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showing 315 library results for '1789'

The Durham papers : selections from the papers of Admiral Sir Philip Charles Henderson Calderwood Durham, G.C.B. (1763-1845) /edited by Hilary L. Rubinstein "Admiral Sir Philip Durham (1763?1845) was one of the most distinguished and colourful officers of the late Georgian Navy. His lucky and sometimes controversial career included surviving the sinking of HMS Royal George in 1782, making the first conquest of the tricolour flag in 1793 and the last in 1815, and having two enemy ships surrender to him at Trafalgar. A Scot distantly related to Lord Barham, Durham entered the Navy in 1777, serving initially on the American and West Indies stations. He was Kempenfelt's signal officer on HMS Victory during the second battle of Ushant in 1781 and on the Royal George. Making his reputation initially as the daring young master and commander of HMS Spitfire early in the French Revolutionary War, he became a crack frigate captain with a fortune in prize money, and commanded HMS Defiance at Trafalgar, where he was wounded. He ended his war service as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands. En voyage he artfully captured two brand-new French frigates which were subsequently taken into the service of Britain, and during his tenure he won the heartfelt gratitude of local merchants by ridding the surrounding seas of American privateers preying on British trading vessels. True to form, he clashed with the judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court on Antigua and with the general with whom he led a combined naval and military assault on Martinique and Guadeloupe following Napoleon's escape from Elba. He later served as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth having resigned his parliamentary seat to do so. Married first to the sister of the Earl of Elgin, of 'Marbles' fame, and secondly to a cousin of 'sea wolf' Lord Cochrane, he was well-known to George III, who as a result of Durham's amusing yet improbable anecdotes, dubbed any tall tale he heard 'a Durham'. This collection of his papers consists mainly of letters and despatches relating to his service in the Channel Fleet, the Mediterranean, and the Leeward Islands. Correspondence with his parents during 1789?1790 reflects his anxieties relating to employment and prospects for promotion when he was a young lieutenant with an illegitimate child to support. The collection, featuring items from and to him, comprises a fascinating and informative set of documents."--Provided by publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 061.22NRS
Oxford : mapping the city /Daniel MacCannell. "Over the past four and a half centuries, the magnificent city of Oxford has been mapped for many reasons, few of which have involved the mere finding of one's way through the streets. Maps were produced as part of schemes to defend Oxford from rampaging Roundheads, raging floodwaters, and the ravages of cholera; to plan the new canals and bridges of the eighteenth century and the new railways, tramways and suburbs of the nineteenth; to determine and display changes in the city's political stature under the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867; to aid police enforcement of the laws against homosexuality; and even to plan a Soviet ground assault on the heart of the British motor industry. Given its status as a world centre of drama, poetry, literature, music, architecture, and scientific experimentation, and sometime royal capital, it is unsurprising that Oxford was the first British town to be included in map form in a tourist guidebook, as early as 1762, and one of just two inland towns mapped by French invasion planners in the Seven Years' War.For the first time, this lavishly illustrated volume brings together sixty of the most remarkable maps and views of the area that have been made by friend and foe since 1575."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 911.425/74
The Indian and Pacific correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820 / edited by Neil Chambers. "Following his participation in James Cook's circumnavigation in HMS Endeavour (1768-71), Joseph Banks developed an extensive global network of scientists and explorers. His correspondence shows how he developed effective working links with the British Admiralty and with the generation of naval officers who sailed after Cook. He was familiar with most natural philosophers in Britain and across Europe, many of whom consulted his unrivalled collections of Pacific natural history and ethnology, and who shared specimens and information with him regarding the region. Banks also advised the British government and commercial enterprise in the development of successive ventures to India, the Far East and the Pacific. His career demonstrates how a private individual could influence global exploration in the Georgian era.Banks's correspondence is one of the great primary sources for studying the Pacific region during this important period of exploration and colonial expansion. His Indian and Pacific correspondence has not previously been published in a fully edited thematic series."--from Amazon. 2008- • BOOK • 8 copies available. 92BANKS