This is the second volume edited for the Navy Records Society to deal with the post-1945 Royal Navy. It begins in June 1950 and the outbreak of the Korean War, an event which upset many previous planning assumptions and initiated a short-lived rearmament programme. It concludes with the publication of the 1957 Defence White Paper,… Read Abstract »
Samuel Bentham, Inspector General of Naval Works, 1796-1807, built successful ships, advocated non-recoil gunnery and introduced steam powered machinery into the dockyards. The facilities he created at Portsmouth remain as a memorial to his ambition. As a technologist and ideologue, he straddled the 18th and 19th centuries and helped to create the steam navy. Yet, in virtually… Read Abstract »
This is the first volume edited for the Navy Records Society to deal with the post-1945 Royal Navy. It begins in January 1944, the point at which serious thought started to be given to the size and shape of the postwar Fleet. It concludes with the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, an… Read Abstract »
This collection covers the period February 1862-March 1864, which constituted the final two years and one month that Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander Milne commanded the Royal Navy’s North America and West India Station. Its chief focus is upon Anglo-American relations in the midst of the American Civil War. Whilst the most high-profile cause of tension between… Read Abstract »
Admiral Duckworth was a captain when the Revolutionary War began in 1793. His papers in effect begin at that point, though he had served throughout the American war from which few documents remain; otherwise his papers are voluminous. He seems to have kept every letter he wrote or received. As a result there is a… Read Abstract »
In 1930 when the Papers on the Dutch War were approaching completion, Mr A.C. Dewar was asked by the Council of the Navy Records Society, to look through the Dutch transcripts with a view to the consideration of technical expressions and Dutch seventeenth century terms of maritime geography. The emendations are chiefly to be found… Read Abstract »
The Royal Canadian Navy expanded from a regular force of 3,000 men in 1939 to the world’s third largest navy by 1945. It played a significant part in the Atlantic and contributed substantially in other theatres. This was a sizeable achievement for a vast country with a small population, many of whom had never seen… Read Abstract »
The aim of this critical edition of Admiral Nelson’s letters to Lady Hamilton is to bring together the important letters of Nelson to Lady Hamilton that have only been published in parts over the last 200 years. Only by bringing the letters of Nelson to Lady Hamilton together is it possible to assess their relationship… Read Abstract »
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… Read Abstract »
This is the second of three volumes covering the transformation of the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War. As the subtitle of this volume ‘The Fleet Air Arm in Transition’ suggests, the years 1942-1943 marked a stepping stone between the small pre-war cadre operating from a small number of carriers to a naval… Read Abstract »
The contents of this, the eighth of the Navy Records Society’s Miscellany series, chronicles the activities and adventures of the Royal Navy, its officials, its officers and its men – both in British employment and out of it – over a period of some six hundred years. Ranging from the reign of Edward III to… Read Abstract »
The Mediterranean Fleet entered the 1930s looking back to the lessons of Jutland and the First World War but also seeking to incorporate new technologies, notably air power. Unfortunately in the depression years of the early 1930s there was a lack of funds to remedy deficiencies. The problem became critical during the Abyssinian crisis of… Read Abstract »
During the Spithead Mutiny of 1797, the crew of HMS Mars created their own court, tried one of their shipmates and sentenced him to ....
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This post presents the physical description of seaman John Teede’s tattoos as a rare and intimate glimpse into an eighteenth-century ....
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The two small Victorian notebooks that constitute the Narcissus diaries were sent to the Society by Brian Cadman. They started out ....
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In this period there are many documents relating to the requisition of merchant ships for service in royal fleets. This account from ....
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