The Narcissus diaries consist of two small Victorian notebooks sent to the Society by Brian Cadman. Originally thought to have been written by John Hall, believed in family tradition to have been a Crimean War naval captain, closer examination of handwriting, dates, and family records has shown this attribution to be incorrect. The diaries are now more convincingly linked to Thomas William Hall (1836–1915) of Welton, Northamptonshire, who went to sea as a young man before later working on the railways. Hall’s handwriting appears clearly in the later sections of the notebooks, while an inscription referring to “your old mess mate, John Cooper” suggests that authorship of the earlier entries may be shared between shipmates. The notebooks were certainly in Hall’s possession by the 1870s and read as personal working journals rather than official naval logs.
Covering the years 1860–1864, the diaries document the service of HMS Narcissus, a 51-gun steam frigate and flagship on the Cape of Good Hope Station. They trace the ship’s commissioning at Devonport, her outward voyage via Madeira, Tenerife, and Sierra Leone, and her arrival at Simon’s Bay, South Africa. The entries provide detailed, matter-of-fact accounts of daily routines, sail and steam handling, weather, accidents, and preparations for anti-slavery patrols. Their value lies in offering an unpolished lower-deck perspective on mid-Victorian naval life during a period of technological change and imperial policing at sea.
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