Charles Wager

Charles Wager

Sir Charles Wager (24 February 1666 – 24 May 1743) was a British Admiral and First Lord of the Admiralty between 1733 and 1742. Despite heroic active service and steadfast administration and diplomatic service, Wager's reputation has suffered from a profoundly mistaken idea that the navy was then at a low ebb. In reality its numerical preponderance over other navies was greater than at any other time in the century, and its dockyard facilities, overseas bases (Wager was much involved in the development of new bases in the Caribbean), victualling organization, and central co-ordination were by far the most elaborate and advanced. Although British warship design was inferior to French in some respects, the real problem was an insufficiency of the versatile and seaworthy 60-gun ships, a class that Wager's Admiralty had chosen to augment during the 1730s but, as wartime experience would show, not aggressively enough.