Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Material cultures, 1740-1920 : the meanings and pleasures of collecting /edited by John Potvin and Alla Myzelev. Interweaving considerations of identity and subjectivity, spatial contexts, materiality and meaning, this collection makes a significant contribution to debates around the status and interpretation of visual and material culture. 2009. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 379.824

The burning of the Sarah Sands / Roger Willoughby and Alan Coles "The fire aboard the troopship Sarah Sands was an epic story of gallantry that transfixed Victorian Britain. When the ship carrying men of the 54th Regiment to India in 1857 to help quell the Mutiny caught fire in the middle of the ocean with no means of summoning help, those aboard had to deal with the potential disaster themselves. Showing extraordinary courage and discipline, they put out the fire without loss of life and successfully nursed the damaged ship 800 miles to Mauritius. The authors not only tell the story of the fire and of the individuals involved - some heroic, some less so - in this well-illustrated book but have also compiled much medallic information. There is a roll of Indian Mutiny Medals to men aboard, a section on lifesaving awards for the incident, a detailed look at why no Victoria Cross was granted and a list of extant medals."--Provided by the publisher. 2018 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61.085.3SARAH SANDS

By steamer to the Essex coast / Andrew Gladwell. "Cruises by pleasure steamer along the Essex coast have been a popular day out since the Victorian age, and are still going strong today despite a plunge in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s and several tragic fires. For most Londoners, the tradition of going to the seaside was always by pleasure steamer. These steamers, with their happy names, colourful liveries and luxurious interiors, became a memorable annual tradition. Steamers such as the Royal Daffodil, Royal Sovereign, Queen of the Channel and Royal Eagle became part of everyday life. For many, there was simply no other way to visit the seaside! And when they arrived at Southend or Clacton, the day was a great ritual where people visited their best-loved attraction, sat in their favourite gardens and topped their day off with fish and chips and a Rossi ice cream. Then they ran along the pier for the journey home to London. From the start of paddle steamer services in the 1820s, through their great heyday in the 1930s and the collapse in passenger numbers following the Second World War to the nostalgic service now provided by Balmoral and Waverley, Andrew Gladwell explores this simple pleasure which brought so much joy."--Provided by the publisher. 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 629.123.3(426.7)

The pre-Dreadnought revolution : developing the bulwarks of sea power /Warren Berry. "The late nineteenth century saw an unparalleled revolution in warship development as the Victorian Navy found itself grappling with intense technical change to ensure its survival in the modern theatre. From the wooden battleships of the 1800s, naval architecture underwent great change to produce a very different form of capital ship, which would have a huge impact and change naval design forever. The pre-Dreadnought was constructed of steel, wholly driven by steam power and carried its rifled ordnance in armoured turrets operated by hydraulics. Electrics, mechanical computers, mines and torpedo weapons were also utilised to create an immensely powerful fighting ship the likes of which had never been seen before. This well-illustrated and fascinating history reveals the process involved in that most rapid development, which in such a short time totally altered the naval forces of Britain and ensured that the British Navy remained the most powerful in the world."--Provided by the publisher. 2013 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 629.12(42)"18"

A new history of yachting / Mike Bender "This book, by a leading expert in the field, is the first major history of yachting for over a quarter of a century. Setting developments within political, social and economic changes, the book tells the story of yachting from Elizabethan times to the present day: the first uses of yachts, by monarchs, especially Charles II; yacht clubs and yacht racing in the eighteenth century; the early years of the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes and an analysis of the America Cup challenges; the pioneering developments in Ireland and the exporting of yachting to the colonies and trading outposts of the Empire; the expansion of yachting in Victorian times; the Golden Age of Yachting in the years before the First World War, when it was the sport of the crowned heads of Europe; the invention of the dinghy and the keelboat classes and, after the Second World War, the massive numbers of home-built dinghies; the breaking of new boundaries by risk-taking single-handers from the mid-1960s; the expansion of leisure sailing that came in the 1980s with the use of moulded plastic yachts; and current trends and pressures within the sport. Well-referenced yet highly readable, this book will be of interest both to the scholar and the sailing enthusiast."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 797.14

Black victorians : black people in British art, 1800-1900 /edited by Jan Marsh. "Black Victorians brings together over 100 images depicting black figures, to reveal the diversity of representation within nineteenth-century visual culture and to foreground the 'forgotten' presence of people of African descent in Victorian British art. The range of images is broad, from pictures of soldiers and sailors in Britain's armed forces and men and women in genre scenes to portraits of entertainers and political refugees and studies of artists' models. Notable individuals featured include actor Ira Aldridge, Crimean heroine Mary Seacole, the Queen's god-daughter Sarah Bonetta Davies, composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass. In addition to the fine arts of painting, drawing and sculpture, the selection includes photography, popular illustration, caricature and ephemera, which provide a cultural context for the portraits and subject pictures, as well as presenting black figures as members of British society in everyday settings."--Provided by the publisher. 2005. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 7.035/.036"180/190"(41)

Walter Langley : from Birmingham to Newlyn /Roger Langley. "This is a revised and rewritten edition, with many new illustrations, of the study first published in 1997. It provides nique insights into the Newlyn art colony and the world of the Victorian professional artist. Langley was a pioneer of the remarkable colony of artists drawn to the south-west corner of Cornwall in the 1880s. Working mainly in watercolour, and a sympathetic and unsentimental recorder of the hard lives of the Newlyn fisherfolk, Langley made his name especially through a series of memorably dramatic watercolour and oil paintings. Included in this new edition are also examples of the artist's powerful charcoal drawings. As well as high drama, Langley was the chronicler of the simple, everyday scene in Cornwall, the Midlands, Brittany and Holland. Above all, he is a rival to Stanhope Forbes for the title 'father of the Newlyn colony', but unlike Forbes he did not leave a substantial body of writing or correspondence to advance such a claim. New to this edition are profiles of friends and colleagues from Birmingham who painted in Cornwall including Edwin Harris and William Wainwright."--Provided by the publisher. 2011. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 7LANGLEY

Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle and steamers of the River Dart / Richard Clammer and Alan Kittridge. "The Dartmouth built Kingswear Castle of 1924 is the last in a line of purpose built river Dart paddle steamers stretching back to the middle of the nineteenth-century. Her Cornish steam engines date from her predecessor namesake of 1904 and her design evolved from successive Victorian paddle steamers of the River Dart Steamboat Co. Ltd. Since 1967 the Kingswear Castle has been owned by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society, who also own the sea going Firth of Clyde paddle steamer Waverley. Following a move to the south east of England in 1970 the Kingswear Castle was restored to full passenger service on the rivers Medway and Thames in 1985, in which waters she plied successfully for nearly thirty years. In 2012 a long term charter was agreed with the Dartmouth Steam Railway & River Boat Company to operate the paddle steamer back in her 'home' waters of the river Dart and in the following March she once again entered service on the very river she was specifically designed to ply. This book tells the story of Kingswear Castle: her origins through successive paddle steamers on the river Dart; the history of her first owner - the River Dart Steamboat Co Ltd; her preservation and operation in the south east; and her triumphant return to the river Dart."--Provided by the publisher. 2013 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 629.123.21(423.5)

The beachman's coast Suffolk : coastal communities and their boats /Robert Simper. "This book is Robert?s fortieth and is a record of the men and the boats that worked off the open beaches of Suffolk. Aldeburgh, Southwold and Lowestoft were the main beach landings but there were sixteen places where boats were once worked off a beach. Most of the boats were used for fishing but in the nineteenth century, there were also yawls operated by the Beach Companies that were the fastest work-boats in the British Isles. The golden period for beachmen was in the mid-Victorian period and there was a mini boom in inshore fishing in the 1960-70s. In 1900 there had been many hundreds of boats working from Suffolk beaches and by 2015 there were just five. By this time wooden boats had given way to high-speed fibreglass boats."--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.618.2

The Arctic in the British imagination 1818-1914 "The Arctic and the accounts of its exploration and heroes fascinated people in Victorian Britain. But how was this distant region represented to them? Which stories had lasting appeal and which were soon forgotten? How were the indigenous people represented, and what difficulties confronted the artist, photographer and engraver in depicting the Arctic? How and why did the images and forms of representation change during the nineteenth century? As Robert David tells us in this fascinating book, Britain's imagined Arctic was created through a staggering variety of representations: from travel narratives to works of art and panoramas, from museum displays, tableaux vivants, and international exhibitions, to engravings in the illustrated press, as well as lectures organised by the geographical societies, school text books and adventure stories for children. There were also numerous cartoons, advertisements and board games, all of which fed the obsession. In this epic study of so many forms of representation over an extended time span, David has been able to reassess the whole nature of Arctic representation and how it changed in importance over time. Using this rich material in illuminating new ways, he argues that Arctic representations followed a different dynamic from those associated with more familiar locations of Empire, and so opens up a whole new area of study and discussion."--Provided by the publisher. 2000 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 001.9:910.4(98)"1818/1914"

Never to sail in her : Victoria & Albert III, Queen Victoria's last Royal Yacht /Mike Keulemans. "In the days when Britannia ruled the waves, arguably from the mid-18th Century, Britain had established a naval hegemony that was to remain unrivalled until the 1920s. As a result of the rich pickings afforded the academic or enthusiast, a significant proportion of the ships that had fought to achieve and represent the nation's maritime superiority are well recorded, indeed some of these vessels, perhaps most notably H.M.S. Victory,a re preserved to this day. By the mid 1800s, Heads of State of maritime, and quite a few not so maritime, nations would vie with each other to build bigger, faster and more opulent Royal or State Yachts. Perhaps because we did not feel the need, with a Royal Navy that was the envy of the world, Britain's dominance of the oceans saw our Royal Yachts somewhat less ostentatious than many others. They were reflective of the whims of the Monarchy and embodied British inventiveness and technology, evidencing the industrial progress of our small island nation that, towards the end of the Victorian era, was building over 60% of the world's ships. One important vessel which to date has largely avoided the chronicler's attention is the Royal Yacht VIctoria & Albert III. Here that omission is put to rights."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. txt

Darwin : for the love of science /edited by Andrew Kelly and Melanie Kelly. "Darwin: For the Love of Science brings together a collection of specially commissioned essays to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, one of the world's greatest scientists. Contributors include Brian Dolan on the fascinating connections between the Darwin and Wedgwood families, Marcus Waithe on Darwin as a travel writer, and Keith Ward and A C Grayling on whether a belief in Darwinism is compatible with a belief in God."--Provided by the publisher. 2009. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 910.4(100)"1831/1836"

A thousand years of Aberdeen / Alexander Keith. Keith, Alexander, 1972. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 914.125

The ships that came to Manchester : from the Mersey and Weaver sailing flat to the mighty container ship /Nick Robins. "The merchants of Manchester were concerned about the high tariffs charged at Liverpool Docks and the excessive rates for transhipment of goods to Manchester. They decided that the best thing for their trade was to bring seagoing ships up to Manchester. And this they did - via numerous enabling Bills and by grand-scale Victorian engineering. The Port of Manchester and its ship canal opened for business on 1 January 1894 with existing clients such as James Knott's Prince Line running to the Mediterranean, and Fisher Renwick to London. But it could not readily entice the Liverpool shipowners to use Manchester, and it faced a long struggle to break the indifference of Conference Lines to the new port. The First World War finally allayed any lingering worries over the inadequacies of Manchester and the Liverpool companies then arrived in abundance. Manchester had its own shipping companies, including Manchester Liners, H. Watson & Company, Sivewright Bacon, Manchester Steamship Company, Manchester Spanish Line and others. Business peaked at Manchester in the 1950s but rapidly declined through the 1970s as ships became too big to transit the canal. Between 1894 and 1982 ships of all kinds docked at Manchester from all over the world; this is the story of the ships that came to Manchester."--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61(427.2)

St Helena : A maritime history /Trevor Boult "In 1977, the remote British island of St Helena in the South Atlantic, host to Napoleon and Captain Bligh, and Boer War prisoner-of-war camp, was first served by a lifeline ship dedicated to the purpose. The Royal Mail Ship St Helena became affectionately known simply as the RMS. In 1990 she was replaced by the first purpose-built vessel for the service. This, the final St Helena, embodied romanticism from the era of passenger cargo-liners. At a time when fresh consideration was being given to provide the island with an airport - and the irrevocable changes it would bring - the author sailed on the RMS as part of the ship's company, to document the working life of this highly individual 'family' ship, and aspects of the island community which she served. Using his wonderful collection of colour photographs, Trevor Boult tells this fascinating story."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 969.92

Migrant City : a new history of London /Panikos Panayi. "London is now a global financial and multicultural hub in which over three hundred languages are spoken. But the history of London has always been a history of immigration. Panikos Panayi explores the rich and vibrant story of London - from its founding two millennia ago by Roman invaders, to Jewish and German immigrants in the Victorian period, to the Windrush generation invited from Caribbean countries in the twentieth century. Panayi shows how migration has been fundamental to London's economic, social, political and cultural development. Migrant City sheds light on the various ways in which newcomers have shaped London life, acting as cheap labour, contributing to the success of its financial sector, its curry houses, and its football clubs. London's economy has long been driven by migrants, from earlier continental financiers and more recent European Union citizens. Without immigration, fueled by globalization, Panayi argues, London would not have become the world city it is today."--Provided by publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 305.8009421

Civilisations : first contact : cult of progress /David Olusoga "In Civilisations, David Olusoga travels the world to piece together the shared histories that link nations. In Part One, First Contact, we discover what happened to art in the great Age of Discovery, when civilisations encountered each other for the first time. Although undoubtedly a period of conquest and destruction, it was also one of mutual curiosity, global trade and the exchange of ideas. In Part Two, The Cult of Progress, we see how the Industrial Revolution transformed the world, impacting every corner, and every civilisation, from the cotton mills of the Midlands through Napoleon's conquest of Egypt to the decimation of both Native American and Maori populations and the advent of photography in Paris in 1839. Incredible art - both looted and created - relays the key events and their outcomes throughout the world."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 909

Advocates of freedom : African American transatlantic abolitionism in the British Isles /Hannah-Rose Murray. "During the nineteenth century, scores of formerly enslaved individuals like Frederick Douglass traveled to England, Ireland, Scotland and even parts of rural Wales to educate the British public on slavery. By sharing their oratorical, visual and literary testimony to transatlantic audiences, African American women and men were soldiers in the fight for liberty, and as a result their journeys were inevitably and inescapably radical. Their politicized messages and appeals for freedom had severe consequences for former slaveholders, pro-slavery defenders, white racists and ignorant publics: the act of traversing the Atlantic itself highlighted not only their death-defying escapes from bondage but also their desire to speak out against slavery and white supremacy on foreign soil. They traveled thousands of miles, wrote hundreds of letters or narratives and lectured to millions of people, for hours on end. In doing so, they often pushed their bodies (and voices) to breaking point. In this book, I theorize that throughout their journeys to Britain, African Americans engaged in a uniquely British strategy I have termed adaptive resistance, which attempts to measure their success on the Victorian stage by examining their exploitation or relationship with abolitionist networks, print culture and performance"--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 326/.808996073041

Cruise ships : A design voyage /Bruce Peter. "There has never been a time in history when large passenger ships have been built in greater numbers than the present. Cruise ships are one of the defining phenomena of our time, associated as they are with leisure, entertainment, conspicuous consumption and the many facets of globalisation. 'Cruise Ships: A Design Voyage' tells the story of cruise ship design and the development of the cruise industry from the late-Victorian era until the present day. The earliest cruises were overseas adventures on small yacht-like ships to the Mediterranean or to Norway's west coast -- cruise destinations still very popular today. Subsequently, in the Edwardian era and between the two world wars, cruising developed from an activity for the wealthy into one increasingly accessible to the middle classes. By the 1960s, America had become the main cruise market -- to serve which the first purpose-built, mass-market Caribbean cruise ships were built. Since then, cruise ships have grown greatly in scale and facilities, transforming from exclusive means of relaxation for the prosperous into vast floating entertainment resorts, accommodating broad cross-sections of society. 'Cruise Ships: A Design Voyage' sets the design of cruise ships and their promotion within wider contexts of architecture, design and economy."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 629.123.3(100)"18/20"

Classic narrow boats / Malcolm Ranieri. "Today road and rail are the main movers of goods and raw materials. However, from the late eighteenth century up to the first part of the twentieth canals and navigable waterways were major parts of Britain's transport network. Nowadays, hardly any freight is carried, but enthusiasts have extensively restored canals, many from derelict condition, to be an important part of Britain's leisure industry; their well-being is promoted by the enthusiast Inland Waterways Association established in 1946, with the canals themselves being under the overall control of the British Waterways Board, now the Canal and River Trust. This superb large format book is illustrated with evocative images of restored working narrow boats in action, with some other water-borne craft seen on the canals of Great Britain, a few of these dating back to the early-1800s, but mostly from the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition, the infrastructure of the canals - the locks, cottages and aqueducts - is also shown, set against the background history of the canals and the companies that operated them. This book recreates a picture of a vanished way of life in Great Britain. Through its pages you can step back in time to an era when companies such as the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company, Fellows, Morton & Clayton, and Birmingham Canal Navigation - working on canals such as the Grand Union, Oxford, Trent & Mersey, Coventry and Birmingham - carried freight all over the country and facilitated the Industrial Revolution which made Victorian Britain the powerhouse of the world. In this collection of classic scenes, Malcolm Ranieri captures a unique, picturesque and much cherished part of Britain's industrial heritage.--Provided by the publisher. 2013 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.628(42)

Admiral Togo : Nelson of the East /Jonathan Clements. Togo Heihachiro (1848-1934) was born into a feudal Japan that had shut out foreign contact for 250 years. As a teenage samurai, he witnessed the destruction wrought upon his native land by British warships. As the legendary "Silent Admiral," he was at the forefront of innovations in warfare, pioneering the Japanese use of modern gunnery and wireless communication. Togo is best known as the "Nelson of the East" for his resounding victory over the tsar's navy in the Russo-Japanese War, but he also lived a remarkable life, studying at a British maritime college and witnessing the Sino-French War, the Hawaiian Revolution, and the Boxer Uprising. After his retirement, he was appointed to oversee the education of Emperor Hirohito. This new biography spans Japan's sudden, violent leap out of its self-imposed isolation and into the twentieth century. Delving beyond Togo's finest hour at the Battle of Tsushima, it portrays the life of a shy Japanese sailor in Victorian England; his reluctant celebrity in America; his role in forgotten wars over the short-lived Republics of Ezo and Formosa; and the accumulation of peacetime experience that forged a wartime hero. -- from Back Cover. 2010. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92TOGO

North pole : nature and culture /Michael Bravo. ''In North Pole, Michael Bravo explains how visions of the North Pole have been supremely important to the world's cultures and political leaders, from Alexander the Great to neo-Hindu nationalists. Tracing poles and polarity back to sacred ancient civilizations, this book explores how the idea of a North Pole has given rise to utopias, satires, fantasies, paradoxes and nationalist ideologies, from the Renaissance to the Third Reich. The Victorian conceit of the polar regions as a vast empty wilderness, and the preserve of white males battling against the elements, was far from the only polar vision. Michael Bravo shows an alternative set of pictures, of a habitable Arctic criss-crossed by densely connected networks of Inuit routes, rich and dense in cultural meanings. In Western and Eastern cultures, theories of a sacred North Pole abound. Visions of paradise and a lost Eden have mingled freely with the imperial visions of Europe and the United States. Forebodings of failure and catastrophe have been companions to tales of conquest and redemption. Michael Bravo shows that visions of a sacred or living pole can help humanity understand its twenty-first-century predicament, but only by understanding the pole's deeper history.''--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 304.209113

Franklin : tragic hero of polar navigation /Andrew Lambert. A study of Captain Sir John Franklin and the expedition he led in 1845 to find the North West Passage connecting the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans. Franklin, his crew and their ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, never returned - the cause of their loss a mystery. Several expeditions were launched to search for the ships in the years which followed and a number of relics discovered. Inuit evidence of the ships becoming icebound, the crew setting off on foot but succumbing to the cold and starvation and reports of cannibalism were given to the explorer John Rae in 1854. Rae's report to the Admiralty led to widespread revulsion in Victorian society, enraged Franklin's wife Jane and destroyed his own reputation. Lady Franklin's efforts to eulogise her husband and restore his reputation were supported by many leading Victorians and resulted in a number of further searches. The author re-examines Franklin's life, the background and context of the expedition and the available evidence. 2009. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92FRANKLIN

The ship asunder : a maritime history of Britain in eleven vessels /Tom Nancollas. "If Britain's seafaring history were embodied in a single ship, she might have a prehistoric prow, a mast plucked from a Victorian steamship, the hull of a modest fishing vessel, the propeller of an ocean liner and an anchor made of stone. We might call her Asunder, and, fantastical though she is, we could in fact find her today, scattered in fragments across the country's creeks and coastlines. In The Ship Asunder, Tom Nancollas goes in search of eleven relics that together tell the story of Britain at sea. From the swallowtail prow of a Bronze Age vessel to a stone ship moored at a Baroque quayside, each one illuminates a distinct phase of our adventures upon the waves, and each brings us close to the people, places and vessels that made a maritime nation. Weaving together stories of naval architects and shipwrights, fishermen and merchants, shipwrecks and superstition, pilgrimage, trade, slavery and war, The Ship Asunder surveys Britain's seafaring tradition in all its glory and tragedy, triumph and disaster, and asks how we might best memorialise it as it vanishes from our shores."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 387.20941

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