Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Advocates of freedom : African American transatlantic abolitionism in the British Isles /Hannah-Rose Murray. "During the nineteenth century, scores of formerly enslaved individuals like Frederick Douglass traveled to England, Ireland, Scotland and even parts of rural Wales to educate the British public on slavery. By sharing their oratorical, visual and literary testimony to transatlantic audiences, African American women and men were soldiers in the fight for liberty, and as a result their journeys were inevitably and inescapably radical. Their politicized messages and appeals for freedom had severe consequences for former slaveholders, pro-slavery defenders, white racists and ignorant publics: the act of traversing the Atlantic itself highlighted not only their death-defying escapes from bondage but also their desire to speak out against slavery and white supremacy on foreign soil. They traveled thousands of miles, wrote hundreds of letters or narratives and lectured to millions of people, for hours on end. In doing so, they often pushed their bodies (and voices) to breaking point. In this book, I theorize that throughout their journeys to Britain, African Americans engaged in a uniquely British strategy I have termed adaptive resistance, which attempts to measure their success on the Victorian stage by examining their exploitation or relationship with abolitionist networks, print culture and performance"--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 326/.808996073041

The Black Joke : the true story of one British ship's battle against the slave trade /A. E. Rooks. "Sailing after the spectacular fall of Napoleon in France, yet before the rise of Queen Victoria's England, the Black Joke was first used as a slaving vessel, and one with a lightning-fast reputation; only a lucky capture in 1827 allowed itto be repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots. Over the next five years, the Black Joke liberated more enslaved people than any other in Britain's West Africa Squadron. As Britain slowly attempted to snuff out the transatlantic slave trade by way of treaty and negotiation, enforcing these policies fell ships such as the Black Joke as they battled slavers, weather disasters, and interpersonal drama among captains and crew that reverberated across oceans. The Black Joke is a crucial and deeply compelling work of history, both as a reckoning with slavery and abolition and a lesson about the power of political will - or the lack thereof."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 326.8094109034

Nelson's Pathfinders : a forgotten story in the triumph of British sea power /Michael Barritt. "During the Napoleonic Wars, more than twice as many British warships were lost to shipwreck than in battle. The Royal Navy's fleets had to operate in unfamiliar seas and dangerous coastal waters, where navigational ignorance was as great a threat as enemy guns. If Britain was to win the war, navigational intelligence was vital. In this landmark account, Michael Barritt reveals how a cadre of specialist pathfinders led by Captain Thomas Hurd enabled Britain's Hydrographic Office to meet this need. Sounding the depths on the front line of conflict, alert for breaks in weather or onset of swell, these daring sailors gathered vital strategic data that would eventually secure the upper hand against Britain's adversaries. Following the pathfinders across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, Barritt shows how the honing of this skill set revolutionised the British way of war at sea - ultimately securing a lasting naval dominance." 2024 • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt

Ambitious for glory : the career of a Victorian naval officer /Philip Lionel Saumarez ; edited by James Saumarez. "Thomas Saumarez was in many ways a typical Victorian naval officer - self confident, proud and quick to take offence. In a period of relative peace, he was fortunate to achieve distinction through active service in the Argentine, the West African Station and the Second Chinese Opium War, reaching post rank at an early age but retiring shortly after this following discord with his superior officer. By good fortune he left his 'Private and Public Journal', and through this and other original correspondence his grandson and great-grandson have been able to piece together his service life to produce this book, consisting largely of direct transcription of Thomas's writing. This period was one of great change, with sail to steam and wood to iron, and the book provides an important record of the ships and actions during 'Pax Britannica'. Perhaps more importantly it also gives a fascinating insight into the mores and opinions of an officer of that age, who is revealingly frank in his judgement of those with whom he served." - Provided by the publisher 2010. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359.331092

Indentured labor, Caribbean sugar: Chinese and Indian migrants to the British West Indies, 1838-1918 /Walton Look Lai ; introduction by Sidney W. Mintz. " ... Offers the first comprehensive study of Asian immigration and the indenture system in the entire British West Indies -- with particular emphasis on the experiences of indentured laborers in the major receiving colonies of British Guiana, Trinidad, and Jamaica. Exploring living and working conditions as well as the makeup of immigrant communities and their cultures, Look Lai offers a "dialectical pluralist" model of Caribbean acculturation that contrasts with the more familiar "melting pot" or "pure pluralist" model."--Publisher's description. [1993] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.3/63

British Warships in the age of sail, 1714-1792 : design, construction, careers and fates /Rif Winfield. Winfield, Rif. 2007. • FOLIO • 3 copies available. 623.82(42)!"1714/1792

The diary of Abraham Ulrikab : text and context /translated by Hartmut Lutz and students from the University of Greifswald, Germany. "In August 1880, businessman Adrian Jakobsen convinced eight Inuit men, women, and children from Hebron and Nakvak, Labrador, to accompany him to Europe to be 'exhibited' in zoos and Volkerschauen (ethnographic shows). Abraham, Maria, Noggasak, Paingo, Sara, Terrianiak, Tobias, and Ulrike agreed, partly for the money and partly out of curiosity to see the wonders of Europe, which they had heard about from the Moravian missionaries. By January 1881, all eight had died in Europe of smallpox. The story is told from several different perspectives - sometimes sympathetic, sometimes voyeuristic, sometimes crass - Moravian letters and reports, a scholarly article, newspaper pieces, and even advertising. Portraits of the Inuit visitors and photos of the now abandoned Moravian mission in Hebron are also included. The core of the book is Abraham Ulrikab's own diary of the trip, translated for the first time into English. It is the earliest known Inuit autobiography ever written."-- 2005. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 305.897/120718209034

Wetherell of H.M.S. Hussar : the recollections of an ordinary seaman of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars /John Wetherell "A true account of the British Navy in the Napoleonic Wars. This is a book which will delight the many enthusiastic readers of accounts both true and fictional of the Royal Navy in the great days of sail - the days of Nelson and other great captains who fought the navy of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. This is the story of a very ordinary seamen - extraordinarily written by his own hand - who was pressed from the merchant trade into a fighting ship of the Royal Navy - HMS Hussar. Captained by a tyrant - even by the standards of the day - this is an account of hardship, cruel punishment, battle action before the mast and ultimately shipwreck. The crew of the Hussar are eventually taken as prisoners of war by the French and there follows a further harrowing account of endurance which only ends as the crew meet the advancing British Army in the South of France in the days leading to the abdication of the Emperor."--Provided by the publisher. 2008. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92WETHERELL

Britain's working coast in Victorian and Edwardian times / John Hannavy. "The coastline of Victorian and Edwardian Britain provided beauty, isolation, entertainment, and the venue for most people's holidays. But it was also a thriving centre of industry - shipbuilding and fishing, plus the numerous trades associated with dockyards, coastal transport and the leisure industry. This companion to the English Seaside in Victorian and Edwardian Times travels around Britain's coast - clockwise from London - looking at the industries that could be found in many of the cities and towns en route. Illustrated with an amazing collection of coloured postcards and other early photographs, the working coast of Britain is brought to life in all its bustling detail. From the naval dockyards of Chatham to the fishermen of Wick, the book opens a window onto a British coast which is now largely lost."--Back cover 2008 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.618.2(42)

Pastimes and pleasures in the time of Jane Austen / Sarah Jane Downing. "Just as the fashions of Jane Austen's era define it as a unique moment in history, so do the pleasures and pastimes. Each occasion and activity brought the pleasure of choosing a new outfit, and the choice on offer to young men and women was, at the time, unparalleled. Showcasing the styles and fashion of the period, Sarah Jane Downing touches on a variety of themes including pleasure destinations such as parks and zoos, cultural activities such as the theatre, romantic pastimes such as dances held in spectacular settings, and many more. We are familiar with many of the most popular places and activities from Jane Austen's novels, but this book will put them into broader historical context, complimenting them with an abundance of contemporary fashion plates and images."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.481209034

Daily life in colonial Africa / Toyin Falola. "Discover how European colonization across the many regions in Africa dramatically altered the continent and the daily lived experiences of its peoples. Daily Life in Colonial Africa explores nine facets of daily life in the European-colonized African continent, such as domestic, economic, political, and religious life. Examples of everyday people-farmers forced to switch to cash crops, people of faith melding native traditions and European Christian doctrine on beliefs about the afterlife, storytellers using allegory to discreetly challenge colonial rule-show how colonialization impacted every aspect of life for Africa's indigenous people, as well as how they adapted to new ways of life while maintaining their cultural roots. Alongside the main text, helpful additional resources such as a timeline of the colonization of Africa and a glossary of terms provide useful context for understanding what life in this period of history was truly like for the many different people and groups affected by Africa's colonization."-- 2024. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 960.3

Equiano's daughter : the life of and times of Joanna Vassa, daughter of Olaudah Equiano, Gustavus Vassa, the African /by Angelina Osborne. "The Life and Times of Joanna Vassa' is a remarkable achievement and adds another ripple in the trail to discover more about a great man and his legacy, in this year of the 200th anniversary since the act to abolish the transatlantic slave trade in Britain came into effect. This book honours the legacy of the relentless journey of an abolitionist and the journey to discover what happened to Joanna following his death on the 31st March 1797." 2007. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 305.805092

Imperial steam : modernity on the sea route to India, 1837-74 /Jonathan Stafford. "Marrying technological innovation with the workings of Britain's expanding Eastern empire, P&O's steamships provived a ready spectacle for the Victorian public imagination and a vantage point - both literal and literary - from which to view and encounter the imperial world. The steamship's modernity installed in its passengers not only a hubristic sense of identification with the British Empire, but also had significant corollaries for the perceptions of empire for those in the metropole. Imperial steam thus contributes to our understanding of the role of imperial networks in the production of the British imperial world view." 2023. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 387.2432094109034

Bonded histories : genealogies of labor servitude in colonial India /Gyan Prakash. "To the modern world, the notions that freedom is an innate condition of human beings and that money possesses the power to bind people appear as natural facts. Bonded Histories traces the historical processes by which these notions became established as dominant discourses in India during colonial rule and continued into post-colonial India. Gyan Prakash locates the formulation of these discourses in the history of bonded labour in southern Bihar. He focuses on the emergence and subsequent transformation of the relationship of reciprocal power and dependence between landlords and labourers. The author explores the way in which these transformations were connected with broader shifts in the political economy of this part of the subcontinent; with the changing structures of agricultural production, land tenure and revenue demand; with local social hierarchies and the ideology of castes; and with Hindu cosmologies, spirit cults and their articulation in ritual practices."-- 2002. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.363095412

A voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, towards the Antarctic polar circle, and round the world: but chiefly into the country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the year 1772, to 1776 : based on the English editions of 1785-6 published by Robinson, London /edited by Prof. V. S. Forbes. Translation from the Swedish revised by J. & I. Rudner Sparrman, Anders 1975-7 • BOOK • 2 copies available. 910.4(687)"1772/1776"

A Voyage towards the North Pole undertaken by his majesty's command 1773 Phipps, Constantine John 1774 • BOOK • 5 copies available. 094:910.4(98)"1773"

Recueil des pieces qui ont remportâe les prix de l'Acadâemie royale des sciences depuis leur fondation en M. DCC. XX. Tome huitiáeme qui contient une partie des piáeces de 1753, celles de 1756 & 1757, & le reste de celles de 1760 Acadâemie royale des sciences (France) 1771. • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 061.22

Captain James Cook and the search for Antarctica / James C. Hamilton. "Two hundred and fifty years ago Captain James Cook, during his extraordinary voyages of navigation and maritime exploration, searched for Antarctica - the Unknown Southern Continent. During parts of his three voyages in the southern Pacific and Southern Oceans, Cook narrowed the options' for the location of Antarctica. Over three summers, he completed a circumnavigation of portions of the Southern Continent, encountering impenetrable barriers of ice, and he suggested the continent existed, a frozen land not populated by a living soul. Yet his Antarctic voyages are perhaps the least studied of all his remarkable travels. That is why James Hamilton's gripping and scholarly study, which brings together the stories of Cook's Antarctic journeys into a single volume, is such an original and timely addition to the literature on Cook and eighteenth-century exploration. Using Cook's journals and the log books of officers who sailed with him, the book sets his Antarctic explorations within the context of his historic voyages. The main focus is on the Second Voyage (1772-1775), but brief episodes in the First Voyage (during 1769) and the Third Voyage (1776) are part of the story. Throughout the narrative Cook's exceptional seamanship and navigational skills, and that of his crew, are displayed during often-difficult passages in foul weather across uncharted and inhospitable seas. Captain James Cook and the Search for Antarctica offers the reader a fascinating insight into Cook the seaman and explorer, and it will be essential reading for anyone who has a particular interest the history of the Southern Continent."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.9167

A history of the Royal Navy : the Napoleonic Wars /Martin Robson. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars were the first truly global conflicts. The Royal Navy was a key player in the wars and the key enabler of British success - at the cessation of hostilities Britain emerged as the only power capable of sustained global hegemony based on maritime and naval strength. The most iconic battles of any era were fought at sea - from the Battle of the Nile in 1798 to Nelson's momentous victory at Trafalgar in October 1805. This book looks at the history of the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from a broad perspective, examining the strategy, operations and tactics of British seapower. While it delves into the details of Royal Navy operations such as battle, blockade, commerce protection and exploration, it also covers a myriad of other aspects often overlooked in narrative histories including the importance of naval logistics, transport, relations with the army and manning. An assessment of key naval figures and combined eyewitness accounts situate the reader firmly in Nelson's navy. Through an exploration of the relationship between the Navy, trade and empire, Martin Robson highlights the contribution the Royal Navy made to Britain's rise to global hegemony through the nineteenth century Pax Britannica. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.49"1793/1815"(42:44)

Nelson's officers and midshipmen / by Gregory Fremont-Barnes ; illustrated by Steve Noon. "Filled with the promise of adventure and glory, the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic era enticed hundreds of young men to enlist as officers in its bitter struggle against the French fleet. With some as young as nine, these boys were confronted with the harsh realities of warfare at sea: cramped conditions, ruthless storms and fierce combat. In spite of their youth, these sailors showed enormous courage and valour in the face of battle, their bravery immortalised in the literary works of Patrick O'Brian, C. S. Forester and Alexander Kent. Drawing from letters, poems and personal accounts, this book uncovers the remarkable story of those boys who fought aboard His Majesty's mighty ships-of-the-line to defend their kingdom against the French."--Provided by the publisher. 2009. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.124(42)"1793/1815"

Women, travel and identity : journeys by rail and sea, 1870-1940 /Emma Robinson-Tomsett. "The years between 1870 and 1940 are often considered a 'golden age' of travel: as larger and evermore sumptuous ships and trains were built, including the Orient Express, Blue Train, Lusitania and Normandie, journeying abroad became, and remains today, synonymous with chic, splendour and luxury. Utilising women's diaries and letters, art, advertising, fiction and etiquette guides, this book considers the journey's impact upon understandings of female identity, definitions of femininity, modernity, glamour, class, travel, tourism, leisure and sexual opportunity and threat during this period. It explores women's relationship with train and ship technology; cultural understandings of the journey; public expectations of women journeyers; how women journeyed in practice: their use of journey space, sociability with both Western and 'Other' non-Western journeyers, experience of love, sex and danger during the journey; and how women fashioned a journeyer identity which fused their existing domestic identities with new journey identities such as the journey chronicler. The journey is revealed to be an experience of sociability as much as mobility, dominated by ideas of respectability and reputation, class, power, vision and observation and home as well as the foreign and new."--Provided by the publisher. 2013. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.4(42)-055.2

Of penguins and polar bears : a history of cold water cruising /Christopher Wright. "We have been cruising and exploring polar waters since the nineteenth century, but very little has been written about them. Drawing on expert research, Of Penguins and Polar Bears seeks to rectify this, and looks at activity in both the Antarctic and Arctic waters the homes of the penguins and the polar bears to provide insight into how the passenger trades developed in these regions. With over a hundred stunning pictures, this is a must-have gazetteer for anyone thinking about cruising the Earth's 'last frontier'. From William Bradford's cruise to Greenland in a seal-hunting boat in 1869 to the newest builds of the twenty-first century, let Arctic expert Christopher Wright take you on a journey through lands less travelled."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.911

Coastal defences of the British Empire in the Revolutionary & Napoleonic eras / Daniel MacCannell. "Far more than an architecture book, Coastal Defences of the British Empire in the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras is a sweeping reinterpretation of the Martello towers, Grand Redoubts, Royal Military Canal and other new defence infrastructure. Lavishly illustrated with period maps, views, portraits, cartoons and newly commissioned colour photographs, it includes not only these structures' forerunners, and plans that were never executed, but also the grand strategy that informed them. At its best, this saw Britain's position as a vast land battle, with the deadly threat of the French-held Antwerp navy yards on its own 'left wing', and Lisbon as the enemy's 'weak left' to be 'turned'. The book also takes in the astonishingly inventive, bold and bloody small-boat wars that raged from the Baltic and Channel coast to Chesapeake Bay and Lake Ontario, and provides vivid pen-sketches of the now-obscure and sometimes deeply flawed strategic visionaries, engineers, inventors, and fighting men who held the line as - even after Trafalgar - the forces of an ever more powerful French empire circled like sharks. Along the way, it traces a fundamental change in the nature of war and society: from a ponderous game of fortresses and colonies played by rulers, to murderous 'foot by foot' defence of the whole territory of the nation by 'both sexes and every social type'."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.4509171241

New crusade : the Royal Navy and British navalism, 1884-1914 /Bradley Cesario. "The period between the mid-1880s and the First World War was the high point of the navalist movement - but the idea of 'navalism' took many forms, and meant different problems and different solutions to various groups within British society and the British government. New Crusade examines one form of the British navalist movement: directed navalism. As opposed to the broader cultural conception of British naval power, directed navalism consisted of a cooperative, symbiotic working relationship between three elite and self-selecting groups: serving naval officers (professionals), naval correspondents and editors working for national newspapers and periodicals (press), and members of Parliament who dealt with naval issues (politicians). Directed navalism meant agitation for a specific, achievable goal. It was the bedrock upon which the more popular and ultimately more successful cultural navalism of fleet reviews and music halls was built. Though directed navalism collapsed before the First World War, it was extraordinarily successful in its time, and it was a necessary precursor for the creation of a national discourse in which cultural navalism could thrive. Its rise and fall is the story of this book."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359.00941

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