Archive Results For: Interwar
Dorothea Duff: Female seafaring pioneer or serial fantasist?
This short note explores the life and alleged sea faring adventures of Dorothea Duff in the early 20th century. The author suggests that contrary to Duff’s claims of having served before the mast on two square riggers sailing from Australia to the UK, the evidence suggests she actually travelled as a passenger. The author also […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar
Subjects include: Biography | Science & Exploration
An Anatomy of Speculative Failure: Wm Doxford & Sons Ltd, Sunderland, and the Northumberland Shipbuilding Company of Howdon on Tyne, 1919–1945
This article investigates the impact and consequences of speculative capital-gaining ownership of several UK shipbuilding firms after 1918, with emphasis on the Sperling Combine’s Northumberland Shipbuilding Company of Howdon on Tyne and its acquisition in 1919 of the Wear shipbuilders and marine engine builders, Wm Doxford and Sons Ltd. The Sperling Combine’s modus operandi was […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar | Other (location)
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Shipbuilding & Design
Paying the Prize for the German Submarine War: U-boats destroyed and the Admiralty Prize Fund, 1919–1932
This paper examines how the Admiralty paid prize money to the Royal Navy for the destruction of U-boats in the First World War. The research shows that the method by which it did so was distinct from the standard prize process, primarily because of secrecy surrounding the anti-U-boat effort. Prize payments were only made by […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar | Other (location)
Subjects include: Administration | Navies | Submarines
Parliamentary Politics and the Singapore Base: a Surplus of Opinions and Few Answers, 1918–29
At the close of the First World War, the British government continued to examine how to defend an empire that spanned the globe. This challenge was compounded by a number of debt-conscious members of the House of Commons and post-war governments who were eager to reduce defence spending. Thus the challenge for the Royal Navy […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar | Indian Ocean
Subjects include: Harbours & Dockyards | Miscellaneous
The Royal Navy in the Era of Two World Wars: was it Fit for Purpose?
Predicting the role that a navy will be called upon to adopt is an impossible task, made easier with the benefit of hindsight. Whilst a navy (or a ship) might be best fitted to a particular purpose, successful navies (and warship designs) have tended to be those with the broadest range of general capabilities. The […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2 | Other (location)
Subjects include: Administration | Navies | Submarines
U.S. Naval Intelligence and the Imperial Japanese Fleet during the Washington Treaty Era, c.1922-36
Following the Washington naval arms limitation agreement of 1922 intelligence on the Imperial Japanese Navy became a top US priority. The limited intelligence sources available to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the range and assessment of information obtained are discussed. The ONI’s assessment is discussed in detail showing an overall underestimate of Japanese […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar | Pacific
Subjects include: Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy | Weapons
The British Contribution to Seafarers’ Welfare in Mediterranean and Black Sea Ports Since the 1820s
The seamen’s mission movement was globalized from the 1820s. In Mediterranean and Black Sea ports welfare was early provided by the Nonconformist BFSS (the British and Foreign Seamen’s Friend Society and Bethel Union), conducting shipboard services on Sundays. From the 1830s to 1860s the society declined, but the Consular Advances Act (1825) gave state support […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar | Mediterranean | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (location)
Subjects include: Harbours & Dockyards | Merchant Marines | Navies
The Ascent of Extranational Tide Tables
The nineteenth century saw the development of tidal prediction from synthetic, which predicts high and low water for diurnal and semidiurnal tides, to harmonic, which deals with the whole tidal profile. Starting in 1839, France had by 1874 calculated fifteen home ports, and her colonies with a volume based on Tonkin in 1873; America had […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | WW1 | English Channel | Interwar | Other (Nineteenth C) | Indian Ocean | Pacific | Other (location)
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Navies | Science & Exploration
The Fisherman who Nearly Started a War with Japan
In May 1938, an American cod fisherman, Captain J.E. Shields, achieved instant celebrity when he sent a message to the mainland asking for a dozen high-powered rifles to use against Japanese salmon fishermen in the Bering Sea. This essay explores the sources of Shields’s aggression: personal gain, individual racism, competition between Japanese and American fishermen, […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar | Pacific
Subjects include: Whaling & Fishing
Politics or Posturing: a Legislative Debate on Naval Expenditures 1925-9
The Conservative Party under Stanley Baldwin formed the British government for four years between 1925 and 1929; a time when spending on the Royal Navy was still five times that on the RAF and almost ten percent greater than the Army vote and spending on education. This is an analysis of debate both within the […] Read More
Filed under: Interwar
Subjects include: Administration | Navies