Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Blind Bay hookers : the little ships of early Nelson, and colonial times /Fred Westrupp. "From 1841 to 1925, central New Zealand's Blind Bay (now Tasman Bay) was the hub of a 'mosquito fleet' plying local waters and beyond. The earliest of these seagoing little ships - some as small as 30 feet - were amiably known as hookers, and were often built on beaches using timber hewn from the bush. All were able to 'take the mud' to discharge and load on beaches and in estuaries. This fascinating 320 page paperback is the extensively revised and expanded edition of an earlier title by Fred Westrupp - an accomplished sailor, businessman and researcher. Westrupp has blended ten years of research with his own insights stemming from a childhood upbringing on the Nelson waterfront among his seagoing forebears and other surviving skippers of the traditional sail-trading fleet of the port. For the pioneer settlers of Nelson, Marlborough and the West Coast, struggling to cope in difficult terrain, these little ships were their lifeline."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 387.224

War of 1812 / Carl Benn. "The war of 1812-15 raged across the American frontier, Britain's Canadian colonies, the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the world's oceans. The conflict saw British, American, and Indigenous forces clash, and in the process, shape the future of North America. Respected historian Dr Carl Benn assesses the reasons why ythe United States took up arms, explores the fighting that followed, and considers the meaning of the war's outcomes. This new and thoroughly revised edition draws on scholarly advances that have occured since original publication in 2002, many of which have changed our perception of the conflict. Fully illustrated in colour with specially commissioned maps and over 50 new images, this book provides an accessible and concise overview of the War of 1812." -- 2024. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 973.52

A cultural history of the sea in the global age / edited by Franziska Torma. "Throughout history, how has the sea served as a site for cross-cultural exchange, trade and migration? As historians, how do the fields of naval history, maritime history and oceanic history intersect? The six volumes cover: 1. Antiquity (500 BCE - 800 CE); 2. Medieval Age (800 - 1450); 3. Renaissance (1450 - 1650); 4. Age of Enlightenment (1650 - 1800); 5. Age of Empire (1800 - 1920); 6 Global Age (1920 - 2000+)."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 209.7

A cultural history of the sea in the early modern age / edited by Steve Mentz. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt

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

Black Americans in Victorian Britain / Jeffrey Green. "Black Americans informed the Victorian British and Irish about slavery and repression in the United States. Villages, towns and cities from Dorchester to Cambridge, Belfast to Hull, Dumfries to Brighton, also learned of their ambitions and achievements. Numerous publications were sold everywhere, and lectures were crowded. The refugees settled in Britain. Some worked as domestic servants, others qualified as doctors, wrote books, taught in schools, laboured in factories and on ships. The youngsters went to school. This book documents refugees, settlers, and their families as well as pioneering entertainers in both minstrel shows and stage adaptions of the 1850s best-selling novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'. It offers new perspectives on both Victorian and Afro-America history."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.2

Sailing to freedom : maritime dimensions of the Underground Railroad /edited by Timothy D. Walker. "In 1858, Mary Millburn successfully made her escape from Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia aboard an express steamship. Millburn's maritime route to freedom was far from uncommon. By the mid-nineteenth century, an increasing number of enslaved people had fled northward along the Atlantic seaboard. While scholarship on the Underground Railroad has focused almost exclusively on overland escape routes from the antebellum South, this groundbreaking volume expands our understanding of how freedom was achieved by sea and what the journey looked like for many African Americans. With innovative scholarship and thorough research, Sailing to Freedom highlights little-known stories and describes the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, including the impact of African Americans' paid and unpaid waterfront labor. These ten essays reconsider and contextualize how escapes were managed along the East Coast, moving from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland to safe harbor in northern cities such as Philadelphia, New York, New Bedford, and Boston."-- 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 973.7/115

Religion in the British Navy 1815-1879 : piety and professionalism /Richard Blake. "This book examines how, as the nineteenth century progressed, religious piety, especially evangelical piety, was seen in the British navy less as eccentric and marginal and more as an essential ingredient of the character looked for in professional seamen. The book traces the complex interplay between formal religious observance, such as Sunday worship, and pockets of zealous piety, showing how evangelicalism gradually earned less grudging regard, until in the 1860s and 1870s it became a dominant source of values and a force for moral reform. Religion in the British Navy explains this shift, outlining how Arctic expeditions showed the need for dependability and character, how Health Returns revealed the full extent of sexual licence and demonstrated the urgency of moral reform, and how manning difficulties in the Russian War of 1854-1856 showed that a modern fleet required a new type of sailor, technologically trained and steeped in a higher set of values. The book also discusses how the navy, with its newly awakened religious sensibilities, played a major role in the expansion of Protestant missions globally, in exploration, convict transportation, the expansion of imperial frontiers, and worldwide maritime policing operations. Fervent piety had an effect in all these areas - religion had helped develop a new kind of manliness where piety as well as daring had a place."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.233.232"1815/1879"

Ate the dog yesterday : maritime casualties, calamities and catastrophes /by Graham Faiella. "The constant dangers that deep-sea sailing ships and sailors of the late 19th century and early 20th centuries faced were numerous and this book recounts the true-life dramas of their perils and misfortunes - the battles that they waged, and all too often lost - against the hazards of the sea. Life was tough for 19th century sailors in sail - shipboard work was hard and routinely dangerous. Crew members were frequently maimed or even killed by the sea, or by any number of dangers they faced while working their ships. It was the same for crews in all merchant sailing ships of that time: sailors bore the extraordinary hardships as nothing more nor less than their duty to obey their captains and drive their ships to a safe port to discharge or take on cargoes. Great disasters from around the world are featured including the Sir John Lawrence: loss of all crew and 730 pilgrims; the Oncle Joseph and the 'Damned Ship' Ortigia; the Princess Alice and Bywell Castle collision: tragedy on the Thames; the Camorta sunk in Bay of Bengal cyclone with 739 dead; the sinking of the Utopia at Gibraltar with over 500 lives lost; the Mohegan wrecked on the Manacles and the loss of the Stella in the Channel Islands when 112 people lost their lives. From remarkable voyages, mutinies, hoaxes, curiosities and disease, to Cape Horn passages, collisions and castaways, this book has a fund of amazing tales that will engross the reader."--Provided by the publisher. [2015]. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61.085.3"18/19"

Master and madman : the surprising rise and disastrous fall of the Hon Anthony Lockwood RN /by Peter Thomas & Nicholas Tracy. "Anthony Lockwood s story is at the heart of the Georgian Navy though the man himself has never taken centre stage in its history. His naval career described by himself as twenty five years incessant peregrination followed a somewhat erratic course but almost exactly spanned the period of the French wars and the War of 1812. Lockwood was commended for bravery in action against the French; was present at the Spithead Mutiny; shipwrecked and imprisoned in France; appointed master attendant of the naval yard at Bridgetown, Barbados, during the year the slave trade was abolished; and served as an hydrographer before beginning his three-year marine survey of Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy. Against the odds he managed to finesse a treasury appointment as Surveyor General of New Brunswick and became the right hand man of the Governor, General Smyth. Deeply ingrained in his character, however, was a democratic determination that was out of step with the authoritarian character of the Navy and the aristocratic one of New Brunswick. His expectation of social justice verged on madness, and when he finally succumbed to lunacy it was in the defence of democracy. The turbulence of the times inspired Lockwood to stage a one-man coup d etat which ended with him being jailed and shipped back to London to live out his days as a pensioner and mental patient. Truly a dramatic rise and a tragic fall." 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92LOCKWOOD

Address of the Right Honourable the Earl Rosse, &c. &c. &c., the President : read at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, on Wednesday, November 30, 1853. Rosse, William Parsons,-Earl of, 1853. • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. txt

Ancient and modern India / by W. Cooke Taylor ; revised and continued to the present time by P. J. MacKenna. Taylor, W. C. (William Cooke), 1800-1849. 1851. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 954

A history of the Arctic : nature, exploration and exploitation /John McCannon. McCannon, John, 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.4(98)".../20"

The East India Company at home, 1757-1857 / edited by Margot Finn and Kate Smith. "The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 explores how empire in Asia shaped British country houses, their interiors and the lives of their residents. It includes chapters from researchers based in a wide range of settings such as archives and libraries, museums, heritage organisations, the community of family historians and universities. It moves beyond conventional academic narratives and makes an important contribution to ongoing debates around how empire impacted Britain. The volume focuses on the propertied families of the East India Company at the height of Company rule. From the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the outbreak of the Indian Uprising in 1857, objects, people and wealth flowed to Britain from Asia. As men in Company service increasingly shifted their activities from trade to military expansion and political administration, a new population of civil servants, army officers, surveyors and surgeons journeyed to India to make their fortunes. These Company men and their families acquired wealth, tastes and identities in India, which travelled home with them to Britain. Their stories, the biographies of their Indian possessions and the narratives of the stately homes in Britain that came to house them, frame our explorations of imperial culture and its British legacies."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 747.0941

Escape from the French : a young Royal Navy midshipman's adventures during the napoleonic war /Edward Boys. "This is an essential first hand account of the war the Royal Navy fought against Napoleon Bonaparte's France. Truth is said to be often stranger than fiction and this tale of battle, capture and escape could have come directly from the pen of C. S Forrester or one of the other famous authors of life before the mast in the early nineteenth century. While sailing on the frigate Phoebe, Boys was present when she took two ships of the enemy fleet. Boys was subsequently put aboard one as prize-master. His elation was short lived as their little convoy was soon surprised by four French frigates and Boys and his scratch crew taken prisoner. Incarceration within a daunting fortress in France followed but still Boys and his companions planned and effected an audacious escape from their formidable prison that was but the prelude to a flight through enemy held territory in the hope of crossing the Channel to England and liberty."--Provided by the publisher. 2009. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92BOYS

The empire of necessity : slavery, freedom, and deception in the New World /Greg Grandin. One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, Captain Amasa Delano, a New England seal hunter, climbed aboard a distressed Spanish ship carrying scores of West Africans who appeared to be slaves. They weren't. Having earlier seized control of the vessel and slaughtered most of the crew, they were staging an elaborate ruse. When Delano, an idealistic, anti-slavery republican, finally realized the deception--that the men and women he thought were slaves were actually running the ship--he responded with explosive violence. Drawing on research on four continents, historian Greg Grandin explores the multiple forces that culminated in this extraordinary event--an event that inspired Herman Melville's masterpiece "Benito Cereno". Now historian Greg Grandin, with the gripping storytelling that was praised in Fordlandia, uses the dramatic happenings of that day to map a new transnational history of slavery in the Americas, capturing the clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was the New World in the early 1800s.--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 326.1

Imagining the Arctic : Heroism, spectacle and polar exploration /Huw Lewis-Jones. "Imagining the Arctic explores the culture and politics of polar exploration and the making of its heroes. Leading explorers, the celebrity figures of their day, went to great lengths to convince their contemporaries of the merits of polar voyages. Much of exploration was in fact theatre: a series of performances to capture public attention and persuade governments to finance ambitious proposals. The achievements of explorers were promoted, celebrated, and manipulated, whilst explorers themselves became the subject of huge attention. Huw Lewis-Jones draws upon recovered texts and striking images, many reproduced for the first time since the nineteenth century, to show how exploration was projected through a series of spectacular visuals, helping us to reconstruct the ways that heroes and the wilderness were imagined. Elegantly written and richly illustrated, Imagining the Arctic offers original insights into our understanding of exploration and its pull on the public imagination."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.4(98/99)

John Brett : Pre-Raphaelite landscape painter /Christiana Payne ; and Charles Brett. "Drawing on a wealth of unpublished sketchbooks, journals and writings, this essential guide to John Brett (1831-1902) investigates the painter who was seen as the leader of the Pre-Raphaelite landscape school. As well as the familiar early works, including 'The Val d'Aosta' and 'The Stonebreaker', it provides rich information on his later, less-known coastal and marine paintings. Brett's turbulent friendship with John Ruskin is discussed, as are his relations with his beloved sister Rosa, and his partner Mary, with whom he had seven children. His fervent interest in astronomy, his love of the sea, and his lifelong pursuit of wealth and recognition are all examined in this reassessment, which concludes with a catalogue raisonne of his works, prepared by his descendent Charles Brett"--Provided by the publisher. 2010. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 759.2

Frigate commander / by Tom Wareham. Based on the previously unpublished private journal of Admiral Sir Graham Moore (1764-1843), this work primarily focuses on Moore's career as a frigate commander beginning with his service in the Perseus, Dido and Adamant. Commanding first the Orestes and the sloop Bonetta in 1790, Moore was promoted to post captain in 1794 with command of the Syren, his first frigate command. His later commands included the larger frigates Melampus and Indefatigable which he commanded until 1805 when ill-health forced him to relinquish the command and ended Moore's career as a frigate commander. However, his naval career continued with commands of the Marlborough and Chatham. Moore was promoted first to the rank of rear admiral and commander-in-chief in the Baltic in 1812, and then in 1819 to vice admiral when he was given command of the Mediterranean station. Moore was promoted in 1837 to full admiral and commander-in-chief Plymouth, but his health continued to deteriorate and he died in 1843. 2004. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92MOORE, GRAHAM

Explore our Collection