Museum blog

A slave plantation manager's letters home reveal attitudes towards enslavement and emancipation.

Here in the Caird Library and Archive we are often asked about Royal Naval records relating either to specific individuals, events or ships. Most of the surviving records generated by the Navy during its long history are held by the National Archives at Kew. One set of records we hold on deposit here at Greenwich however are logs written by Royal Naval Lieutenants during the period of 1673-1809.

JOD/332 is a log kept by Captain Stanley Algar while a Prisoner of War at the Milag Nord camp near Bremen. However, the diary is not all it seems, while I was expecting to read Stanley Algar’s story of his capture and the gruelling day to day life in the camp, what it contained was quite different.

Regular readers may be familiar with the Lloyd's Register Survey Reports; a collection of detailed surveys on ships' materials and construction, used by underwriters and others in the shipping industry for reliable information on these vessels. You may not be aware that this collection was on loan to the National Maritime Museum for some 50 years.

The Caird Library & Archive’s new display case highlights first-hand accounts of women’s experiences and contributions to the nineteenth-century Royal Navy

A letter from Admiral Lord Nelson to his lover Emma Hamilton written soon after the birth of their daughter sheds light on early attitudes to vaccination.

Discover the story behind one of the most detailed maps of the Moon ever created.