21 Jun 2010

Two years ago the Arts and Humanities Research Council started to fund two collaborative projects between the National Maritime Museum and Newcastle University, examining children's literature and the culture of exploration. I was the lucky recipient of one of these bursaries and, as a result, I've spent the last two years researching inter-war children's writing. Probably like many other researchers I've found that the shape of my project is now substantially different to the way I initially envisaged it. Working in the museum this year has substantially improved my ability to formulate original arguments simply because of the wealth of fascinating material that I've had access to. I've also been able to work with my supervisor, Nigel Rigby, Head of Research, and have been helped enormously by Quintin Colville, Curator of Naval History. At the moment I'm working particularly on how the Royal Navy was presented to children at the start of the 20th century. The museum's Caird library has been an invaluable source of rare books that were produced for children around this time. After spending only a short amount of time with this material it soon became clear that a very specific portrayal of the Navy was emerging; this was one that, in the main, advocated a strong Naval presence, the argument being that this was vital in order to maintain trade routes, to protect Britain's dominions and to continue Britain's heritage as a maritime nation. It also emphasised the idea of Service as an integral aspect of Britain's maritime heritage and looked back to Nelson for its inspiration. Image removed. Arnold White, Our Sure Shield the Navy (London: Macdonald and Evans, 1917), p. 79 Working out exactly why children were being told this has led me to look at some really interesting material. The museum holds a collection of Arnold White's papers, a propagandist, who was a prominent member of the Navy League. Through reading White's correspondence and looking at Navy League leaflets and publicity material (such as their famous maps, which appeared on many classroom walls) I've been trying to build a picture of how children's culture was employed for specific ideological purposes. The Imperial Maritime League's Junior Branch paper makes for equally fascinating reading. The museum archive holds a significant number of these, which offer a researcher a glimpse into the kind of imperial maritime community that children were encouraged to be part of. Letters from former members outline their progress through the Royal Naval colleges, or their adventures at sea and the League's Junior Library grows with donations from 'sea-minded' adults. Added to this I've been looking at a wonderful collection, from 1919, of children's letters to Admiral Beatty thanking him for his efforts in the war and describing the White Ensign they are contributing to buying for him. For anyone who remembers letter writing tasks in school, they make for wonderfully evocative reading - particularly when one boy tires of writing about the war and starts to ask Beatty if he's had any snow recently! So, at the minute I'm trying to tie all of this material together in order to demonstrate how writing about the Royal Navy for children, was part of a wider cultural desire to engage British people with the sea. I have a few weeks left in which to draft this part of my thesis and I'm still wrestling with the issue of how far the texts that I've been looking at function as propaganda? How far they reflect wider cultural values that the authors were unconsciously sharing with their readers? How far writing for children fuelled wider cultural representations of the Royal Navy, if at all. The answer to all of these questions is probably a combination of all of them. I'll share my findings again when I've written the chapter!