Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Orkney in wartime : Commemorating the battle of Jutland, the sinking of HMS Hampshire, the Churchill barriers and much more /Colin Nutt "Orkney was a major base for the Royal Navy in both World Wars. Published to tie in with the centenaries of the Battle of Jutland and the sinking of HMS Hampshire in 1916, the book provides an account of the principal naval events, locations and legacy of the two World Wars in and around Scapa Flow. Unusually for books in the Picturing Scotland series, but necessarily for this title, the book contains a mixture of black and white archive images alongside present-day colour pictures. It also has more text than usual in order to describe the crucial events and developments that are the subject of the book. Although published to coincide with the commemorations of the centenaries of the events mentioned above, the book is not a dated product and will continue to feed into the growing interest in Orkney's military past. The idea was suggested by Orkney people who understand this market."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.459:940.545.9(410.521)

Aircraft carriers : the illustrated history of the world's most important warships /Michael E. Haskew. "Soon after the Wright Brothers' historic flight in 1903, officials explored the airplane's military applications. The seaplane and the flying boat were conceived to combine air and naval operations, but their potential proved limited. Aircraft that could operate from the deck of a ship, however, offered tremendous possibilities. A few visionaries seized the opportunity, and by mid-century the aircraft carrier eclipsed the battleship as the preeminent weapon of naval warfare. Since the first successful launch of an airplane from the deck of a naval ship in 1910, "fighting flattops" have evolved into immense, nuclear-powered vessels--floating cities capable of launching dozens of aircraft performing a variety of missions, including attack, escort, antisubmarine patrol, and deterrence. This illustrated history covers that evolution, from the first tentative steps taken by naval aviators before World War I to the roles these massive ships have played in the War on Terror. While author Michael Haskew focuses on US Navy carriers, he also provides coverage of parallel and competing carrier developments overseas. In addition to explaining the technologies behind past and present carriers and their aircraft, Haskew reexamines major engagements involving carriers, especially the epic Pacific battles of World War II, as well as personalities who were central to carrier development and deployment and naval doctrine relating to carriers. Filled with carefully curated period photography and modern images showing aircraft carriers throughout the decades, Aircraft Carriers is a celebration of naval warfare's most important innovation."-- 2016. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.822.74

Jutland 1916 : the archaeology of a naval battlefield /Innes McCartney. "The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the First World War. For years the myriad factors contributing to the loss of many of the ships remained a mystery, subject only to speculation and theory. In this book, marine archaeologist and historian Dr. Innes McCartney reveals for the first time what became of the warships that vanished on the night of May 31, 1916, examining the circumstances behind the loss of each ship and reconciling what was known in 1916 to what the archaeology is revealing today. The knowledge of what was present was transformed in 2015 by a groundbreaking survey using the modern technology of multi-beam. This greatly assisted in unraveling the details behind several Jutland enigmas, not least the devastating explosions which claimed five major British warships, the details of the wrecks of the thirteen destroyers lost in the battle, and the German warships scuttled during the night phase. This is the first book to identify the locations of many of the wrecks, and-scandalously-how more than half of these sites have been illegally plundered for salvage, despite their status as war graves. An essential and revealing read for anyone interested in naval history and marine archaeology."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.456(489):930.26(204)

Japanese battleships : Fuso and Ise classes /Robert Brown. "The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. This volume covers the two related classes of Japanese 14 in.-gunned battleships, originally built during the First World War but subsequently totally reconstructed. They are famous for the towering forward superstructure, usually described as a pagoda bridge, that they featured when rebuilt. Ise and Hyuga underwent further reconstruction during the Second World War to emerge as a unique hybrid of battleship and aircraft carrier in a desperate attempt to compensate for fleet carriers sunk earlier in the war."--Provided by the publisher. 2016 • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.821.2(52)

This Orient Isle : Elizabethan England and the Islamic world /Jerry Brotton. "In 1570, when it became clear she would never be gathered into the Catholic fold, Elizabeth I was excommunicated by the Pope. On the principle that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend', this marked the beginning of an extraordinary English alignment with the Muslim powers who were fighting Catholic Spain in the Mediterranean, and of cultural, economic and political exchanges with the Islamic world of a depth not again experienced until the modern age. England signed treaties with the Ottoman Porte, received ambassadors from the kings of Morocco and shipped munitions to Marrakesh. By the late 1580s hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Elizabethan merchants, diplomats, sailors, artisans and privateers were plying their trade from Morocco to Persia."--Publisher's description. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 303.482420176709031

German battlecruisers / Steve Backer. "The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. This volume is devoted to the famous ships of Admiral Hipper's First Scouting Group. Slower but more robust than their British equivalents, German battlecruisers enjoyed a reputation for absorbing punishment, and although Lutzow was sunk at Jutland, Seydlitz and the rest of the Scouting Group survived heavy damage. This book concentrates on the seven completed ships but coverage extends to the 'proto-battlecruiser' Blucher and the ships building or designed by the end of the war."--Provided by the publisher. 2016 • FOLIO • 2 copies available. 623.821.3(43)

Mistress of Science The Story of the Remarkable Janet Taylor, Pioneer of Sea Navigation. /John S. Croucher A biography of Janet Taylor (1804-1870), born Jane Ann Ionn, a gifted mathematician, astronomer, instrument maker, author and teacher of navigation. Her father, a clergyman and teacher, maintained a large library and her intelligence and mathematical skills were quickly recognised resulting in a scholarship to attend the Royal School of Embroidering Females so that she could continue her study of mathematics, astronomy and navigation. She went on to establish that the earth is spheroidal rather than spherical meaning that longitude could be established with a greater degree of accuracy and navigational instruments could be calibrated accordingly. She published a number of works on astronomy and navigation, including Luni-Solar and Horary Tables in 1833 and An Epitome of Navigation, and Nautical Astronomy with Improved Lunar Tables in 1842. Both were well received and ran to several editions. Her two nautical academies were endorsed by the Admiralty, Trinity House and the East India Company. Janet Taylor was also a recognised instrument maker, creating and calibrating chronometers, compasses, sextants and binnacles and invented and patented a mariner's calculator in 1834. She died in poverty, largely estranged from her six surviving children, with no official recognition of her achievements. The author, John Croucher, is descended from her eldest brother. 2016 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92TAYLOR, JANET

Coastal patrol : Royal naval airship operations during the Great War 1914-1918 "In the summer of 1915, the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was engaged in an unexpected war at sea to prevent German submarines from disrupting the flow of vital supplies to Britain. It was a war that had to be won as by the spring of 1917, the U-boats were close to bringing the British war effort to the point of collapse. Airships of the RNAS played a vital part in this war at sea. Coastal Patrol: Royal Naval Airship Operations During the Great War 1914-1918 tells the story of the young men who ventured out in airships over the hostile coastal waters of the British Isles to hunt down German submarines and to attack them with the inadequate weapons at their disposal. The story is told by those who took part in this new form of warfare, through pieces written by them or from interviews with veterans. It covers the entire experience of being an airship pilot, from initial training, through numerous adventures while flying these unusual aircraft, to the final victory in 1918."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.743

Nemesis : the first iron warship and her world /Adrian Marshall. "The Nemesis was the first of a generation of iron-clad, steam-powered naval vessels that established British dominance in Asian waters in the nineteenth century. The world's first iron warship, the first vessel with truly watertight compartments, and the first iron vessel to round the Cape of Good Hope, Nemesis represented a staggering new level of military superiority over the oar-and-sail-powered forces of Britain's Asian rivals. Yet strangely her story has never been told to modern audiences, and her origins and actions have until now been shrouded in mystery. This lively narrative places her in the historical context of the last years of the East India Company, and in the history of steam power and of iron ships. It tells of her exploits and in the first Opium War, in pirate suppression upriver and naval actions across Asia, from Bombay to Burma the Yangtze River and beyond. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.82NEMESIS

Duel in the North Sea : HMS Ambuscade at Jutland /Pat Avery. "The most intensely contested and significant naval engagement of the First World War took place 100 years ago in the grey misty waters of the North Sea, near the coast of Denmark. The battle of Jutland, fought between the Royal Navy and the German Navy's High Sea Fleet, was the largest, and last, of the great battleship battles. The fierce exchanges between capital ships during the encounter has been well documented, less so the role played by the smaller destroyers, and the officers and ratings who manned them. Unseen eye witness material from those who experienced this historic battle is rare, but author Pat Avery has recently discovered the dairies of his grandfather, a telegraphist serving in the torpedo boat destroyer 'HMS Ambuscade', providing a compelling insight into events as they unfold. 'HMS Ambuscade' was at the very heart of the night fighting, which culminated in a brutal clash with the retreating German battles cruisers shortly before midnight on 31st May 1916."--Provided by the publisher. 2016 • BOOK • 1 copy available.

Battleships of the world : Struggle for naval supremacy /John Fidler "The battleships of the world's navies in the 1820s were descended directly in line from the Revenge of 1577: they were wooden-built, sail-powered and mounted guns on the broadside, firing solid shot. In the next half century, steel, steam and shells had wrought a transformation and by 1906, Dreadnought had ushered in a revolution in naval architecture. The naval race between Britain and Germany that followed, led to the clash of the navies at Jutland in 1916. Though this was indecisive, the German navy never again challenged the Grand Fleet of Britain during the war, and eventually the crews refused to put to sea again. Disarmament on a massive scale followed, but the battleship was still regarded as the arbiter of sea-power in the years between the wars. However, the advocates of air power were looking to the future, and when in 1940 biplane Swordfish torpedo bombers of the Fleet Air Arm sank three Italian battleships at their moorings in Taranto, the Japanese sensed their opportunity. Their attack on the American Pacific fleet base at Pearl Harbor sank eight battleships - but the American carriers were at sea, and escaped destruction. Given the distances involved, the Pacific war was necessarily a carrier war, and in the major actions of the Coral Sea, Midway, Leyte Gulf and the Philippine Sea, all the fighting was done by aircraft, with battleships reduced to a supporting role. Soon after the war ended, most were sent for scrap, and a naval tradition had come to an end. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.821.2"1820/1945"

Writing Arctic disaster : authorship and exploration /Adriana Craciun. "How did the Victorian fixation on the disastrous John Franklin expedition transform our understanding of the Northwest Passage and the Arctic? Today we still tend to see the Arctic and the Northwest Passage through nineteenth-century perspectives, which focused on the discoveries of individual explorers, their illustrated books, visual culture, imperial ambitions, and high-profile disasters. However, the farther back one looks, the more striking the differences appear in how Arctic exploration was envisioned. Writing Arctic Disaster uncovers a wide range of exploration cultures: from the manuscripts of secretive corporations like the Hudson's Bay Company, to the nationalist Admiralty and its innovative illustrated books, to the searches for and exhibits of disaster relics in the Victorian era. This innovative study reveals the dangerous afterlife of this Victorian conflation of exploration and disaster, in the geopolitical significance accruing around the 2014 discovery of Franklin's ship Erebus in the Northwest Passage."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.4(987)"17/20"

Fostering family history services : a guide for librarians, archivists, and volunteers /Rhonda L. Clark and Nicole Wedemeyer Miller. "Here is everything you need to promote your library as a center for genealogical study by leveraging your collection to help patrons conduct research on ancestors, document family stories, and archive family heirlooms. Discusses the reference environment and offers tips for strategic planning for local studies. Includes hints of how to assess, organize, discard, or donate family heirlooms. Offers suggestions for caring for family history archives, including physical enclosures, digital copies, and the importance of data backups. Features templates for partnership agreements with other organizations"-- 2016 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 929.5

Barrow built submarines / Edited by Lt. Cdr. Barrie Downer "This book forms a part of the NavyBooks series on warships built at the many shipyards around UK. However, it is also slightly different, while the expected technical details and specifications are included, as well as much interesting history of the employment and operations of the submarines pictured, and the men that served in them, every image is a painting and not a photograph. The book starts in 1900 when 'Vickers Sons and Maxim Ltd' of Barrow-In-Furness took the order to build the first submarine, a Holland Class, for the Royal Navy and concludes with a painting of HMS ASTUTE leaving Barrow for sea trials in 2010. It includes an index of every 'Barrow Built Boat' from 1901 to 2016. Not only is it a fine work of art, fit to grace any bookshelf or coffee table but it is also a very useful reference for anyone interested in the history of submarines and, indeed, the history of the Barrow in Furness shipyard."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.827(428.5)

In the wake : on Blackness and being /Christina Sharpe. "In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake." Activating multiple registers of "wake" - the path behind a ship, keeping watch with the dead, coming to consciousness - Sharpe illustrates how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and she delineates what survives despite such insistent violence and negation. Initiating and describing a theory and method of reading the metaphors and materiality of "the wake," "the ship," "the hold," and "the weather," Sharpe shows how the sign of the slave ship marks and haunts contemporary Black life in the diaspora and how the specter of the hold produces conditions of containment, regulation, and punishment, but also something in excess of them. In the weather, Sharpe situates anti-Blackness and white supremacy as the total climate that produces premature Black death as normative. Formulating the wake and "wake work" as sites of artistic production, resistance, consciousness, and possibility for living in diaspora, In the Wake offers a way forward." -- Publisher's description 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 308-054(73)

Jutland : the unfinished battle/Nicholas Jellicoe. "One hundred years after Jutland, the first and largest engagement of Dreadnoughts in the twentieth century, historians are still fighting this controversial and misunderstood battle. What was in fact a strategic victory stands out starkly against the background of bitter public disappointment in the Royal Navy and decades of divisive acrimony and very public infighting between the camps supporting the two most senior commanders, Jellicoe and Beatty. This book not only re-tells the story of the battle from both a British and German perspective based on the latest research, but it also helps clarify the context of Germany's inevitable naval clash. It then traces the bitter dispute that ensued in the years after the smoke of war had cleared - right up to his death in 1935, Admiral Jellicoe was embroiled in what became known as the 'Jutland Controversy'. Nick Jellicoe is uniquely placed to tell the story of Jutland. His naval connections are strong: his father, the second Earl served as First Lord of the Admiralty while his grandfather, Sir John Jellicoe commanded the Grand Fleet for the first two years on the war, from 1914 to 1916 - famously described by Churchill as being 'the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon'."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.456(489)

The material Atlantic : clothing, commerce, and colonization in the Atlantic World, 1650-1800 /Robert S. DuPlessis. "In this wide-ranging account, Robert DuPlessis examines globally sourced textiles that by dramatically altering consumer behavior helped create new economies and societies in the early modern world. This deeply researched history of cloth and clothing offers new insights into trade patterns, consumer demand, and sartorial cultures that emerged across the Atlantic world between the mid-seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries. As a result of commercial networks stretching across much of the planet, men and women across a wide spectrum of ethnicities, social standings, and occupations fashioned their garments from materials old and new, familiar and strange, and novel meaning came to be attached to different fabrics and modes of dress. The Material Atlantic illuminates crucial developments that characterized early modernity, from colonialism and slavery to economic innovation and new forms of social identity." --Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 382:677

Constable : a master draughtsman /[Dulwich Picture Gallery]. This catalogue was produced to accompany the exhibition 'Constable: a Master Draughtsman' which took place in 1994 at Dulwich Picture Gallery. It focuses on the drawings of John Constable rather than the paintings and oil sketches for which he is generally well known. The author of the introduction co-organised the 1976 and 1991 Constable exhibitions at the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain). The catalogue contains three essays by other scholars in the field: Anne Lyles of the Tate Gallery analyses and compares the drawings of Constable's contemporaries; Jane McAusland, conservator and restorer of art on paper, explores the paper and drawing materials available to artists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; and the artist Patrick Heron discusses his personal response to Constable's draughtsmanship. [1994]. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 7CONSTABLE

Black and British : a forgotten history/David Olusoga. "In Black and British, David Olusoga tells the richt and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean. It is a story that reaches back to Roman Britain, Elizabethan 'blackmoors' and the global slave-trading empire. Black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in both world war, while the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery. This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events that put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalized. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 305.896041

From cabin 'boys' to captains : 250 years of women at sea /Jo Stanley "Traditionally, a woman's place was never on stormy seas. But actually thousands of dancers, purserettes, doctors, stewardesses, captains and conductresses have taken to the waves on everything from floating palaces to battered windjammers. Their daring story is barely known, even by today's seawomen. From before the 1750s, women fancying an oceangoing life had either to disguise themselves as cabin 'boys' or acquire a co operative husband with a ship attached. Early pioneers faced superstition and discrimination in the briny 'monasteries'. Today women captain cruise ships as big as towns and work at the highest level in the global maritime industry. This comprehensive exploration looks at the Merchant Navy, comparing it to the Royal Navy in which Wrens only began sailing in 1991. Using interviews and sources never before published, Jo Stanley vividly reveals the incredible journey across time taken by these brave and lively women salts."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 2 copies available.

Ancient skies, ancient trees / Beth Moon ; with essays by Jana Grcevich and Clark Strand. "Photographer Beth Moon revisits the world's oldest trees in the darkest places on earth, using color photography to capture vibrant nighttime skies. Throughout much of the world, night skies are growing increasingly brighter, but the force that protects the remaining naturally dark sky, unpolluted by artificial light, is the same that saves its ancient trees - isolation. Staking out some of the world's last dark places, photographer Beth Moon uses a digital camera to reveal constellations, nebulae, and the Milky Way, in rich hues that are often too faint to be seen by the naked eye. As in her acclaimed first volume, Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time, these magnificent images encounter great arboreal specimens, including baobabs, olive trees, and redwoods, in such places as South Africa, England, and California. In her artist's statement, Beth Moon describes the experience of shooting at night in these remote places. An essay by Jana Grcevich, postdoctoral fellow of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, provides the perspective of a scientist racing to study the stars in a world growing increasingly brighter. Clark Strand, the author of Waking Up to the Dark: Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age, takes a different tack, illuminating the inherent spirituality of trees."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 582.16022/2

Treasures from the map room : A journey through the Bodleian collections /Debbie Hall. "This book explores the stories behind seventy-five extraordinary maps. It includes unique treasures such as the fourteenth-century Gough Map of Great Britain, exquisite portolan charts made in the fifteenth century, the Selden Map of China - the earliest example of Chinese merchant cartography - and an early world map from the medieval Islamic Book of Curiosities, together with more recent examples of fictional places drawn in the twentieth century, such as C.S. Lewis's own map of Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien's map of Middle Earth. As well as the works of famous mapmakers Mercator, Ortelius, Blaeu, Saxton and Speed, the book also includes lesser known but historically significant works: early maps of the Moon, of the transit of Venus, hand-drawn estate plans and early European maps of the New World. There are also some surprising examples: escape maps printed on silk and carried by pilots in the Second World War in case of capture on enemy territory; the first geological survey of the British Isles showing what lies beneath our feet; a sixteenth-century woven tapestry map of Worcestershire; a map plotting outbreaks of cholera and a jigsaw map of India from the 1850s. Behind each of these lies a story, of intrepid surveyors, ambitious navigators, chance finds or military victories. Drawing on the unique collection in the Bodleian Library, these stunning maps range from single cities to the solar system, span the thirteenth to the twenty-first century and cover most of the world."--Provided by the publisher. 2016 • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 528.9

Royal Navy officer's Jutland pocket-manual, 1916 / W.M. James ; introduction by Brian Lavery. "Published in the months leading up to the Battle of Jutland, W.M. James' New Battleship Organisations, was the ultimate guide to command and organization of every aspect of a modern First World War capital ship. The book provides a unique, and highly revealing, insight into life aboard ship, the mechanics of command, seamanship, the issuing of orders, and the broad expectations placed upon British naval officers. Specific sections are dedicated to the organization of watches, the division of work (from fellow officers right through the ship's company to the ratings), naval routine, parades, anchor and cable work, coaling and right down to the organization of chapel, on-board shops, cleaning and even the ship's barbers. A series of detailed tables, diagrams and humorous cartons accompany the lucid, period language of the First World War Senior Service and provide a further glimpse below-decks that will appeal to social and family historians, and anyone with a general or specialist interest in naval history. The book, re-published here by the Pool of London Press as The Royal Navy Officer's Jutland Pocket-Manual 1916, marks the centenary of the First World War's most famous, and deadly naval encounter." 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available.

Jutland : the naval staff appreciation /edited, annotated and introduced by William Schleihauf ; additional text by Stephen McLaughlin ; diagrams redrawn by John Jordan. "Jutland, the largest naval battle of the First World War, was the most controversial engagement in the Royal Navy's history. Falling well short of the total victory expected by the public, it rapidly sparked argument and ill-feeling within the Navy and disagreements among those in its most senior echelons, many of whom had been directly involved in the battle. The first attempt to produce even an objective record was delayed and heavily censored, but this was followed by a more ambitious scheme to write a no-holds-barred critique of the fleet's performance for use in training future officers at the Naval Staff College. This became the now infamous Naval Staff Appreciation, which was eventually deemed too damaging, its publication cancelled and all proof copies ordered destroyed. Mentioned in virtually every book on Jutland since, but unavailable to their authors, it has developed the almost legendary status of a book too explosive to publish. However, despite the orders, a few copies survived, and transcribed from one of them this long-hidden work is here revealed for the first time. Now everyone interested in Jutland can read it and judge for themselves, with an expert modern commentary and explanatory notes to put it in proper context."--Publisher description. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.456(489)

Explore our Collection