Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

The history of the Reid family : from Scotland to New South Wales /Francis David Reid ; with contribution by Sharon Colleen Steinberg. "Arriving home late on a winter's night on 30 June 1858, Alexander Reid found his wife Smyth lying severely burnt and unconscious in the fire hearth with their baby son Alexander cradled in her arms. This is the story of Alexander Reid who emigrated from Scotland to New South Wales with his young bride Smyth Kydd in 1841. The narrative discusses his ancestry, journey to a new land and his life in Australia where Smyth met a tragic death and Alexander formed new relationships with Mary Ann McKenzie and Catherine Mary Rooney. The story evolves to relate the lives of Alexander's thirteen children, their partners and a diverse but limited selection of his grandchildren. Stories of descendants who served in the Boer War, the First World War and those that made the ultimate sacrifice in the Second World War are told."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt

Sources for the custody and location of Admiralty records, 1688 to the 19th century : the impact of past administrative practice on current access and use /Mike Bevan. "A history of the Admiralty records, 1688 to the 19th century, accounting for contextual information concerning location, custody and administrative function; and how these changed over this time line is the centre of this study. Its aims are to survey secondary literature and analyse primary material in the form of records held at TNA, NMM and with a special focus on the Deputy Keepers Reports, 1841-1869. Further to demonstrate from evidence how records how custody and location of records have changed; reflecting differences in arrangement. This is achieved through the use of both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data with the extensive use of catalogues and finding aids. From this study, main trends in past administrative practice reveal current access and use. The lists studied and modified using primary source TNA references are displayed then analysed in relation to the aims and objectives of the study. Although evidence is less readily available when compared to other public record departments, Admiralty record histories and practices are brought to life from the individual custodians of the records themselves: the record keepers."--p. 1. 2010. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 354.71"1688/18"

William Fairbairn: the experimental engineer : A study in mid 19th-century engineering /Richard Byrom "William Fairbairn (1789-1874) was one of the greatest of 19th-century engineers yet he is strangely overlooked. This is the first definitive biography for 140 years. It chronicles Fairbairn's role in the development, in the UK and abroad, of mills, waterwheels, steam engines, boilers, iron steamships, locomotives, iron bridges, cranes and elevators. It provides illustrations for many of today's current areas of debate, as it discusses the sources of Fairbairn's success, the extent of his influence and the reasons for the firm he founded failing within a year of his death. Fairbairn was the leading experimental research engineer of his time; and his Manchester works were an outstanding success, with his trainees producing five professors of engineering and two engineers knighted for their work. Fully researched and profusely illustrated, the book will appeal to all with an interest in engineering history: academics and non-academics alike. The author was introduced to William Fairbairn as an undergraduate in Manchester and went on to gain an MPhil and PhD in Fairbairn studies. He remains fascinated by this remarkable engineer."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92FAIRBAIRN

Astronomische Untersuchungen / von Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel. Bessel, F. W.-(Friedrich Wilhelm), 1841-1842. • RARE-BOOK • 4 copies available. 52:094

The art of a nation : three centuries of Irish painting /Jonathan Benington [and others] ; edited by William Laffan. An illustrated catalogue for an exhibition of Irish paintings from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries held at Pyms Gallery in London. The catalogue comprises 30 artists: Charles Collins (c. 1700-1744); Judith Lewis (1711-1781); Nathaniel Hone the Elder (1718-1784); Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1739-1806); George Mullins (active 1756-1775/6); Matthew William Peters (1741-1814); Joseph Wilson (active 1756-d. 1793); John Boyne (c. 1750-1810); George Chinnery (1774-1852); James Arthur O'Connor (1792-1841); William Henry Maguire (1806-1853), Irish School (1837); Nathaniel Hone (1831-1917); John Butler Yeats (1839-1922); Howard Helmick (1845-1907); Sarah Purser (1848-1943); Sir John Lavery (1856-1941); Mildred Anne Butler (1858-1914); William Henry Bartlett (1858-1914); Walter Frederick Osborne (1859-1903); Roderic O'Conor (1860-1940); Grace Henry (1868-1953); Jack B. Yeats (1871-1957); Paul Henry (1876-1958); Sir William Orpen (1878-1931); William John Leech (1881-1968); Mary Swanzy (1882-1978); Frederick Edward McWilliam (1909-1992); Colin Middleton (1910-1983); and William Scott (1913-1989). 2002. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 75(415)

Parameters of British naval power, 1650-1850 / edited by Michael Duffy. 1992. • BOOK • 3 copies available. 355.49"1650/1850"(42)

Correspondence of scientific men of the seventeenth century : including letters of Barrow, Flamsteed, Wallis, and Newton, printed from the originals in the collection of the Right Honourable the Earl of Macclesfield /Stephen Jordan Rigaud [ed.] 1965. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 5-051(044)"16"

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

Maritime empires : British imperial maritime trade in the nineteenth century /edited by David Killingray, Margarette Lincoln, and Nigel Rigby. 2004. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 910.4"18"

Captain Elliot and the founding of Hong Kong : pearl of the orient /Jon Bursey. "On 26 January 1841 the British took possession of the island of Hong Kong. The Convention of Chuanbi was immediately repudiated by both the British and Chinese governments and their respective negotiators recalled. For the British this was Captain Charles Elliot, whose actions in China became mired in controversy for years to come. Who was Captain Elliot, and how did he find himself at the center of this debate? This book traces Elliot's career from his early life through his years in the Royal Navy before focusing on his role in the First Anglo-Chinese War and the founding of what became the Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Elliot has been demonized by China and for the most part poorly regarded by historians. This book shows him to have been a man ahead of his time whose views on slavery, armed conflict, the role of women and racial equality often placed him at variance with contemporary attitudes. Twenty years after the return of Hong Kong to China, his legacy is still with us."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92ELLIOT:951.231.7

"The voyage of the F.H. Moore" and other 19th century whaling accounts / Samuel Grant Williams, J. Ross Browne, Capt. Charles H. Robbins, and Francis Allyn Olmsted ; edited by Greg Bailey. "In 1873, 21-year-old Sam Williams embarked on a whaling journey on the two-masted F.H. Moore--he steered one of the smaller boats and when in range threw the harpoon. During the 16-month voyage, he kept a personal log and later reworked it into this never-before-published manuscript, now supplemented by additional research and relevant excerpts of the official logbook of the ship. Complementing this are excerpts from three other accounts of whaling voyages: 'Incidents of a Whaling Voyage' by Francis Allyn Olmstead (1841), the oldest in this collection; 'Etchings of a Whaling Cruise' by J. Ross Browne (1846), an expose of the whaling industry; and 'The Gam: Being a Group of Whaling Stories' by Capt. Charles Henry Robbins (1899), a personal story of nearly an entire life at sea. The four accounts open the 19th century world of whaling to modern readers in a realistic and unromantic way and illuminate the current worldwide debate on whaling."-- 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 639.245.1(73)"18"

Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd (and associated companies), 1860-1993 : barges to battleships, colliers to cruise ships : a diary of events of Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. and the associated companies and the careers of some of the ships built in the yards /by Ian Rae. Rae, Ian 2024 • FOLIO • 2 copies available.

Granville Stapylton : Australia Felix 1836 : Second in command to Major Mitchell /Gregory C. Eccleston. "Granville Stapylton Australia Felix 1836 Second-in-command to Major Mitchell is based on the true journals of the pioneer land surveyor Granville Stapylton when he accompanied Major Thomas Mitchell on the famous 'Australia Felix' expedition in 1836, as his second-in-command. This expedition proceeded down the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers into far western New South Wales, before crossing into what is now Victoria and proceeded south past the Grampians to the coast at Portland, before returning via Mount Macedon to the settled areas near Gundagai. Their continuous survey traverse from Boree (near Molong) to Jugiong (near Gundagai), via south-west Victoria, was found to have a commendably small misclosure of 13/4 miles. Stapylton's journals clarify when and where several natural history discoveries were made, including that of the now extinct Pig-footed Bandicoot, the now extinct White-footed Rabbit-rat, and the first-ever sighting of an australite. Stapylton's journals also describe several first contacts with the indigenous people, the sometimes-fraught relationship between himself and Mitchell, and Stapylton's concern for the welfare of the young girl Ballandella, whom Mitchell took home to raise with his family: one of the first instances of the 'stolen generation'. Being of the aristocracy, Stapylton found it hard to fraternise with the convicts in the team, but by the end of the expedition he had warmed to them sufficiently to praise them for always treating Turandurey (the female in the party) with respect. The book later describes the attack on Stapylton's survey camp in far north-eastern New South Wales, inland from Mount Warning, in 1840, resulting in the murder of Stapylton and one of his men. The farcical criminal trial in Sydney in 1841 is described in detail, with the men adjudged guilty being brought back to the infant Brisbane Town to be publicly hanged from the vanes of the windmill. Also revealed is Mitchell's assuming responsibility for Stapylton's baby son, including his care and schooling until he was old enough to become employed."--Dust Jacket 2018. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 92STAPYLTON

British warship losses in the age of sail, 1649-1860 / David Hepper. "Life at sea in the age of sail was a hazardous pursuit, and there were many reasons for a ship being lost. A correspondent to the Nautical Magazine in 1841 detailed some fifty reasons and causes, from being short of crew, abandonment without sufficient cause, the poor condition of a ship, incorrectness of charts, poor dead-reckoning as well as less obvious reasons such as 'the presence of captains' wives and other women.' Navigational error, particularly before the chronometer allowed for the accurate calculation of longitude, was a common reason, while poor weather in the form of fog or gales was an obvious peril. So many ships suffered the melancholy fate of lonely disappearance ? overwhelmed by storm and sea, and witnessed by none. Collisions and fire feature regularly as does, of course, loss to the enemy. Each entry includes details of the ship, its name and type, tonnage and dimensions, origin and place of build, the circumstances of the loss, the date and a list of the main references used. All this material is presented here in a single and highly accessible volume, and represents a major milestone both in naval research and publishing; it offers too a fund of fascinating and compelling stories of maritime misadventure." 2023. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359.83

The hospital on the Island del Rey : the King's Island, Port of Mahon /Amics de l'Illa de l'Hospital Fundacion Hospital de la Isla del Rey. "This book is a selection of 21 short, extremely readable and interesting published texts, their authors all being connoisseurs of Menorca's 18C history. Each author tells his story about the most important naval hospital in the Mediterranean from a different perspective. Together with the history of the Isla del Rey, fascinating anecdotes are found throughout the book and readers will be entertained and suprised to learn how the island was bought and eventually paid for, of advanced medical expertise and of how the island was use by other nations. Lastly a photographic tribute to the Friends of Hospital Island whos the trials and triumphs of the restoration programme over the last six years."--Provided by the publisher. • BOOK • 1 copy available.

The India directory : or directions for sailing to and from the East Indies, China, Australia, and the interjacent ports of Africa and South America complied chiefly from original journals of the honourable company's ships, and from observations and remarks, resulting from the experience of twenty-one years in the navigation of those sea /by James Horsburgh Horsburgh, James 1841 • RARE-BOOK • 3 copies available. 527.83(264:267)

Tales from the Captain's Log : from Captain Cook to Charles Darwin, Blackbeard and Nelson - accounts of great events at sea from those who were there "For centuries, ships' commanders kept journals that recorded their missions. These included voyages of discovery to unknown lands, engagements in war and sea and general trade. Many of their logs, diaries and letters were lodged at The National Archives and give a vivid picture of the situations that they encountered. Entries range from Captain James Cook's notes of his discovery of the South Pacific and Australia, to logs of the great naval battles, such as Waterloo and Trafalgar. From the ships that attempted to stop piracy in the Caribbean, to the surgeons who recorded the health of the men they tended and naturalists who noted the exotic plants and animals they encountered, comes a fascinating picture of life at sea, richly illustrated with maps, drawings and facsimile documents found alongside the logs in the archives."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.4(100)

Britain's war against the slave trade : the operations of the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron, 1807-1867 /Anthony Sullivan. "Long before recorded history, men, women and children had been seized by conquering tribes and nations to be employed or traded as slaves. Greeks, Romans, Vikings and Arabs were among the earliest of many peoples involved in the slave trade, and across Africa the buying and selling of slaves was widespread. There was, at the time, nothing unusual in Britain's somewhat belated entry into the slave trade, transporting natives from Africa's west coast to the plantations of the New World. What was unusual was Britain's decision, in 1807, to ban the slave trade throughout the British Empire. Britain later persuaded other countries to follow suit, but this did not stop this lucrative business. So the Royal Navy went to war against the slavers, in due course establishing the West Africa Squadron which was based at Freetown in Sierra Leone. This force grew throughout the nineteenth century until a sixth of the Royal Navy's ships and marines was employed in the battle against the slave trade. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans. The slavers tried every tactic to evade the Royal Navy enforcers. Over the years that followed more than 1,500 naval personnel died of disease or were killed in action, in what was difficult and dangerous, and at times saddening, work. In Britain's War Against the Slave Trade, naval historian Anthony Sullivan reveals the story behind this little-known campaign by Britain to end the slave trade. Whereas Britain is usually, and justifiably, condemned for its earlier involvement in the slave trade, the truth is that in time the Royal Navy undertook a major and expensive operation to end what was, and is, an evil business."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.362

A map of England & Wales : divided into counties, parlimentary divisions, & dioceses ; shewing the principal roads, railways, rivers, & canals and the seats of the nobility and gentry ; with the distance of each town from the general post office of London /drawn by R. Creighton ; engraved by J. Dower. Creighton, R. 1841. • ATLAS-BOOK • 4 copies available. 912.43(42)

J.F. Encke's astronomische Abhandlungen : zusammengestellt aus den Jahrgèangen 1830 bis 1862 des Berliner astronomischen Jahrbuches nebst drei in diesen Jahrgèangen enthaltenen Abhandlungen /von Bessel, Olbers, und Bremicker. 1866. • RARE-BOOK • 3 copies available. 52"1830/1862":094

Russian California, 1806-1860 : a history in documents /compiled and edited by James R. Gibson and Alexei A. Istomin. "This two-volume book is a documentary history of Russia's 19th-century settlement in California. It contains 492 documents (letters, reports, travel descriptions, censuses, ethnographic and geographical information), mostly translated from the Russian for the first time, very fully annotated, and with an extensive historical introduction, maps, and illustrations, many in colour. This broad range of primary sources provides a comprehensive and detailed history of the Russian Empire's most distant and most exotic outpost, one whose liquidation in 1841 presaged St Petersburg's abandonment of all of Russian America in 1867. Russia from the sixteenth century onwards had steadily expanded eastwards in search of profitable resources. This expansion was rapid, eased not only by the absence of foreign opposition and disunity of the native peoples but also by Siberia's river network and the North Pacific's convenient causeway of the Aleutian chain leading to Alaska. It was paid for largely by the 'soft gold' of Siberian sables and Pacific sea otters. By the end of the 1700s, however, on the Northwest Coast of North America the Russians met increasing opposition from the indigenous people (Tlingits) and foreign rivals (American and English fur-trading vessels). This combination soon depleted the coast of sea otters, and at the same time the Russians were finding it ever more expensive to obtain supplies from Europe by overland transport across Siberia or round-the-world voyages, so under the aegis of the monopolistic Russian-American Company (1799) they leapfrogged southward to the frontera del norte of the Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. Here, in 1812, they founded Russian California (officially, Ross Counter) as a base for hunting the Californian sea otter, growing grain and rearing stock, and trading with the Spanish missions. Eventually the exclave comprised a fort (Ross), a port (Bodega), five farms, and a hunting and birding station on the Farallon Islands, as well as a shipyard, a tannery, and a brickworks. The successes and failures of these enterprises, the perils of navigation, experiments in agriculture, the personal, political and economic problems of the colony, and Russian engagement with the indigenous population all come to life in these pages."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 061.22HAKLUYT

Astronomical observations made at the Observatory of Cambridge Challis, James 1834-1890 • RARE-FOLIO • 17 copies available. 520.1

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