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The British Army is regularly ranked as the best training provider in the UK, with the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force also in the top ten. The Military train a lot of people, from the most basic infantry training to advanced skills and leadership courses. At the pinnacle of this is the Defence Academy, which provides world-class professional defence and security education for UK military, civil service and the defence industry and for allies and partners from across the world. This article is based on the Prince Philip Lecture 2024 delivered by Major General Rowell at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies at its Whitehall, London, headquarters on 10 July 2024. An abridged version of the first part of this paper appeared in Education Journal No. 568, 17 July 2024. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In shallow water off the coast of West Sussex in England lies the wreck of a French built, English warship, lost in 1706. The remains represent a hybrid of French construction and armament with English organisation and adaption. This paper brings the site's investigations up to date, discussing new records relating to the structure and internal layout of the main site, as well as the discovery of several new areas, rich in guns and other artefacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex systems are difficult to manage, operate and maintain. This is why we see teams of highly specialised engineers in industries such as aerospace, nuclear and subsurface. Condition based monitoring is also employed to maximise the efficiency of extensive maintenance programmes instead of using periodic maintenance. A level of automation is often required in such complex engineering platforms in order to effectively and safely manage them. Advances in Artificial Intelligence related technologies have offered greater levels of automation but this potentially pivots the weight of decision making away from the operator to the machine. Implementing AI or complex algorithms into a platform can mean that the Operators' control over the system is diminished or removed altogether. For example, in the Boeing 737 Air Max Disaster, AI had been added to a platform and removed the operators' control of the system. This meant that the operator could not then move outside the extremely reserved, algorithm defined, "envelope" of operation. This paper analyses the challenges of AI driven condition based monitoring where there is a potential to see similar consequences to those seen in control engineering. As the future of society becomes more about algorithm driven technology, it is prudent to ask, not only whether we should implement AI into complex systems, but how this can be achieved ethically and safely in order to reduce risk to life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worcester was the site of one of the earliest branches of the Navy League. It attracted the support of leading political figures in the area, as well as working- and lower-middle class members. It channelled imperialist enthusiasm in the locality and had access to local schoolchildren. Its efforts met with little opposition, though it encountered mockery in some quarters. The widespread acceptance of its message, however, did not mean that the branch was able to maintain the momentum of its early growth. Membership stagnated as rival patriotic leagues emerged that were better able to harness local sentiment. The branch's decision in 1906 to concentrate on schools did little to stem its decline, and an effort to revive it on the eve of the First World War was undermined by that conflict. Examining the Navy League in Worcester reveals how a section of the city's community promoted imperial patriotism and the limits of what they could achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the town of Lewes in Sussex commissioned a plaque to commemorate an ex-American destroyer adopted as a part of their Warship Week in the Autumn of 1942, an Admiralty representative stated that the ship symbolised the 'imperishable' and 'unbreakable' links existent between Britain and America. The local newspaper also reported, 'The people living in the country did not fully appreciate all that was meant by the term 'sea power' and that 'they existed today through the work of ships like HMS Lewes.' This article examines the symbolic role of the fifty destroyers transferred under the 1940 destroyers for bases deal, and argues that they became potent emblems of Anglo-American unity. It explores the rhetoric, propaganda, adoptions and naming practices which surrounded the transfer of the destroyers to argue that they were tangible symbols used to publicly navigate issues of British identity and naval power raised by the deal. By examining the ways in which the ships were renamed, repurposed and adopted by regional communities, this paper will demonstrate that the ships were predominantly valuable for their perceived promotion of the relationship between the two navies, governments and nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The defeat of the Chinese pirate Shap-ng-tsai (Zhang Kaiping) by forces from the British and Qing empires in the waters of Vietnam is one of the most impressive naval victories of the mid-nineteenth century. Despite the magnitude of the engagement, it has received limited and mostly one-sided analysis. Engaging with a wider array of sources, particularly those from Qing authorities, allows for a more holistic reconstruction of Shap-ng-tsai's defeat and an assessment of its significance. A comparison between accounts by British and Chinese officials reveals discrepancies reflecting the limits of each side's authority at sea and how they used their (mis)understanding of each other to justify killing thousands of pirates in the waters of a foreign state. Anglo-Qing cooperation against Shap-ng-tsai would provide a model for future anti-piracy expeditions and helped improve relations between Britain, China, and Vietnam in the mid-nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eighteenth-century naval ships were impressive infrastructures, but subjected to extraordinary strain. To assist with their "voyage repairs," the Royal Navy gradually established numerous overseas bases, displaying the power, reach, and ruthless logistical efficiency of the British state. This article, however, is concerned with what happened where no such bases (yet) existed, in parts of the world falling in between areas of direct British administration, control, or influence. The specific restrictions imposed by technology and infrastructures have been studied by historians interested in naval strategy, but they can also help to reframe national narratives of power or observe the transnational interactions surrounding access to knowledge and resources. This paper discusses the material, cultural, and diplomatic constraints that could appear when vessels, and especially "discovery ships," sailed in strange waters or sought technical assistance in allied ports. I argue that the "mortification" of some commanders at their vessels' unfitness for service was an important – and often neglected – element on the palette of emotions undergone by voyagers, capturing their strong sense of ultimate material powerlessness. Such frustration even became embedded in imperial cartography, as shown by the case study of Matthew Flinders. This perspective highlights the limits of naval technology, complicating imperialistic "success stories" and better reintegrating the navy into the history of maritime travel and transportation, from which it is often singled out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Royal Navy (RN) in the aftermath of the Falklands War of 1982, focussing on the long-standing disparity between commitments and resources in UK defence planning. Two central arguments are developed. First, it is argued that the 1981 defence review failed to address the disparity between UK commitments with resources. Second, despite victory in the Falklands War, the UK naval lobby failed to reverse the long-term decline in the size of the RN although, in the long-term, the 1982 war reinforced the case for enhancing RN maritime aviation capabilities. This article presents a case of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the RN seeking, and failing, to resolve an insoluble problem. This analysis of UK naval policy demonstrates that British defence planning remains torn between a maritime strategy and a continental commitment to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combatant memoirs are a valuable source for historians of conflict in general and of the Falklands War in particular, revealing experiences of war that would otherwise be beyond recovery. This chapter provides a previously unpublished memoir (written in 2006) of the Falklands War by Lieutenant Commander Michael Ambler (d. 2009), who served on the staff of Commodore Michael Clapp on hms Fearless. Included in the footnotes are entries from the diary kept by the author day by day during the course of the war. The memoir is introduced by Professor Helen Parr, who places the account in the broader context of autobiographical writings on the Falklands War and draws attention to its potential value as a primary source for historians of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the First World War, the law stated that only Anglican clergy could perform religious services aboard British warships; clergy of other denominations were, other than in exceptional circumstances, barred from undertaking this role. For a brief period at the start of the twentieth century an informal and unpublicized attempt was made to circumvent this requirement and provide Catholic sailors with access to their own priests at sea. The reasons for this policy, how it operated and why it ended are explored in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Captain Frederick Marryat is among the most noted writers of the nineteenth century. This article explains why he became a distinguished figure. Throughout his life, he was a Conservative traditionalist and warned against the dangers of revolution, especially the French Revolution. The article clarifies how he supported the monarchical system of Britain and refers to several of his works. He served in the Royal Navy for many years, during which he experienced wondrous adventures. After he was invalided from the service because of fracturing a blood vessel, he turned to writing. In his writing career, he was critical of some of the deficiencies of the Royal Navy. Using a historical approach, this article discusses how he expressed his criticism and what effects it had on society. Among his writings was a work which angered King William IV, leading to his decision to exclude Marryat from his knighthood list. After this, Marryat wrote two books censuring the King for the corruption in his government and for removing him from the knighthood list. After the death of the King, Queen Victoria ascended the throne. This was the start of a new phase of life for Marryat. This article discusses how Marryat endeavoured to change his status in relation to the Royal Family and how he called upon Queen Victoria to act as a judge regarding his conflict with the preceding monarch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the opening of the port of Tianjin 天津 in the 1860s, the Tianjin Customs Office was established in Zizhulin 紫竹林. Although its stated objective was the collection of customs duties, it also attached great importance to the investigation and monitoring of the hydrographic information of the lower reach of the Hai River 海河, as it was the basis for the safe navigation of vessels, which also affected the collection of tariffs and even the modern urban development of Tianjin. This article examines the channels through which Tianjin Customs collected and constructed hydrological knowledge of the lower reach of the Hai River between 1861 and 1899. It then investigates how, on the basis of this hydrographic knowledge, Tianjin Customs made use of and responded to two important facets related to the river. First, it describes how Tianjin Customs sought to establish navigation equipment and measures. Second, from the 1880s the silting and overflowing of the lower course of the Hai River had seriously affected trade and the people's livelihoods, causing Chinese and foreign officials, as well as merchant groups, to express concern. The article looks at the role Tianjin Customs played in the process of dredging and improving the watercourse. In sum, this article uses the above-mentioned hydrological issues to gain a better understanding of the significance of Customs in the late Qing dynasty and the role played by Western hydrological knowledge and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the extent to which socioeconomic background affects the chances of promotion to senior ranks within the Royal Navy and how the upwardly mobile often face a "class ceiling." The researchers collected quantitative data within the Royal Navy. The research found a disproportionate overrepresentation of officers from socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds, creating a homogenous upper echelon and self-selecting elite hierarchy. The authors argue for the systematic collection of socioeconomic background data and longitudinal analysis to focus efforts toward engendering the conditions for social mobility and the ability to quantitatively assess the impact of policy changes on future social mobility outcomes. The research contributes to understand contemporary social mobility issues and is the first quantitative analysis of Royal Navy officers' socioeconomic backgrounds. The research provides perspectives on which other Armed Forces (including the United States) that face diversity issues could reflect. The article repositions military issues in mainstream academic discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Submarines are pressing their way back to the top of the maritime agenda. To deal with the burgeoning submarine threat, the full spectrum approach to anti-submarine warfare has been developed. Its ten threads hope to defeat – as opposed to destroy – hostile submarines. This paper will explore the historical evidence surrounding the full spectrum approach. It will argue that the historical evidence for many of the threads is weak, but that when the fundamentals of submarine warfare are considered many of the lessons of WW1 and WW2 may still be relevant to today's practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, there was an outpouring of critical commentary. This took a variety of forms but centred around common themes of fraud and ruin. Three hundred years later, there is a renewed focus on the horrors of the slave trade. In addition, slaving companies needed the help of the Royal Navy and the navy used impressment. Forced labour was an essential part of the Bubble story but is often erased from it or merely mentioned in passing. Complaints by wealthy people about their losses have drowned out the voices of the enslaved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, Britain established a liaison officer with the Soviet Fleet in the Black Sea. Military cooperation between the western allies and the USSR is often regarded as minimal and unsuccessful, but this post demonstrated more positive cooperation. There were two crises when there were accusations of misbehaviour, and there were occasions when he was idle, but these were handled successfully in Whitehall. The post endured, and successive officers did a good job of operational liaison, as well as providing unique intelligence insights from a Soviet fighting front, right up until the end of the war in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the identities and mentalités of British sailors that took part in the 'scientific' voyages of the Royal Navy between 1764 and 1803. The 'scientific' voyages were a distinct type of late-eighteenth-century naval activity, and this article explores the ways in which the unique socio-cultural experiences of these voyages altered the identities and mentalités of British sailors. In the eighteenth century, sailors travelled almost everywhere in the known world, but not everywhere were their experiences, identities and mentalités the same. Therefore, although this article recognizes that a sailor's rank was a major cause of variation, by incorporating all members of the professional community on board a ship within its definition of 'sailors', it explores the intersection between general factors - such as rank or social background - and the specific circumstances and experiences of this type of voyage. Fundamentally, it contributes an additional layer of complexity to the current views of naval sailors as a more homogenous entity, by instead demonstrating how the identities and mentalités of a number of sailors, particularly their understandings of status, race, and class, were discernibly influenced, if somewhat temporarily, by their unique socio-cultural experiences of encounter during the 'scientific' voyages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is usually maintained that before 1914 the Royal Navy had abandoned interest in amphibious warfare. This article argues otherwise. It shows that prior to 1914 the Admiralty sought to reconfigure the Royal Marines as an organic maritime strike force. The idea was advanced by junior officers and taken up by the naval leadership, who appointed a high-level committee to elaborate the details. Significant steps had been taken before war broke out, thereby showing that modern British amphibious warfare doctrine pre-dates the ill-fated Gallipoli operation and needs to be understood in a broader context than is currently the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy had a peculiar problem: it had too many talented and ambitious officers, all competing for a limited number of command positions. Given this surplus, we might expect that contracting a major physical impairment would automatically disqualify an officer from consideration. Instead, losing a limb in battle became a mark of honor, one that a hero and his friends could use to increase his chances of winning the privilege of additional employment at sea. After the loss of a limb, at least twenty-six such officers reached the rank of Commander or higher through continued service. In addition to discussing the most famous of them all, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, this article offers information about the lives and careers of several his lesser-known fellow amputee officers. Their stories will be of interest to scholars and students of 18th and 19th-century social history, disability studies, gender studies, art history, and naval history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between the Customs and the Admiralty as agents of anti-smuggling prevention and policing in British coastal waters during the long-eighteenth century. This relationship was, at first glance, embedded in an ostensible rhetoric of co-operation. In reality, however, the various actors operated in stark competition to each other, occasioned by monetary rewards. It is argued here that such competition was seen as beneficial for the coastal duty by central administrators. Competition was the easiest means to keeping transaction costs – in the form of fraud, collusion, and negligence – low. The agenda of central departments was thus ultimately served best by encouraging rivalry over co-operation. This line of inquiry also serves to complicate typically simplistic representations of smuggling which see the efforts of state actors unanimously pitched against the smugglers. Various central institutions followed their own agenda in the anti-smuggling business, and it was the task of the Customs Board to reconcile such agendas into a coherent effort. The present case offers a suitable field to explore this complexity. It also speaks to wider concerns regarding the eighteenth-century state, such as the nature of inter-departmental rivalry and the role of contractual arrangements between private interests and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of so many temporary Admiralty offices in St James's Park during the First World War, despite the threat of enemy bombing, shows that British naval administrative efficiency then depended significantly on the close physical proximity of offices, albeit supplemented where necessary by additional liaison mechanisms. Subsequently, however, changing office practices, and advances in communications infrastructure and technology, made it possible for the administration to stretch itself very considerably. That was fortunate, since developments in warfare, including a great increase in the accuracy and weight of bombing attacks, demanded dispersion. By the Second World War, it can be argued there were four different Admiralties in the country, London, Bath, and Western Approaches and Rosyth Commands. They were not quite separate, however, but functionally linked with each other and with numerous other naval establishments, to the degree one could no longer identify Admiralty headquarters geographically; instead, it existed wherever there were officials and officers who carried out Admiralty functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article explores the significance of two British military expeditions deployed to the ancient Sudanese port city of Suakin on the Red Sea coast in 1884 and 1885. Although the British government claimed the expeditions were organized to support Egyptian forces in Sudan during the Mahdist revolt, the evidence suggests instead that the intervention was orchestrated as part of a wider effort to seize all Egyptian ports in the Red Sea to prevent them from falling into French hands. This move came as Britain began increasingly to rely on the imperial sea lanes to support its status as a global power in the late nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the period following the First World War, air power theorists argued a future war would be decided from the air. Bombing aircraft would fly with impunity over an enemy's territory and so disrupt the means of sustaining war and economy that popular revolt would force surrender on its government. Britain was at the forefront of developments in this area and the creation of the Royal Air Force, the world's first air force independent of either army or navy, stimulated demand for a similar unified air service in the United States. This debate was played out with particular drama in US public life, and transatlantic intellectual currents had an important bearing on the outcome. The campaign for a US Air Force on the British model was led by the flamboyant General William 'Billy' Mitchell of the US Army Air Service. In Britain, the RAF had absorbed the Royal Navy's air arm and the US Navy was determined to avoid a similar fate, creating a predictable and bitter struggle between the Navy, Mitchell and his followers. Mitchell was unsuccessful in his campaign, though later revered as the 'father' of the US Air Force, while the Navy retained control of its air arm but struggled to shake off its opponents' caricature of the organisation as resistant to innovation as represented by air power and obsessed with the retention of the outmoded battleship as the principal capital unit. We argue, by contrast, that the US Navy was an exemplary learning organisation closely interested in the development and application of technology, and mindful of the impact of technological innovation on doctrine. We argue that debates played out at the Naval War College, literally in the case of wargames, in the years of the Mitchell controversy laid the foundations for the success of US Naval aviation in World War Two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 1914 the Royal Navy entered the First World War without a clear sense of how it was going to undertake anti-submarine warfare (ASW). In part this was a technical issue; fundamentally the requirements of ASW were at the very edge of what was then possible. This article will, however, argue that the problem ran deeper, and stemmed from cultural assumptions about what the role of the Royal Navy was, and how it should seek to address the challenge posed by submarines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines sonic forms of protest aboard British naval ships between 1756 and 1815. During this period, naval seamen murmured, muttered, cheered, hissed and chattered as they congregated below and above deck. These sounds required constant interpretation on the part of officers, and a failure to do so correctly could have severe consequences. Maritime labourers, this article finds, well understood the potential ambiguity of shipboard soundscapes as well as the acousmatic potential of the ship as a built environment, which they used to their advantage through a careful manipulation of space and sound. I analyse the orchestration of the communal soundscapes which seamen created, and consider the specific shipboard spaces in which these sounds were made from and projected to. In placing these sounds in their spatial and social contexts, it is possible to glimpse an alternative order on British naval vessels, and to better understand cultures of sonic protest during the long eighteenth century. • Contributes to the history of maritime soundscapes. • Outlines the forms of sonic protest available to maritime labourers and analyses the ways in which these were orchestrated. • Calls for a greater focus on sonic methods of protest and dissent. • Draws on court martial records to analyse uses of space and sound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, strict British control over British Honduras was limited by Britain's reluctance to antagonise Spain, following the Treaty of Paris of 1763. In 1765, Admiral Sir William Burnaby of the Royal Navy provided the British government's eventual acknowledgement of the British Honduras settlers. Burnaby created a legal document, commonly referred to by British Hondurans as 'Burnaby's Code', based on the Regulations and Instructions of Royal Navy warships. This document codified prevailing legal customs of the British Hondurans with Royal Navy legalities, thereby stabilising the settlement by 1809. Using legal pluralistic theories to challenge the previous historiography of its ineffectiveness, this article argues that Burnaby's Code should be viewed as a crucial legal document in establishing the roots of British Honduran, and later Belizean, legal practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will examine the definition of 'Battleship Grey' and establish its origin earlier than current thinking. Battleship Grey is widely used as a generic descriptor for virtually any shade of grey, but a recent examination of the last two remaining warships from the First World War has provided a unique opportunity to precisely define this colour for the first time. Specifically, the analysis of two local phenomena: the dialogue between a group of naval officers discussing the efficacy of using grey paint as an effective camouflage colour and the materials analysis of the remaining historic paint layers on both vessels. These local developments challenge the existing historiography and demonstrate a need for naval concealment emerged long before our current perception of the origins of naval camouflage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the complexity of animal–human relationships on board ships, but we still know relatively little about crewmembers' responses to animals on board nineteenth-century British warships, especially on overseas voyages. The 1869–70 Flying Squadron voyage provides a useful case study. On board each of the squadron's six warships sailed dozens of officers, hundreds of sailors and a fluctuating number of live animals. This article focuses on the Flying Squadron diary of Midshipman Marcus McCausland, plus accounts and memoirs by fellow crewmembers, which discuss animals' shipboard role, but also reflect on naval personnel's relations with one another as well as civilians. The last section of the article considers McCausland's service and death while serving in anti-slavery patrols off East Africa as recorded in memoirs and official correspondence. These sources reveal McCausland as a complex, ambivalent figure, whose relationship with animals, women, naval authority, and, later, slavers and the enslaved in East Africa, speaks to larger tensions over masculine and naval authority, and naval memory, in the nineteenth-century global maritime world. As well, the sources reveal the continuing importance of human companionship and memorialisation in sustaining shipboard communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Admiralty and the Royal Navy made extensive use of the British fishing fleet in a variety of auxiliary roles during the First World War. On demobilisation the emphasis quickly switched to increasing the economic output of the British fishing industry and many of the wartime lessons were lost during the following decade. Throughout the interwar period the Admiralty struggled to frame a requirement for the contribution of the fishing fleet in during any future conflict. The contrary interests of minesweeping, anti-submarine warfare and fisheries protection were not reconciled with the result that the overall requirement was never fully visible. As the Second World War approached the Admiralty's planning was further hampered by a loss of corporate understanding of the fishing fleet's capabilities, a lack of technical intelligence (in the case of minesweeping) and by the effect of the British fishing crisis. This paper examines the Admiralty's attempts to establish a coherent policy for the employment of the fishing fleet in an auxiliary role during the interwar period and its results on the outbreak of the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing frequency of multinational operations has heightened the importance of interoperability. While human and cultural factors are only two pieces of the interoperability jigsaw they are of enduring significance. The cohesiveness of the relationship amongst the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Navy and the United States Navy during the 2003 Iraq War was underpinned by high levels of perceptive interoperability, which manifested itself in effective working relationships. That conflict demonstrated that while historical ties provided a foundation for cooperation, a number of multinational initiatives were undertaken to further enhance interoperability. This article addresses how such a high level of perceptive interoperability was achieved by examining the conduct of multinational exercises, the importance of personnel exchanges and the role of liaison officers, before considering the effect it had on the conduct of operations. The Iraq War demonstrated that cultural factors are at least as important as other facets of interoperability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese piracy presented numerous problems for the Qing and British empires in Chinese waters, but cooperation against pirates was rare before 1842. The colonization of Hong Kong and other treaty arrangements after the Opium War enabled the British to take more vigorous action against Chinese pirates. Although such actions impinged on China's maritime sovereignty and jurisdiction, Qing officials quickly recognized the efficacy of British naval forces in suppressing piracy. Hong Kong and Kowloon developed a system of cooperation for the suppression of piracy. This system was replicated elsewhere along the coast of Guangdong and beyond. By receiving captured pirates from the Royal Navy, Qing officials effectively used an important tool of British imperialism as a means of enforcing and extending their own authority. At the same time, cooperation became a means for the Qing to engage with emerging international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens when a naval vessel (in this case, HMS Belfast) is converted into a floating museum? This paper approaches this question with the concepts of assemblage and more‐than‐representational thought, in which the materialisation of the past is generative of a range of potentials that can shape encounters in the present. HMS Belfast is dedicated to conveying the specific history of the ship, as well as to providing a sense of what life on board was like for sailors. Long‐term (auto)ethnography of the ship was conducted in 2016–2017. Drawing from the mobilities paradigm and a nascent literature on the geography of ships, we focus on the spatial affects of orientation and disorientation that result from the interactions between the ship's materiality and the bodies of its visitors. The latter is part of the curators' desired experience, along with the re‐training of visitors' bodies to negotiate the material infrastructure of the ship, as many sailors reported disorientation on board. The former is deployed to heighten visitors' experience of the ship's extremes, such as depths of the boiler room. Our findings extend the cultural geographic literature on embodied experience of heritage and also provide an innovative case study of mobility on board an immobilised ship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initially conceived as a contribution to a conference which was to have been based in Caithness and was to have included a visit to Orkney, this paper examines the scientific and technological background to some of the wartime remains associated with the defence of Scapa Flow, the Royal Navy's principal fleet anchorage in home waters in World Wars I and II. Summarising the surviving evidence of selected aspects of vessel-related, marine and aerial science and engineering around Scapa Flow, it is prefaced by a short account of Tom Rolt's own wartime career, and concludes with a comparative appreciation of his place in the pantheon of literary engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joseph Banks has been considered an unproblematic agent of imperial science; a figure unique for his ability and willingness to direct British expeditionary exploration and the collection of natural history. Borrowing from claims, first made in 1784, that Banks's influence and power might better be described as a form of 'despotism', this article instead contends that Banks consciously subverted the expansive system of imperial collecting then favoured by the British state. I argue that the contemporary collection of ethnographic specimens, officially sought by and beyond the Royal Society since the voyages of James Cook, suffered particularly at the hands of Banksian indifference and botanical enthusiasm. Using as a case study the early nineteenth-century Australian surveying voyages of the Lady Nelson, I call to attention an overlooked cast of sailors, smugglers, and politicians in order to examine how Banks's pursuit of plants therefore constituted a threat to both imperial order and colonial discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to determine what conclusions the available sources allow us to make about the nature of Scottish service and sacrifice in the Great War. The article finds that contemporary sources do not lend themselves well to statistical analysis of Scotland's manpower contribution in the Great War. The lack of an agreed definition of who counted as a Scot makes establishing an exact number of Scottish war dead impossible. It establishes that in trying to quantify the Scottish manpower contribution historians have relied too heavily on statistics produced in the 1970s by Jay Winter, which, while broadly accurate, mask the nuances of armed forces recruitment in Scotland [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the utility of naval aviation, specifically the contribution of the British naval air arm to Operation Overlord. It argues that while there were practical reasons for carriers not being present directly off the Normandy beaches, British naval aviation supported the invasion both directly (from ashore, and from carriers operating at a distance) and indirectly, over a long period. It was also performing a range of other roles in several theatres. Navies and naval aviation contribute to campaigns in a way that is different to land-based forces; understanding this requires a bigger map and a longer timeline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cultural heritage assessment of a ferrous‐hulled ship lying off Meyer's Boatyard in St Georges Parish, Bermuda was undertaken by East Carolina University. The archaeological survey recorded a largely intact vessel that was found to correspond with a Medina‐class river gunboat built in 1876. Historical research indicated the presence of two Medina‐class gunboats in Bermuda, meaning the vessel is either HMS Medina or HMS Medway. This paper considers the historical trajectory of the two vessels and how the remains of the watercraft correspond to the source material. A description and consideration of the archaeological significance of the Meyer's Boatyard site is also included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • STAMP-STPA approach is applied to a novel military training exercise. • A control structure, modelling risk within the training exercise was produced. • Potential unsafe control actions within the scenario were identified. • Potential safety constraints were developed to improve safety. • The value of STAMP-STPA is demonstrated within the military domain. Abstract The Royal Navy uses Hawk jets to simulate sea-skimming missile attacks against vessels as part of their training regulations. To best achieve these goals, pilots of the Hawk are required to fly at approximately 50 feet above sea level to accurately mimic the flight path of a missile. Despite this need the Hawk is not equipped with a radar altimeter and instead relies upon pilot skill to ensure the safe completion of the operation. Incidents whereby the Hawk jets have struck the water are however recorded, risking pilot safety. This paper explores the Hawk missile simulation task using a Systems Theoretic Accident Model and Process (STAMP) and its corresponding hazard analysis Systems-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) methodology to map the key stakeholders within this operation. In doing so, the method explores areas of potential risk in the system and recommends how overall systemic safety of the operation can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the cultural contours of the Royal Navy's postwar 'Empire Cruise'. In late 1923, the British government dispatched a 'Special Service Squadron' of powerful battlecruisers on a massive public relations tour. But the popular response to this carefully orchestrated propaganda stunt varied widely. Settler populations in the Dominions often embraced the navy as a 'bond of empire' that reconciled Britishness with their own emerging national identities. They celebrated the navy as evidence of a shared maritime heritage handed down over the course of centuries. Meanwhile, non-white populations often responded in ways that ran counter to the intentions of the event organizers. Zulu villages in Natal hosted athletic competitions and indigenous women in Fiji organized a dance for the visiting Jack Tars – unsanctioned gatherings that offered alternative points of contact to the existing arrangements. In other locations, anti-colonial nationalists took advantage of the publicity surrounding the navy to mobilise against colonial policies. Ultimately the appearance of the navy in the far-flung ports of the empire stimulated widespread public debates about race, identity, and colonialism, and challenged the intended narrative of imperial unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Royal Naval ships' companies, isolated by hundreds of miles of sea with contacts to the outside world tightly regulated, provided perfect environments to study the epidemiology of disease. In 1747, James Lind organised one of the earliest clinical trials, demonstrating that scurvy could be treated by lemon juice. A century later, Alexander Bryson proved the value of careful epidemiological data collection and observation of infectious diseases encountered on the West Africa station. In the 20th century, Royal Navy physicians were at the cutting edge of vaccine research and antibiotic production. Nuclear submarines placed naval physicians at the forefront of nuclear medicine and environmental safety. The development of new aircraft carriers has driven a renewed interest in aviation medicine. This article reviews the contributions that Royal Navy physicians have made to medicine over the centuries, detailing some of the better known as well as some almost forgotten, but still remarkable, achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1894, two-fifths of the men who served in the Royal Naval Reserves (RNR) were drawn from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, despite the region containing only 0.5% of the total UK population. This was not an atypical spike in recruitment, however, but represents merely one moment in a relationship that lasted for nearly a century. Highlanders and Islanders had served in the RNR since its inception in 1859, and continued to do so in large numbers right up to the outbreak of war in 1939. This article explores the association between region and military institution that developed as a result, and the economic and social reasons that lay behind this. In doing so, it challenges the tendency for Scottish historians to focus overwhelmingly on questions of national identity when examining the British military. It also suggests that the historiography of the Highlands and Islands has focused too much on questions of land and land ownership, and not enough on the wider economic and social circumstances impacting on individual and community life across the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Due to the circumstances of the loss of HMS Warrior and HMS Sparrowhawk in 1916, in which subsequent to disablement both had drifted and been towed unknown distances from the Jutland battlefield, they were not located in the 2015 Jutland survey. In August 2016 both ships were located and HMS Warrior was revealed to be a pristine warship wreck, the only example in this condition of the 25 ships sunk in the battle. HMS Sparrowhawk had a similar pattern of disturbance as seven of the other Battle of Jutland destroyer wrecks. The survey of these wrecks draws to a conclusion a long period of discovery at Jutland and raises questions as to how these important cultural artefacts should be treated in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates a governmental committee set up in 1800 to address a long-standing problem faced by the British state: how to procure a reliable and cost-effective supply of hemp. This resource, on which the Royal Navy and mercantile marine relied, could be procured only from the Russian territories of northern Europe, a dependence that had proved precarious and increasingly unreliable in the latter decades of the eighteenth century. In 1800, amid a great European war, the supply of hemp was permanently stopped by the Russian tsar, and the British government formed a committee charged with finding new sources of this material, debating which regions should be invested in and encouraging future cultivation. The investigation that followed was truly global in its scope, focusing overwhelmingly on the resources of the British Empire, as botany, agriculture and the global acquisition of resources became issues of governmental concern. The investigation also forced the British state to look beyond its own departments, as numerous civilian, mercantile and agricultural experts were brought in to give evidence and offer suggestions. Studying this committee presents an opportunity to analyse how the state worked to solve problems and how it considered various (and often competing) notions of expertise and authority, as various individuals were called in to serve. Additionally, it demonstrates how people inside and outside government conceived of the broader utility and purpose of the British Empire at the turn of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1860s and 1870s, the British Royal Navy was a major presence in Japanese treaty ports and influenced the development of public health in those cities in significant ways. This paper compares the Navy's response to two of the major infectious disease issues in the treaty ports--cholera and venereal disease--with that of the Japanese. Its aim is to determine whether the presence of foreign powers that enjoyed significant extraterritorial rights served to stimulate or frustrate sanitary intervention. It is argued that while there was common ground between the approaches advocated and taken by the British and the Japanese in relation to venereal diseases, the British presence proved disruptive when it came to the control of cholera during the epidemic of 1877; an epidemic that appears to have originated on a British naval vessel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy of the British Conservative government towards the Spanish Civil War reflected the general policy of appeasement of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. It was influenced by a belief that the legitimate Spanish Republican Government was the puppet of extreme left Socialists and Communists. Accordingly, the British Cabinet adopted a policy of benevolent neutrality towards the military insurgents, with the covert aim of avoiding any direct or indirect help to the Popular Front Government. The official British line on the Spanish crisis was one of non-intervention despite awareness of the scale of German and Italian aid to the military rebels. The contradictions and deceit behind non-intervention were finally exposed by the humiliations suffered by the British government during the war in the Basque Country in the spring and early summer of 1937. Franco’s attempts to prevent the delivery of sea-borne food supplies to a starving Bilbao challenged the Government’s responsibility to protect British merchant shipping. At first, London accepted the rebel contention that they had effectively blockaded Bilbao and that Royal Navy protection of merchant shipping constituted intervention on the side of the Republic. On the basis of information supplied by the Times correspondent, George Steer, a campaign was mounted in parliament and the press which forced the government into a humiliating volte-face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Napoleon's Egyptian campaign has long been a source of fascination for historians, as it can be considered a turning point in Western Europe's relationship with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. There are aspects of this campaign, however, that have not yet been critically analysed. The role played by the unique physical environment of the Nile and Levantine coast, and the specific vessel technologies that navigating these areas required, has as of yet been ignored in favour of the major naval actions at the Battle of the Nile and the Siege of Acre. Both French and British forces adopted indigenous Nile vessel types, in particular djermes, for use throughout the course of the campaign in response to restrictive Nilotic conditions. This article compiles mentions of the use of indigenous vessels in the historical record of Napoleon's campaign and stresses the importance of incorporating the use of locally developed craft into studies of the Egyptian campaign and other naval campaigns of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the Royal Navy, in light of its highly ambiguous relationship with the submarine, was able to negotiate the image of their own submarines and submariners into their existing concepts of 'the best traditions and customs of the service'. It will consider how British submariners viewed themselves, how the surface fleet felt towards this new breed of naval men, and how their actions were constructed in a public sphere. This article will consider the various constructions of the heroic narratives surrounding campaign and will explore how and why these various narratives were constructed and reconstructed as they were, and what impact 'heroism' had on the prosecution of the campaign itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have typically viewed the construction of naval hospitals in the mid-eighteenth century as, variously, the British imperial state's response to a broken system of contract care, a training ground for medical officers, a controlled and regimented space for healing, and a representation of the interests of the state through the quick return of sailors to ships. Yet, contemporaries conceived of the hospitals in household terms. Nurses, washerwomen, and labourers, were 'servants' of the hospital and often lived on the premises. Hospital agents kept a 'household book', composed of tradesmen's bills, disbursements, and ward books that detailed issues of coals, beer, and wine to the various wards. Adopting a household model facilitates envisioning the hospitals as dynamic systems that responded to internal and external forces. Pay list prosopography demonstrates how the number of nurses responded to epidemics and battle casualties. This analytical framework illuminates the stability of the core nursing staff further reinforcing the household dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With few exceptions, existing research in British social and maritime history has never focused on the presence and role of Scotsmen in the Royal Navy of the French Wars era (1793-1815), on their identification and self-presentation within this institution and on attitudes towards naval warfare in Scotland more generally. Situating the problem within current debates on 'four nations' history and the development of British identity, this article aims to fill this gap. It will consider, in turn, the Navy's institutional language and practices, individual experiences and chiefly employing as a case study the 1797 victory of Camperdown, achieved by the Scottish Admiral Duncan, public representations in the Scottish press. This will help to illustrate the often ambiguous relationship that Scots in the Navy-and particularly on the quarterdeck-could have with their homeland, and the powerful attraction, reinforced by the naval environment and administrative structures, which Englishness exerted on them. More broadly, it will be shown how the late Hanoverian Navy, as a markedly Anglocentric institution, acted as a key instrument of cultural, social and political assimilation of Scots into Britain, thus offering a valuable case study for an investigation of patterns of British integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On October 12th, 1748, the naval combat of Havana, which was the last action of the War of Jenkins' Ear, took place. Despite being a colonial war between two maritime empires, this was the only naval engagement occurred in American waters. In this battle the British squadron, led by the Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, fought against the Spanish one, under Andrés Reggio's command. Thereby, this was the only occasion in which it was possible to evaluate the efficiency of Spanish Navy after decades of naval rearmament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]