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The ramming of HMS Prince George by HMS Hannibal 1903
For some five decades from 1866, when the naval battle of Lissa, when victory was secured by the Austro-Hungarian fleet over its Italian enemy by means of ramming, naval architects were to be fixated...
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Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 5
In earlier articles in this occasional series we have met artists – such as Thomas Luny and Richard Paton – who had experience of life at sea before (or sometimes during) their careers as artists. One...
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The Birth of Weather Forecasting: The "Royal Charter Storm" of 1859
Today that concept of weather forecasting is regarded as an integral aspect of news reporting but in the mid-nineteenth century that concept was in its infancy. It took a storm of massive proportions...
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Penang, Malaysia – touching history
I flew from Britain in mid-week and I’m currently in Penang, the island off Peninsular Malaysia's weat coast that’s now home to a city of 1.5 million. It is linked to the mainland by two bridges, one...
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Malaysia – an Otter, Colonial Buildings, Karst Landscape and Tin Wars
My last blog dealt with some experiences in Penang, the island off the Malaysian west coast which was the first British settlement in South East Asia. In my next blog I’ll be covering some very...
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Penang – the German naval connection
Fort Cornwallis todayIn my blog last week I described Fort Cornwallis, at Georgetown, the main city on the island of Penang off the west cost of Peninsular Malaysia. Though built in the early 19th...
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A Sultan’s wooden palace – and a mystery gun!
I’m still in Northern Malaysia and today I saw not only one of the most unique – and beautiful – buildings I’ve ever seen but found also what looked like an old naval gun that ended up far from the...
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An indecisive naval battle, a farcical aftermath, the guillotine and a...
France’s entry into the American War of Independence was to prove a critical factor is assuring the survival of the United States. It did so by winning the only strategically-significant victory in all...
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A Vulture’s Odyssey Under Two Flags, 1894 – 1918
When one thinks of the Imperial German Navy the image that immediately comes to mind is of the mighty battle-fleet that confronted the Royal Navy at the start of World War 1. In the two decades prior...
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The spectacular life and death of Sabrina Island
The sloop HMS Sabrina was one of 24 similar vessels of the second batch of the “Cormorant” Class. Armed with no less than sixteen 24-pounder and eight 12-pounder carronades, these vessels packed an...
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The first battle between steamships, 1853
The end of the Age of Fighting Sail was a process that straggled through the 1820s and 30s and 40s as steam power became increasingly reliable. The last full fleet action with sailing vessels was the...
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1863: The first American-Japanese naval battle
July 1863 was recognised both at the time and afterwards as the turning point of the American Civil War. The Union victory at Gettysburg in the first three days of the month, and the surrender of the...
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“I’d prefer to be blown up!” - Antwerp 1831
The Netherlands and Belgium are today two separate nations, and have indeed had separate existences, in one form or another, for most of the time since the late sixteenth century. Up until 1806, the...
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Miss Betty Mouat and the Colombine 1886
My blog posts often deal with blood and thunder, conflict and battle, but this present item deals with a middle-aged lady of poor background, who demonstrated a very high degree of heroism in peacetime...
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Life at sea in merchant service in the 1870s
It is easy, at this remove, to be entranced by the “romance” of the seaborne trade in the 19th Century, when the numbers of ships grew explosively to satisfy the needs of the first era of commercial...
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The Loss of HMS Orpheus 1863 – and the link with the lady who would invent...
The late 19th Century was a period of much expanded sea trade and with this came an enormous number of shipwrecks, not least due to lack of modern navigational aids. Service in Britain’s Royal Navy was...
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The Bell Rock Lighthouse and the loss of HMS Argyll 1915
Between 1902 and 1908 a total of 34 armoured cruisers were built for the Royal Navy. Expensive ships, almost all in the 10000 to 16000-ton range, they were of comparable displacement to contemporary...
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Nelson and Hardy – the forging of a partnership
We have encountered HMS Blanche before, in her furious duel in January 1795, in the middle years of the Revolutionary War between Britain and France. In the process she captured the French frigate...
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The Victorian Fascination with Murder
I have always enjoyed George Orwell’s essays, not only for the variety of the topics and the clarity of his arguments but the simple elegance of their English. One of their charms is that he often...
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Grace Darling, Unexpected Heroine, 1838
Grace Darling by Thomas Musgrave JoyNovember 15th this year will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the great Victorian heroines. Grace Darling gained widespread acclaim for her courage,...
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