H.M.S. Dryad

The collection consists mainly of manuscripts relating to the education of naval officers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It includes a 'Plan of Learning' executed by a student at the Royal Academy, Portsmouth, in 1754; the order book of the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth containing Admiralty and internal orders, 1839 to 1855; the regulations of the College, 1869, also with officers' signatures; and papers including a report on the sanitary conditions in the College, 1889 to 1890. There are also five notebooks, 1763, ca .1770, 1812 and ca.1850, kept by naval officers under training, containing navigational notes and calculations; and a small volume containing in question-and-answer form the information required for the Master's examination for the Channel, 1780. Other volumes and documents include: the illustrated log of the Bombay, 1864 to 1865, Narcissus, 1865 to 1868, Beacon, 1868 to 1869, and Greyhound, 1869, kept by Midshipman G.E. Morrison (fl.1864-76); the record of the Bombay includes an account of the loss of the ship by fire. The journal of the Sylvia, 1876 to 1878, was kept by Sub-Lieutenant Edward Helby (fl.1869-1899) while the ship was surveying in the Korean archipelago and includes descriptions of the area. In addition there are some letters of Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) with reports on a device for taking soundings through a ship's hull, 1905 to 1908; and towing time tables for the sections of Mulberry harbours, 1944.

Administrative / biographical background
The naval school of navigation, H.M.S. Dryad, was founded in 1903. It was based at Portsmouth until 1941 when it moved to Southwick near Fareham in Hampshire. In 1974 it became the School of Maritime Operations, though retaining the name of Dryad. See B.B. Schofield,' The Story of H.M.S. Dryad' (Havant, Hampshire,1977).