Archive Results For: English Channel
The Archaeology of Second World War U-boat Losses in the English Channel and its Impact on the Historical Record
This article examines how the archaeological record of 33 U-boats sunk in the English Channel during the Inshore Campaign, June 1944 to May 1945, compares with the assessment of U-boat destructions made by the Admiralty’s Anti U-boat Division (AUBD) in 1946. Comparison of the two shows an accuracy rate of 57 per cent across the […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | WW2
Subjects include: Archaeology | Navies | Submarines
A Re-appraisal of the King’s Ships in the Reigns of Richard I and John, 1189–1216
Claims have been made for the establishment of an English royal navy in the twelfth century. This article offers a reappraisal of the documentary evidence to assess whether Richard the Lionheart or his younger brother John can be credited with creating this instrument of royal power. Their use of ships in warfare and the possession […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Early Modern
Subjects include: Administration | Harbours & Dockyards | Logistics | Navies
Note: The Selsey Fishing Fleet
A short history of the West Sussex town of Selsey, its fishing industry and fleet from the sixteenth century to the present day. Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Other (Early Modern) | Other (Twentieth C) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Whaling & Fishing
Was Arthur Ransome’s John Walker a Competent Seaman?
This note explores the competence of Arthur Ransome’s blundering boy sailor John Walker, in We Didn’t Mean To Go Sea, one of the books of the Swallows and Amazon‘s series, and draws parallels with the authors own life. In We Didn’t Mean To Go Sea, John Walker negotiates a difficult passage from Harwich to Flushing, thereby entering the […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Other (Twentieth C)
Subjects include: Biography | Leisure & Small Craft | Ship Handling & Seamanship
The Operational Impact of the Loss of HMS Paragon in the Straits of Dover, 17 March 1917
In early 1917, the torpedo boat destroyer HMS Paragon was part of the Dover Patrol, then subject to repeated raids by German destroyers. Its history is normally consigned to a few, often inaccurate, short sentences, in which it is implied that it had an almost supine role in the action in which it was lost. This article […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | English Channel | Shipwrecks
Subjects include: Navies
A Ship ‘For Which Great Neptune Raves’: The Sovereign of the Seas, la Couronne and seventeenth-century international competition over warship design
Charles I’s great warship the Sovereign of the Seas is famed for its design, decoration and importance as a tool that heightened the image of English naval supremacy. By exploring its career, size, name and decoration, this article highlights the Sovereign of the Seas’ significance as a national symbol of political and cultural power. It argues that Charles’s […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Early Modern
Subjects include: Navies | Shipbuilding & Design
HM Steam Yacht Venetia: A luxury yacht in Royal Navy service, 1914–1919
This article tells the story of the steam yacht Venetia as seen through the experiences of its fireman, Edward Beckwith. Originally a luxury yacht, Venetia was handed over to the Admiralty in 1914 and took part in the Northern Patrol based in Kirkwall before transferring to Falmouth to take on patrol duties in the Western Approaches to the English […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | English Channel
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Navies
Mariners Ashore in the Eighteenth Century: The role of boarding-house keepers and victuallers
Seamen from Royal Navy ships were boarded in the 1740s with Betty Wright, a lodging-house keeper of Gosport, Hampshire. Her surviving account books together with the wills of hundreds of mariners open up a new light on the life onshore for these men, in a previously unrecorded manner, and enable lodging houses, victuallers and the […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Administration | Harbours & Dockyards | Miscellaneous
N ote: The Tip of the Spear: Captain Henry Hotham and the blockade of Brest and L’Orient
Commissioned in 1810 to command HMS Northumberland in the Channel Fleet and to blockade the French coast, the honourable Henry Hotham’s diaries, logs and letters have been used to give the reader details of the dangers, difficulties and successes of this vital element of the Napoleonic war at sea. Read More
Filed under: Napoleonic War | English Channel
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Note: The Figurehead/Badge of the Mary Rose 1510–45
The history of the Mary Rose and its figurehead, with detailed explanations of its design and purpose. Read More
Filed under: Tudors | English Channel | Shipwrecks
Subjects include: Ship Models & Figureheads