Foreign Navies: General.

The earliest of the volumes relating to foreign navies are two copies in English of the ordinance of Louis XIV for his navy, 1689. There is also a receipt book of the Treasurer General of Galleys of the French Navy, 1715 to1717; a volume of 1780 listing the French navy, giving the officers, dimensions, construction details and comments on each vessel; a treatise on seamanship, in French, ca.1780, which concludes with lists of French and English ships; and the order book of Captain J M Girardias of the INFATIGABLE, 1803 to 1806, together with a bundle of loose orders received. The remaining four volumes contain cuttings, original photographs, plans, building specifications, details of armaments and equipment and copies of reports relating to foreign warships; they were very probably compiled at the Admiralty in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One deals with Italian warships, ca. 1880 to 1922; the second with French warships, ca.1880 to 1906; the third with cruisers and smaller ships of the French Navy, ca.1880 to 1906, the German navy, ca.1880 to 1926, and the Russian Navy, ca.1885 to 1907; and the fourth volume deals with non-European unarmoured ships and includes details of the United States Navy, ca.1883 to 1922, the Brazilian Navy, 1883 to 1910, the Argentine Navy, 1880 to 1913, the Japanese Navy, 1884 to 1922, the Chinese Navy, 1883 to 1914 and the navies of many powers.

Administrative / biographical background
Foreign Navies : general - volumes