Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

British flag officers in the French wars, 1793-1815 : admirals' lives /John Morrow. "During the French wars (1793-1801, 1803-1815) the system of promotion to flag rank in the Royal Navy produced a cadre of admirals numbering more than two hundred at its peak. These officers competed vigorously for a limited number of appointments at sea and for the high honours and significant financial rewards open to successful naval commanders. When on active service admirals faced formidable challenges arising from the Navy's critical role in a global conflict, from the extraordinary scope of their responsibilities, and from intense political, public and professional expectations. While a great deal has been written about admirals' roles in naval operations, other aspects of their professional lives have not been explored systematically. British Flag Officers in the French Wars, 1793-1815 considers the professional lives of well-known and more obscure admirals, vice-admirals and rear-admirals. It examines the demands of naval command, flag officers' understanding of their authority and their approach to exercising it, their ambitions and failures, their professional interactions, and their lives afloat and onshore. In exploring these themes, it draws on a wide range of correspondence and other primary source material. By taking a broad thematic approach, this book provides a multi-faceted account of admirals' professional lives that extends beyond the insights that are found in biographical studies of individual flag officers. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of British naval history."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.333.3(42:44)"1793/1815"

The making of the modern admiralty : British naval policy-making 1805-1927 /C.I. Hamilton. "This is an important new history of decision-making and policy-making in the British Admiralty from Trafalgar to the aftermath of Jutland. C. I. Hamilton explores the role of technological change, the global balance of power and, in particular, of finance and the First World War in shaping decision-making and organisational development within the Admiralty. He shows that decision-making was found not so much in the hands of the Board but at first largely in the hands of individuals, then groups or committees, and finally certain permanent bureaucracies. The latter bodies, such as the Naval Staff, were crucial to the development of policy-making as was the civil service Secretariat under the Permanent Secretary. By the 1920s the Admiralty had become not just a proper policy-making organisation, but for the first time a thoroughly civil-military one"-- 2011. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.02(42)"18/19"

Observations on the zodiacal light : from April 2, 1853, to April 22, 1855, made chiefly on board the Jones, George, 1856. • RARE-FOLIO • 1 copy available. 910.4(520:73):094

The journal of Edward Mountagu, First Earl of Sandwich, Admiral and General at Sea 1659-1665 Montagu, Edward 1929 • BOOK • 4 copies available. 92Montagu

HMS Belfast pocket manual / John Blake. "A familiar sight on the Thames at London Bridge, HMS Belfast is a Royal Navy light cruiser, launched in March 1938. Belfast was part of the British naval blockade against Germany and from November 1942 escorted Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union and assisted in the destruction of the German warship Scharnhorst. In June 1944 Belfast supported the Normandy landings and in 1945 was redeployed to the British Pacific Fleet. After the war she saw action in the Korean War and a number of other overseas actions. She has been part of the Imperial War Museum since 1978, with 250,000 visitors annually. This fascinating book comprises a series of documents that give information on the building of the ship, her wartime service history and life on board."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.82BELFAST

The trial of Richard Parker ... Sibly, Job 1797 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 92Parker

Seaforth world naval review 2022 / edited by Conrad Waters. "For over a decade this annual has provided an authoritative summary of all that has happened in the naval world in the previous twelve months, combining regional surveys with one-off major articles on noteworthy new ships and other important developments. Besides the latest warship projects, it also looks at wider issues of significance to navies, such as aviation and weaponry, and calls on expertise from around the globe to give a balanced picture of what is going on and to interpret its significance. This year the 'Significant Ships' series includes its first detailed analysis of a Russian design, the Steregushchiy class corvettes now being built in sizeable numbers. Two contrasting OPVs, the French-designed Bouchard class for the Argentine Navy and the British Batch 2 'Rivers', are also covered, along with an assessment of the US Navy's new Ship to Shore Connector, a replacement for the LCAC amphibious assault hovercraft. Technology subjects include electro-optics at sea, new 'off-board' mine clearance systems, and the annual review of world naval aviation. In this issue the in-depth Fleet Reviews focus on the changing role of the Skri Lankan Navy, qualitative improvements in the Spanish Navy, and the latest British naval developments. Now well established as the only affordable annual overview of its type, World Naval Reviews is essential reading for anyone with an interest in contemporary maritime affairs, whether enthusiast or defence professional."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359.03

British battleships, 1939-45. Angus Konstam. "With the outbreak of World War II, Britain's Royal Navy and her fleet of battleships would be at the forefront of her defence. Yet ten of the twelve battleships were already over twenty years old, having served in World War I, and required extensive modifications to allow them to perform a vital service throughout the six long years of conflict. This title offers a comprehensive review of the seven battleships of the Nelson and King George V classes from their initial commissioning to their peacetime modifications and wartime service. Moreover, with specially commissioned artwork and a dramatic re-telling of key battles, such as the duel between the Bismark and HMS Rodney, this book will highlight what it was like on board for the sailors who risked their lives on the high seas."--Back cover. 2009. • PAMPHLET • 1 copy available. 623.82(42)"1939/1945"

Eliott's gold : the award of head money after the Great Siege of Gibraltar (1779-1783) claim, rejection and parliamentary petition /Roy Clinton. "The Latin family motto beneath the coat of arms of General George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield, reads 'Boldly and Rightly' and so it was that the General Eliott pusued a claim for prize and bounty for the Garrison and Naval department during the Great Siege of Gibraltar 1770-1783. This claim was rejected by the Navy Board as unfounded given a strict interpretation of Naval Prize Statues, but undeterred General Eliott boldly petitioned Parliament and successfully changed the law to obtain 30,000 of Head Money to be rightly distributed amongst the victorious participants. This is the previouslly untold story of how General Eliott, through strategic political manovering and persistence, changed the Navy Board's rejection into gold."--Provided by the publisher. • BOOK • 1 copy available.

Letters and papers of Charles, Lord Barham, Admiral of the Red squadron 1758-1813 Middleton, Charles 1907-1911 • BOOK • 4 copies available. 92Middleton

We are one : the War of 1812: The Battles for St. Michaels, Maryland August 10 & 26, 1813 "Welcome to August 10, 1813, in the little town of St. Michaels, Maryland. On this hot, dark morning the feared British Navy attacked the town of three hundred, defended by local militia. This book tells the story of that attack and a subsequent attempt on August 26. We also look at the life of our citizens at that time and the lasting impact of this war in the Chesapeake Bay."--The preface. 2013. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.48"1812/1815"(42:73)

Voyage to Gallipoli / Peter Plowman. At the commencement of World War I in 1914 Australia had only been a nation for 13 years and the RAN was only three years old (NZ had been a dominion for 7 years and had no independent navy). As young men rushed to enlist, the governments of both countries had to find ways of transporting them to a war being fought half a world away, and protecting them against German raiders en route. It was a massive undertaking. In Voyage to Gallipoli maritime historian Peter Plowman takes the story from the planning stages and the requisition of ships through to the Gallipoli landing of 25 April 1915. It covers the activities of the fledgling Royal Australian Navy and its role in the Australian capture of German protectorates (including New Guinea) in the South Pacific and the Battle of Cocos Island which saw the destruction of the German raider Emden. The book tells of the mobilization of troops and sailors, requisition and refitting of ships, one convoy false start, a number of voyages, various changes of plan and destination, and the assistance offered by ships of allied navies. Included are many newspaper accounts of various events (some by Banjo Paterson) in port and on board and quotes from diaries and memoirs of sailors and soldiers involved, giving descriptions of conditions on board - training, sport, exercise, living and eating conditions, hygiene, medical examinations and supervision, even 'crossing the line' festivities; also conditions for horses - details of convoy formations. By the time of the blooding of Anzac forces at Gallipoli, the force had been moulded very much 'on board' and 'in transit'. Two appendices give details of all the transport ships involved. 2013. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.455(496.1)

Australia circumnavigated : the voyage of Matthew Flinders in HMS Investigator, 1801-1803 /edited by Kenneth Morgan. 'This two-volume work provides the first edited publication of Matthew Flinders's fair journals from the circumnavigation of Australia in 1801-1803 in HMS Investigator, and of the 'Memoir' he wrote to accompany his journals and charts. These are among the most important primary texts in Australian maritime history and European voyaging in the Pacific. Flinders was the first explorer to circumnavigate Australia. He was also largely responsible for giving Australia its name. His voyage was supported by the Admiralty, the Navy Board, the East India Company and the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. Banks ensured that the Investigator expedition included scientific gentlemen to document Australia's flora, fauna, geology and landscape features. The botanist Robert Brown, botanical painter Ferdinand Bauer, landscape artist William Westall and the gardener Peter Good were all members of the voyage. After landfall at Cape Leeuwin, Flinders sailed anti-clockwise round the whole continent, returning to Port Jackson when the ship became unseaworthy. After a series of misfortunes, including a shipwreck and a long detention at the Ile de France (now Mauritius), Flinders returned to England in 1810. He devoted the last four years of his life to preparing A Voyage to Terra Australis, published in two volumes, and an atlas. Flinders died on 19 July 1814 at the age of forty. The fair journals edited here comprise a daily log with full nautical information and 'remarks' on the coastal landscape, the achievements of previous navigators in Australian waters, encounters with Aborigines and Macassan trepangers, naval routines, scientific findings and Flinders's surveying and charting. The journals also include instructions for the voyage and some additional correspondence. The 'Memoir' explains Flinders' methodology in compiling his journals and charts and the purpose and content of his surveys. This edition has a substantial introduction and textual introduction complemented with photographic excerpts from Flinders's survey sheets, maps of the voyage and illustrations of the botanical and artistic work undertaken.'--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 061.22HAKLUYT

From hardships to steamships : memoirs of a merchant seaman during World War II /Charlie Workman. Memoirs of ordinary seaman Charlie Workman commencing with his left-wing working-class childhood in poverty. A sequence of stories about his life on board various ships during the Second World War and after. Covers the basic day-to-day experiences of what life was like in the Merchant Navy and includes many insights into the routines and accidents on board ship and the people he observed and interacted with. 2004. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92WORKMAN

May we be spared to meet on earth : letters of the lost Franklin Arctic expedition /edited by Russell A. Potter, Regina Koellner, Peter Carney, and Mary Williamson ; with the assistance of Alison Alexander, William Battersby, Matthew Betts, Rick Burrows, A.J. Campbell, Jonathan Dore, Alison Freebairn, Andrew Hill, D.J. Holzhueter, Olga Kimmins, Jonathan Moore, Alexa Price, Frank Michael Schuster, Michael Smith, and Michael Tracy ; foreword by Sir Michael Palin. "May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth is a privileged glimpse into the private correspondence of the officers and sailors who set out in May 1845 on the Erebus and Terror for Sir John Franklin's fateful expedition to the Arctic. The letters of the crew and their correspondents begin with the journey's inception and early planning, going on to recount the ships' departure from the river Thames, their progress up the eastern coast of Great Britain to Stromness in Orkney, and the crew's exploits as far as the Whalefish Islands off the western coast of Greenland, from where the ships forever departed the society that sent them forth. As the realization dawned that something was amiss, heartfelt letters to the missing were sent with search expeditions; those letters, returned unread, tell poignant stories of hope. Assembled completely and conclusively from extensive archival research, including in far-flung family and private collections, the correspondence allows the reader to peer over the shoulders of these men, to experience their excitement and anticipation, their foolhardiness, and their fears. The Franklin expedition continues to excite enthusiasts and scholars worldwide. May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth provides new insights into the personalities of those on board, the significance of the voyage as they saw it, and the dawning awareness of the possibility that they would never return to British shores or their families."--Provided by publisher. 2022 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.9163/27

Two years in New South Wales : a series of letters, comprising sketches of the actual state of society in that colony ... Cunningham, P 1827 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 094:919.44

The naval achievements of Great Britain from the year 1793 to 1817. Jenkins, James. 1817 • RARE-FOLIO • 5 copies available. 76.047(26:42)"18"

A voyage to Terra Australis; undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty's ship Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schooner. With an account of the shipwreck of the Porpoise ... Flinders, Matthew 1814 • RARE-FOLIO • 1 copy available. 094:910.4(93)"1801/1803"

Lost at sea : true stories of disaster The author provides accounts of shipping disasters arising from a wide range of circumstances and involving many different types of ship. Those featured include the sinking of HMS Royal George in 1782 and the Empress of Ireland in 1914 and losses arising from fire on board, such as the Lakonia in 1963 and the Morro Castle in 1934. Other accounts cover Shackleton's Endurance and the loss of ships reportedly carrying treasure such as the Grosvenor in 1782, the Lutine in 1799, the Tobermory Galleon wrecked as part of the Spanish Armada fleet in 1588 and HMS Hampshire in 1916. The author also explores losses arising from significant mutinies at sea including those at Spithead and The Nore in 1797, the Kiel and Black Sea mutinies in 1918 and 1919 respectively and the Invergordon mutiny in 1931. Finally, the author considers losses arising from faulty design focusing on the stories of HMS Captain, HMS Victoria and the Navy K class of submarine. 1991 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61.085.3

Cracker hash; the story of an apprentice in sail. Autobiography by Royal Navy officer and Antarctic navigator Joseph Stenhouse, who is primarily known for his command of the SY Aurora while it drifted in sea ice during Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17. The book is almost entirely concerned with the earliest part of Stenhouse's career as a Merchant Officer apprentice on board sailing ships around the turn of the 20th century. Includes eight pages of black and white plates. 1955 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92STENHOUSE

A statistical account of the British settlements in Australasia, including the colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land Wentworth, W C 1824 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 325.51(944/946)

Naval eyewitnesses : the experience of war 1939-1945 /James Goulty. "Although many books have been written about naval actions during the Second World War - histories and memoirs in particular - few books have attempted to encompass the extraordinary variety of the experience of the war at sea. That is why James Goulty's vivid survey is of such value. Sailors in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy experienced a war fought on a massive scale, on every ocean of the world, in a diverse range of vessels, from battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines to merchant ships and fishing boats. Their recollections are as varied as the ships they served in, and they take the reader through the entire maritime war, as it was perceived at the time by those who had direct, personal knowledge of it. Throughout the book the emphasis is on the experience of individuals - their recruitment and training, their expectations and the reality they encountered on active service in many different offensive and defensive roles including convoy duty and coastal defence, amphibious operations, hunting U-boats and surface raiders, mine sweeping and manning landing and rescue craft. A particularly graphic section describes, in the words of the sailors themselves, what action against the enemy felt like and the impact of casualties - seamen who were wounded or killed on board or were lost when their ships sank. A fascinating inside view of the maritime warfare emerges which may be less heroic than the image created by some post-war accounts, but it gives readers today a much more realistic impression of the whole gamut of wartime life at sea."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545941

The price of victory : a naval history of Britain, 1814-1945 /N. A. M. Rodger. "At the end of the French and Napoleonic wars, British sea-power was at its apogee. But by 1840, as one contemporary commentator put it, the Admiralty was full of 'intellects becalmed in the smoke of Trafalgar'. How the Royal Navy reformed and reinvigorated itself in the course of the nineteenth century is just one thread in this magnificent book, which refuses to accept standard assumptions and analyses. All the great actions are here, from Navarino in 1827 (won by a daringly disobedient Admiral Codrington) to Jutland, D-Day, the Battle of the Atlantic and the battles in the Pacific in 1944/45 in concert with the US Navy. The development and strategic significance of submarine and navy air forces is superbly described, as are the rapid evolution of ships (from classic Nelsonic type, to hybrid steam/sail ships, then armour-clad and the fully armoured Dreadnoughts and beyond) and weapons. The social history of officers and men - and sometimes women - always a key part of the author's work, is not neglected. Rodger sets all this in the essential context of politics and geo-strategy. The character and importance of leading admirals - Beatty, Fisher, Cunningham - is assessed, together with the roles of other less famous but no less consequential figures. Based on a lifetime's learning, it is the culmination of one of the most significant British historical works in recent decades. Naval specialists will find much that is new here, and will be invigorated by the originality of Rodger's judgements; but everyone who is interested in the one of the central threads in British history will find it rewarding."-- 2024. • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt

War Beneath the Waves : Uboat Flotilla in Flanders 1915-1918 /Tomas Termote "For four years the German U-boats of U-Flottille Flandern would become a serious threat to the omnipotence of the Royal Navy and its fleet. By the end of the war they had managed to sink a total of 2,554 Allied ships, totalling 2.5 million tons of shipping. The Royal Navy put everything it had at its disposal to defeat the U-boats. Mines, steel nets, patrol craft, Q-ships, aircraft, airships, convoys, espionage and specially equipped salvage units had to eliminate the activities of the U-boat. As a consequence, these countermeasures caused the loss of 80% of the U-boats which were stationed in the Flemish ports.Underwater archaeologist and naval historian Tomas Termote visited the wrecks of many U-boats and has unraveled many of their secrets. He also writes about life on board the U-boats, their importance in the war and the heavy losses on both sides. For the first time a detailed insight in this unique part of history is given with an account of the fate of every U-boat of the fleet.Illustrated with underwater colour photographs of the wrecks, drawings of the sites and artefacts which helped identify unidentified sites,including that of UB-88, which ended up after the war in US waters where she was paraded in every big port on the US East coast, and sailed right up north along the West coast where it ended its life after being sunk off San Diego."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.827.3

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