The British Admirals of the Fleet, 1734–1995

The British Admirals of the Fleet, 1734–1995
Author: T. A. Heathcote
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2002-01-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473812704

A companion volume to the same author's "The British Field Marshals 1736–1997", this book outlines the lives of the 115 officers who held the rank of Admiral of the Fleet in the Royal Navy from 1734, when it took its modern form, to 1995, when the last one was appointed. Each entry gives details of the dates of the birth and death of its subjects, their careers ashore and afloat, their family backgrounds, and the ships, campaigns and combats in which they served. Each is placed clearly in its domestic or international political context. The actions recorded include major fleet battles under sail or steam, single-ship duels, encounters with pirates on the Spanish Main and up the rivers of Borneo, the suppression of the Slave Trade (for which the Navy receives little gratitude), landing parties to deal with local dictators and revolutionaries, and the services of naval brigades in China, Egypt and South Africa.

The British Navy's Victualling Board, 1793-1815

The British Navy's Victualling Board, 1793-1815
Author: Janet W. Macdonald
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843835533

An examination of the Royal Navy's Victualling Board, the body responsible for supplying the fleet. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy increased its manpower from fewer than 20,000 to more than 147,000 men, with a concomitant increase in the quantities of food and drink required to sustain them.The organisation responsible for this, the Victualling Board, performed its tasks using techniques and systems which it had developed over the previous 110 years. In terms of actually delivering supplies to warships, troopships and army garrisons abroad, the Victualling Board performed well given the constraints of long-distance communications and intermittent difficulties in obtaining supplies. However, its other areas of responsibility showed poor performance, as evidenced by the reports of several Parliamentary enquiries. This book examines in detail the processes by which the Victualling Board performed its core and non-core tasks, identifying the areas of competence and incompetence, and establishing the underlying causes of the incompetencies. JANET MACDONALD, author of the highly acclaimed Feeding Nelson's Navy (Chatham, 2004), has recently completed a thesis at King's College London. After a business career, and running an equestrian organisation, she spent ten years as a freelance writer, publishing more than thirty books.

The British Navy, Economy and Society in the Seven Years War

The British Navy, Economy and Society in the Seven Years War
Author: Christian Buchet
Publisher:
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 184383801X

An analysis of how Britain developed a superb supply system for the navy, with beneficial consequences both for victory in war and for Britain's economic development.

Religion in the British Navy 1815-1879

Religion in the British Navy 1815-1879
Author: Richard Blake
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1843838850

Shows how the rise of evangelical religion in the navy helped create a new kind of sailor, technologically trained and steeped in a higher set of values. 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 inthe 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 asdaring had a place. RICHARD BLAKE is the author of Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815 (Boydell 2008).

Physician to the Fleet

Physician to the Fleet
Author: Brian Vale
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1843836041

Details Thomas Trotter's important contributions, as a naval surgeon and after, to the eradication of scurvy and typhus, to the study of addiction, and to improved health and safety in mines. Thomas Trotter, after studying medicine at Edinburgh, began his naval career as a surgeon's mate in 1779 and saw continuous service up to the peace of 1802, rising as a result of great abilities and the right patronage to become Physician to the Channel Fleet, and being present at the great battles of Dogger Bank in 1781 and the Glorious First of June in 1794. As Physician to the Channel Fleet, he was a major player in the conquest of scurvy and the control of typhus and smallpox in the navy. After the peace he settled in Newcastle where he produced pioneering work on alcoholism and neurosis, as a result of which he is regarded as one of the founders of the field of addiction studies. This book provides an intimate account of naval life in the great age of sail from the perspective of a surgeon, describing the impact of Enlightenment ideas and new medical techniques, and showing how improved health was a crucial factor in making possible the British fleet's great victories in this period. BRIAN VALE is a maritime historian, whose books include Independence or Death: British sailors and Brazilian Independence (Tauris 1996), A Frigate of King George, Life and Duty on a British Man-of-War (Tauris 2001) and The Audacious Admiral Cochrane (Conway 2004). GRIFFITH EDWARDS, Emeritus Professor at King's College, London, is one of the country's leading experts on addiction. His publications include Alchohol: the Ambiguous Molecule (Penguin 2000) and Matters of Substance (Penguin 2005).

Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition

Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition
Author: Roger Morriss
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1997
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781570032530

How one British admiral changed the course of naval history Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition documents the long and varied career of Admiral Sir George Cockburn, who presided over much of the British Navy's transition from sail to steam while maintaining the interests and professionalism of the officer corps. Cockburn's life and times encompassed service under Admiral Horatio Nelson during the French Revolutionary War; diplomacy and combined operations during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 with the United States; and administrative, political, and technological changes during the first half of the nineteenth century. Cockburn emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the best-known British admiral, renowned for his part in the attack on Washington in 1814 and for escorting Napoleon to St. Helena. But his greatest impact was from 1818 to 1846 at the Admiralty Office, where he steered the British Navy through some of the most disruptive political and technological changes it has ever faced. Cockburn's attitude towards the development of more seaworthy sailing warships and his key role in the introduction of the screw propeller are also examined--inovations that coincided with the decline of flogging, impressment, and personal patronage in the management of the British Navy. Though Cockburn was often regarded as a reactionary, Roger Morriss reveals the liberalism that enlightened his policies in the Navy. By providing unique insight into a highly influential figure and into the many facets of admiralty administration, this book makes a valuable contribution to naval history.

The British Navy in the Mediterranean

The British Navy in the Mediterranean
Author: John D. Grainger
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783272317

A comprehensive overview of the activities of the British navy in the Mediterranean from the earliest times until the present.

The British Navy in Eastern Waters

The British Navy in Eastern Waters
Author: John D. Grainger
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2022
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 1783276770

Provides a comprehensive overview of the activities of the British navy in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the earliest times to the present. This book outlines the early voyages of the English East India Company, its building of its own naval forces and its conflicts with Indian states. It examines the opening up of the Pacific Ocean, the wars with the French in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the activities of the British navy in the later nineteenth century, both off the coasts of China and Japan, and also in the many other places to which the navy's very great power extended. It goes on to consider the wars of the twentieth century, Britain's withdrawal from east of Suez, and Britain's continuing relative decline. Throughout, the book provides accounts of battles and other actions, and relates the activities of the British navy to the wider political situation and to the activities of other European and Asian navies.