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The Victorian Navy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. I. Hamilton
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Type
Review Articles
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The Historical Journal , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1982 , pp. 471 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 The important works on the Victorian navy will be cited later, in the text or the notes. However, there are some exceptions. First, there are some valuable books that involve, but go far beyond the nineteenth century: Lloyd, C. C. and Coulter, J. L. S., Medicine and the navy, 1200–1900 (4 vols. Edinburgh and London, 1957–63);Google ScholarAlbion, R. G., Forests and sea power. The timber problem of the Royal Navy 1652–1862 (Harvard, 1926);Google Scholar and Roskill, S. W., The strategy of sea power: its development and application (London, 1962).Google Scholar Secondly, there are a number of works that deal closely with naval power and Victorian foreign policy. This is a topic which, though hardly exhausted, has been relatively well treated by historians, and is not dealt with in the present article. One could mention several books in this connexion, including Gough, Barry M., The Royal Navy and the northwest coast of North America 1810–1850: A study of British maritime ascendancy (Vancouver, 1971),Google Scholar and SirRichmond, Herbert, Statesman and sea power (Oxford, 1946).Google Scholar But the works that one must cite are by Graham, G. S., Empire of the North Atlantic. The maritime struggle for North America (Toronto, 1950),Google ScholarGreat Britain in the Indian Ocean. A study of maritime enterprise 1810–1850 (Oxford, 1967),Google Scholar and the recent The China station: war and diplomacy, 1830–1860 (Oxford, 1978). Professor Graham must take much of the credit for the relatively healthy state of research on nineteenth-century naval diplomacy.Google Scholar

2 It ought to be pointed out that this, Professor Marder's first considerable work, has not the extraordinary richness of source material of his later ones. Nor is it as incisively written: as the author says in the preface: ‘Not being a “naval expert”, my sole aim has been to give the facts, or, as a certain Talleyrand once said: “Je ne blame ni n’approuve: je raconte”.’ Fortunately, the later Marder is no longer Herr Issyvoo.

3 Note especially Bartlett, C. J., ‘The Mid-Victorian reappraisal of naval policy’, in Bourne, K. and Watt, D. C. (eds.), Studies in international history: essays presented to W. Norton Medlicotl (London, 1967), pp. 189–208;Google Scholar and Brian Tunstall, ‘Imperial defence, 1815–70’, chapter 22 of vol. 2 of The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Holland Rose, J, Newton, A. P., AND Benians, E. A. (eds.), (London, 1940).Google Scholar The interested reader can also consult the last two volumes of Laird Clowes, W., The Royal Navy. A history from the earliest times to the present (7 vols., London, 1897–1903), but the narrative is very uneven in coverage and, of course, based on little documentary evidence.Google Scholar

4 For a small example of how a naval tradition could be all the more potent because it was clearly based on a fiction, see Morgan, Charles's autobiographical novel The gunroom (London, 1919), p. 22, lines 8–12.Google Scholar

5 On Chamier see Van Der Voort, P. J., The pen and the quarterdeck: the life and works of Captain Frederick Chamier (Leiden, 1972).Google Scholar For Conrad see Allen, Jerry, The sea years of Joseph Conrad ‘London, 1967;,Google Scholar and especially Jack, Ian, Conrad in the nineteenth century (London, 1980).Google Scholar

6 Pool, Bernard, Navy Board contracts 1660–1832. Contract administration under the Navy Board (London, 1966);Google Scholar and there is a useful article by the same author, ‘Navy contracts after 1832’ in the Mariner's Mirror (henceforward M.M.), LIV (1968), 209–26.Google ScholarSainty, J. C., Admiralty officials, 1660–1870 (London, 1975).Google ScholarAshworth, William, ‘Economic aspects of late Victorian naval administration’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, xxii, 491–505.Google ScholarHenry Briggs, Sir John, Naval administrations 1827 to 1892. The experience 65 years (London, 1897).Google ScholarMurray, Sir Oswyn, ‘The Admiralty’, in ten parts, M.M. (1937–9) xxiii, 13–35, 129–47, 316–31 xxiv, 101–4, 204–25, 329–52, 458–78; xxv, 89-iii, 216–28, 328–38.Google Scholar There is also Lloyd, C. C., Mr Barrow of the Admiralty. A life of Sir John Barrow 1764–1848 (London, 1970), a biography of the man who was second (or permanent) secretary of the Admiralty almost without a break from 1806 to 1845. However, this book tells one very little about naval administration. It focuses mainly on naval exploration and, naturally, on Barrow the man.Google Scholar

7 There are a few printed memoirs from the lower deck. Two examples are Bechervaise, John, A farewell to my old shipmates and messmates; with some examples, and a few hints of advice (Portsea, 1847);Google Scholar and White, Walter, Recollections of a sailor's life in India, China, Japan, South America, Borneo, Sumatra, etc., National Maritime Museum, Maritime Monograph and Report no 3 (London, 1973).Google Scholar See also Baynham, Henry W. F., Before the mast (London, 1971).Google Scholar

8 [White, Sir William], ‘The progress of shipbuilding in England’, The Westminster Review, new series, LIX (1881), 1–28.Google Scholar

9 See ‘Admiral Ballard's memoirs: part one. Burney's and H.M.S. Britannia’, M.M., LXI (1975). 345–50.Google Scholar

10 Ballard, G. A., ‘British Battleships of 1870. The Warrior and Black Princ, M. M., xvi (1930), 168–70;Google Scholar and ‘Some observations on Professor Baxter's book on The introduction of the ironclad warship’, M.M., xix (1933), 404–16.Google Scholar It may be relevant to note that in an article left on his death, and published four years later, Ballard had left unaltered the following passage about the French and the Gloire: ‘…they utilized the half-completed hull of a large ship-of-the-line to extend the system of protection, without further delay, to an ocean-going model.’ ‘The Fighting Ship from 1860 to 1890’, M.M., xxxviii (1952), 24.Google Scholar

11 The references to the numerous articles by Ballard that have appeared in the MM. can be found in two index volumes, one-to volumes i-xxxv - compiled by R. C. Anderson (Cambridge, 1955), the other-to volumes XXXVI-LV, by Elizabeth Rolfe (London, 1974).

12 But see Gilbert, Arthur N., ‘Buggery and the British navy, 1700–1861’, Journal of Social History, x (1976), 72–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 See Trebilcock, Clive, The Vickers Brothers: armaments and enterprises, 1884–1914 (London, 1977).Google Scholar

14 MM., LXI (1975), 331–44; LXII (1976), 33–46, 121–8.

15 See Ranft, Bryan (ed.), Technical change and British naval policy, 1860–1939 (London, 1977). The centre of gravity of this volume lies overwhelmingly within the twentieth century.Google Scholar

16 This passage may be seen within the context of Huntingdon, Samuel P., The soldier and the state. The theory and politics of civil-military relations (Harvard, 1957), pp. 8–10. Essentially I am arguing that in regard to the British naval officer corps of the nineteenth century, expertise (in the sense Huntingdon uses the word) developed more than did responsibility or corporativeness.Google Scholar

17 G. A. Ballard, The black battle fleet, pp. 99–113.