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showing 208 library results for '1790'

A life of John Julius Angerstein, 1735-1823 : widening circles in finance, philanthropy and the arts in eighteenth century London /Anthony Twist. A biography of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823). Born in Russia, Angerstein moved to England under the patronage of merchant Andrew Thomson, said to be his father. Introduced to Lloyd's, Angerstein primarily worked in the marine insurance industry both as a broker and underwriter. He was member of the Committees of both Lloyd's and the Lloyd's Register of Shipping, serving as Chairman of Lloyd's between 1790-1796. Angerstein's family and business relationships connected him with several London merchant communities and as a Lloyd's broker and underwriter his growing wealth enabled him to amass a fine collection of paintings. On his death, many of these would be purchased to form the nucleus of the National Gallery's collection. The author notes that while there is no surviving comment by Angerstein on the question of slavery, Angerstein is likely to have insured ships in the West Indian slave trade and was a trustee for the creditors of two sugar estates in Grenada. Angerstein supported a number of charitable endeavours including The Patriotic Fund and with William Wilberforce was a member of the General Committe of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor. He was an early supporter of Jenner's vaccination against smallpox. Angerstein lived in Greenwich, leasing an estate from Sir Gregory Page on which he built Woodlands, his home. The book has a number of photographic plates of art works in his collection, of Angerstein and his family and his homes. There are detailed notes and a bibliography. 2006. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92ANGERSTEIN
Zero degrees : geographies of the Prime Meridian /Charles W.J. Withers. "Space and time on earth are regulated by the Prime Meridian, 0À, which is, by convention, based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. But the meridian's location in southeast London is not a simple legacy of Britain's imperial past. Before the nineteenth century, more than twenty-five different prime meridians were in use around the world, including Paris, Beijing, Greenwich, Washington, and the location traditional in Europe since Ptolemy, the Canary Islands. Charles Withers explains how the choice of Greenwich to mark 0À longitude solved complex problems of global measurement that had engaged geographers, astronomers, and mariners since ancient times. Withers guides readers through the navigation and astronomy associated with diverse meridians and explains the problems that these cartographic lines both solved and created. He shows that as science and commerce became more global and as railway and telegraph networks tied the world closer together, the multiplicity of prime meridians led to ever greater confusion in the coordination of time and the geographical division of space. After a series of international scientific meetings, notably the 1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC, Greenwich emerged as the most pragmatic choice for a global prime meridian, though not unanimously or without acrimony. Even after 1884, other prime meridians remained in use for decades. As Zero Degrees shows, geographies of the prime meridian are a testament to the power of maps, the challenges of accurate measurement on a global scale, and the role of scientific authority in creating the modern world."--Provided by publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 529.771
The social life of maps in America, 1750-1860 / Martin Brèuckner. "In the age of MapQuest and GPS, we take cartographic literacy for granted. We should not; the ability to find meaning in maps is the fruit of a long process of exposure and instruction. A "carto-coded" America - a nation in which maps are pervasive and meaningful - had to be created. The Social Life of Maps tracks American cartography's spectacular rise to its unprecedented cultural influence. Between 1750 and 1860, maps did more than communicate geographic information and political pretensions. They became affordable and intelligible to ordinary American men and women looking for their place in the world. School maps quickly entered classrooms, where they shaped reading and other cognitive exercises; giant maps drew attention in public spaces; miniature maps helped Americans chart personal experiences. In short, maps were uniquely social objects whose visual and material expressions affected commercial practices and graphic arts, theatrical performances and the communication of emotions. This lavishly illustrated study follows popular maps from their points of creation to shops and galleries, schoolrooms and coat pockets, parlors and bookbindings. Between the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, early Americans bonded with maps; Martin Bruckner's comprehensive history of quotidian cartographic encounters is the first to show us how."--Provided by the publisher. [2017] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 526.0973/09034
The Bounty and beyond : a textual and bibliographical investigation of William Bligh's journals of the first breadfruit expedition /John A. Fish. "Despite Bligh's Bounty journal being widely regarded as the most important of all of the primary documents related to the famous mutiny, the relationship between the official version of the journal (at The National Archives in London) and Bligh's private version (at the Mitchell Library in Sydney) has never been thoroughly investigated. That surprising omission has now been comprehensively rectified with the publication of The Bounty and beyond, a meticulous comparison of the two versions of the journal by John A. Fish. Numerous surprising and important differences are revealed, particularly those relating to food and drink, and Bligh's relationships with his officers and men. The comparison is preceded by a thorough historical and bibliographical investigation of Bligh's three first breadfruit expedition journals, that is, the journals of the Bounty, the Resource and the Vlydt. Also included is a comprehensive investigation and considered interpretation of Bligh's separate manuscript account of the mutiny and the voyage in the open boat. This large manuscript is the forerunner of Bligh's published Narrative of the Mutiny (1790). The significance of this manuscript, in Bligh's own hand and held by the Mitchell Library, has not, hitherto, been fully recognised. Based on extensive research (including several examinations of the primary sources) and a deep understanding of the relevant literature, this work will prove to be a landmark event in the history of Bligh/Bounty scholarship."--Provided by the publisher. 2023. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 996.18
Children at sea : lives shaped by the waves /Vyvyen Brendon. "Children at sea faced even more drastic separations from loved ones than those sent 'home' from India or those packed off to English boarding schools at the age of seven, the subjects of Vyvyen Brendon's previous books. Captured slaves, child migrants and transported convicts faced an ocean passage leading nearly always to life-long exile in distant lands. Boys apprenticed as merchant seamen, or enlisted as powder monkeys, or signed on as midshipmen, usually progressed to a nautical career fraught with danger and broken only by fleeting periods of home leave. Solitary among numbers, as Admiral Collingwood described himself, they could be not just physically at risk but psychologically adrift - at sea in more ways than one. Rather than abandoning seaborne children as they approached adulthood, therefore, Vyvyen follows whole lives shaped by the waves. She focusses on eight central characters: a slave captured in Africa, a convict girl transported to Australia, a Barnardo's lass sent as a migrant to Canada, a foundling brought up in Coram's Hospital who ran away to sea, and four youths from contrasting backgrounds despatched to serve as midshipmen. Their social origins as well as their maritime ventures are revealed through a rich variety of original source material discovered in scattered archives. These brine-encrusted lives are resurrected both for their intrinsic interest and because they speak for thousands of children, cast off alone to face storms and calms, excitement and monotony, fellowship and loneliness, kindness and abuse, sea-sickness and ozone breezes, loss and hope. This book recounts stories never before told, stories that might otherwise have sunk without trace like so much juvenile flotsam. They are sometimes inspiring, sometimes heart-rending and always compelling."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.45
Waves across the south : a new history of revolution and empire /Sujit Sivasundaram. "A bracingly fresh account of the origins of the British empire told from the waters of the global South. After revolutions in America and France, a wave of tumult coursed the globe from 1790 to 1850. In this major reassessment, Cambridge historian Sujit Sivasundaram, turns our understanding of this 'age of revolutions' inside out. He approaches the era not primarily from the perspective of European colonial forces, but from indigenous peoples in the Indian and Pacific Oceans as they faced empire, engaged in vibrant public debate and undertook a visionary enagement with modernity and revolutionary change. Waves Across the South brings together Sivasundaram;s work in far-flung archives across the world and the best new academic research. Too often, history is told from the northern hemisphere, with modernity, knowledge, selfhood and politics moving from the Euro-Atlantic to influence the rest of the word. Waves Across the South tells the story from the viewpoint of Aboriginal Australians and Parsis, Mauritians and Malays. It shows how people of colour asserted their place and their future as the British empire expanded, overtaking the French and Dutch to establish global supremacy. This is a new history that is fitting for our times. It charts how colonisation brought with it tragic limitations to liberty, humanity and equality in southern hemisphere communities. Waves Across the South insists, too, on the political significance of the physical environment: the Bay of Bengal and the Tasman Sea were the essential contexts for the crashing waves of revolution, empire and counter-revoltuion. Naval war, imperial rivalry and oceanic trade had their parts to play, but so did hope, false promise, rebellion, knowledge and the pursuit of modernity. A compulsive story full of cultural depth and range, this is a world history that speaks to the urgent concerns of today. Only when looking from the water can we fully understand where we are now."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 909/.09724
Unshackling America : how the War of 1812 truly ended the American Revolution /Willard Sterne Randall. "Unshackling America challenges the persistent fallacy that Americans fought two separate wars of independence. Williard Sterne Randall documents an unremitting fifty-year-long struggle for economic independence from Britain overlapping two armed conflicts linked by an unacknowledged global struggle. Throughout this perilous period, the struggle was all about free trade. Neither Jefferson nor any other Founding Father could divine that the Revolutionary Period of 1763 to 1783 had concluded only one part, the first phase of their ordeal. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 at the end of the Revolutionary War halted overt combat but had achieved only partial political autonomy from Britain. By not guaranteeing American economic independence and agency, Britain continued to deny American sovereignty. Randall details the fifty years and persistent attempts by the British to control American trade waters, but he also shows how, despite the outrageous restrictions, the United States asserted the doctrine of neutral rights and developed the world's second largest merchant fleet as it absorbed the French Caribbean trade. American ships carrying trade increased five-fold between 1790 and 1800, its tonnage nearly doubling again between 1800 and 1812, ultimately making the United States the world's largest independent maritime power"--Provided by publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 973.03
The Durham papers : selections from the papers of Admiral Sir Philip Charles Henderson Calderwood Durham, G.C.B. (1763-1845) /edited by Hilary L. Rubinstein "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 surrender to him at Trafalgar. A Scot distantly related to Lord Barham, Durham entered the Navy in 1777, serving initially on the American and West Indies stations. He was Kempenfelt's signal officer on HMS Victory during the second battle of Ushant in 1781 and on the Royal George. Making his reputation initially as the daring young master and commander of HMS Spitfire early in the French Revolutionary War, he became a crack frigate captain with a fortune in prize money, and commanded HMS Defiance at Trafalgar, where he was wounded. He ended his war service as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands. En voyage he artfully captured two brand-new French frigates which were subsequently taken into the service of Britain, and during his tenure he won the heartfelt gratitude of local merchants by ridding the surrounding seas of American privateers preying on British trading vessels. True to form, he clashed with the judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court on Antigua and with the general with whom he led a combined naval and military assault on Martinique and Guadeloupe following Napoleon's escape from Elba. He later served as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth having resigned his parliamentary seat to do so. Married first to the sister of the Earl of Elgin, of 'Marbles' fame, and secondly to a cousin of 'sea wolf' Lord Cochrane, he was well-known to George III, who as a result of Durham's amusing yet improbable anecdotes, dubbed any tall tale he heard 'a Durham'. This collection of his papers consists mainly of letters and despatches relating to his service in the Channel Fleet, the Mediterranean, and the Leeward Islands. Correspondence with his parents during 1789?1790 reflects his anxieties relating to employment and prospects for promotion when he was a young lieutenant with an illegitimate child to support. The collection, featuring items from and to him, comprises a fascinating and informative set of documents."--Provided by publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 061.22NRS
Historical development of the date line (1522- 2012) : first comprehensive survey in 2022 ; 500 years date line /by H.-D. Woreschk. "The book falls into two parts. In the first part, the historical framework conditions that led to the formation of the political-economic dateline are presented. The second part deals with the formation of this variant of the dateline itself - a process which, with the help of the latest chart material from the Hydrographic Department of the British Navy (Royal Navy), also takes into account recent developments in the southern and central Pacific. The question of changing the dateline is also pursued from a legal point of view, since it is precisely in this area that one encounters misconceptions in many places. Focal points: impact of imperialist colonialism on the ownership structure in the Pacific Ocean with Hawaii, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa; influence of the novel means of transport railway, Steamship and electric telegraph on the formation of the date line; Breakdown of the longitude unification (striving to reduce the zero meridians in the meridian-dependent sciences of nautics, cartography, geography, and astronomy) and its influence on the orbit of the date line (Conference of Venice (1881), Rome (1883), Washington (1884); World and Zone Time); Difficulties due to initial meridian diversity in the meridian-dependent sciences with the emphasis on navigation and railway timetable design; beginning of the exploration of Oceania (scientific expeditions of the 'Novara', 'Challenger', 'Gazelle', 'Tuscarora' and 'Egeria'; deep-sea sounding, laying of submarine, continental telegraph cables and a.); first coordinates of the hydrographic divisions of the 'Royal Navy' and the 'US Navy' to the date line that is being formed; Clarification of the question 'Who determines the path of the date line?' Clarification of the multi-layered term 'dateline'; Summary of the 500-year developmental period of today's dateline in the form of a collection of maps and sketches covering three centuries; Detailed representation of the most recent change of the line by Kiribati, Samoa and Tokelau Outlook at possible further changes in the course of the date line; excursions to clarify the developmental background of the emerging political-economic line of the date change; Original sources from 1790 to 2017 from various countries numerous sketches, illustrations and graphics"--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 2 copies available.
Steel's naval remembrancer : or, the gentleman's maritime chronology of the various transactions of the late war, from its commencement to the important period of signing the preliminary articles, on the 20th of January, 1783. Being An interesting Collection of Intelligence, absolutely necessary for making an accurate Investigation of the naval Resources and efficient Force of the late belligerent Powers. Comprised Under The Following Heads: 1. An accurate Statement of the marine Forces of England, France, Spain, and Holland, on the 20th of January, 1783; deducing thence a comparative View of the Navies of each Power, as opposed to Great-Britain. 2. The Disposition of the commissioned Ships of the British Navy, January 20, 1783, tabularly shewing the Admirals and Commodores on the different Stations, with the Number of Ships under their respective Commands. 3. A List of the Cabinet, Jan. 20, 1783. 4. Authentic Copies of the Provisional Articles and Definitive Treaty with America; the Preliminary Articles and Definitive Treaties with France and Spain; and the Preliminary Articles with Holland; including Copies of the Full Powers, Separate Articles, and other Instruments, signed by the belligerent and mediating Powers, or their Plenipotentiaries. 5. The British Ministry, at the different Periods of signing the Preliminary Articles and Definitive Treaties, &c. 6. A List of British Ships of War lost, taken, or destroyed, during the late War, by whom and where taken, &c. 7. A List of American, French, Spanish, and Dutch, Ships, taken or destroyed during the late War, by whom and where taken, &c. 8. A List of Admirals, Commodores, Post-Captains, Masters and Commanders, and Lieutenants commanding Cutters, &c. who have lost their Lives in the Service of Great-Britain during the late War, with the Dates of their Commissions, the Ships they commanded, and the Year and Manner of their Death. With many other subordinate Lists, Tables, &c. Steel, David, M.DCC.LXXXIV. [1784]. • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.49"1783":094