as an apprentice on a sailing vessel.

Administrative / biographical background
Hotine was born in the Holborn area of London in 1863. His father George Hotine was a fire brigade inspector. He joined the Marine Society training ship WARSPITE on the River Thames at Woolwich on 9 August 1877. He was apprenticed with the Glasgow shipowners J. & A. Roxburgh of Glasgow on 20 March 1879 and departed on a voyage to Australia on the iron ship ETTRICKDALE (1872) in the following month. He had become a fishmonger by the time of his marriage to Minnie Ballard in 1885. He died in the West Ham area in 1927. See the Marine Society register MSY/Q/13 and the BT 150 series at The National Archives for a record of Hotine's apprenticeship and award of the Marine Society Reward of Merit.