#historical royal navy

[cadmusfly]

(Twitter source)

[ackermantihora]

an illustration to "HMS Maria" by @lostcauses-noregrets, the greatest fic about naval captain Erwin Smith and smuggler Levi Ackerman ⚓️

[clove-pinks]

Portrait of a Captain Raynor, R.N., seated on a rocky bank, in a midshipman's uniform by James Northcote, 1784.

[veryinterestingbutstupid]

Royal Navy Commander Undress

Circa 1805

[theworldofwars]

Trawlermen looking for identification marks on a derelict raft they had found at sea.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Aircraft ready to depart on the HNLMS Karel Doorman Colossus-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Netherlands Navy

Dutch vintage postcard, mailed in 1962 to the Netherlands

[jamesfitzjamesdotcom]

FitzLetters Book (future publication)

And of course there's this beast of a book: Fitzjames' correspondence 1825-1845! First had it printed back in 2022 but now had it printed again after corrections & adding more letters. There's no text of mine/footnotes yet. More editing to do first. I have a different idea for the cover but this looks nice for now. ❤️

The letters are divided by the ships Fitzjames served on. A treasure trove of information, not just about Fitzjames but also early 19th century (naval) history. Over 550 pages! I typed all of this. 😵‍💫 Will also find a publisher for this after finishing the Fitzjames biography by the end of this year, hopefully!

[ulgapodatkowa]

hey guys do you think there's a chance that this butchered nose job guy

is supposed to be Robert Maynard? you know, the one who killed Blackbeard in 1718?

cause if so then strap on guys cause it's gonna get messy

[itsadmiralactually]

For those of the Norrington-fandom, here's some information about Britain's Jamaican station, including officers/admirals who were active then. These sailors, no doubt, played an integral part in building our James' naval career; and given his father's influence, he probably served on one or more of their ships as a midshipman or lieutenant.

[royllowarch]

HMS Warrior (1860) by Roy Llowarch Via Flickr: A trip over to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard 4th of August 2021. Seen here is HMS Warrior. Warrior and her sister ship HMS Black Prince were the first ocean-going amour plated iron hulled warships in the world. They were built in response to France lunching the first ocean-going ironclad warship, the wooden-hulled Gloire

[rightintheghoulies]

11th October 1545, the Solent, some 'frogs' taking pot shots at our ships.

They try taking over Gosport but decided the people there were too bat shit crazy and ran away.

Anyway, RIP those that fought and died during the battle and all those lost on the Mary Rose 🫡🤘

[cadmusfly]

On a whim I bought an Age of Sail wargame rulebook at a game store and one thing lead to another, I found myself ordering the full box kit and then I ended up buying paints from another game store

Trying to practice on tiny brigs before I try my hand at the tiny frigate

(I don’t think anyone I know IRL will actually play this with me but I love my tiny ships anyway)

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

John Linton Palmer, Sketches of moai on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Nov 1868, watercolour, Easter Island Album, F030/6 © RGS-IBG.

Above: ‘Inside the crater at Otu-iti’ (pencil annotation: ‘Published in Illustrated News’).

Below: ‘One of the images outside the Crater at Otuiti. These were generally in much better preservation than those elsewhere, the angles of the stone still sharp’.

"Linton Palmer’s later sketches indicate an enduring interest in forms of material culture, architecture and archaeology. In 1863, for example, he took leave from HMS Melville to travel for three weeks up-river from Canton with a fellow-doctor William Kane, Scots businessman James Banks Taylor, a missionary Orientalist (and the future Oxford Professor of Chinese) James Legge and his Chinese secretary Tsang Kwei-Hwan. Linton Palmer sketched Buddhist temples and pagodas along the way, although they were not included in a subsequently published account of the trip. Drawing was also to play a significant role in his later studies of the ethnology and geography of Rapa Nui, arising from HMS Topaze’s visit there in November 1868. Although he appears to have included drawings with a letter sent to England the following month, Linton Palmer’s account was published by the Ethnological Society without the drawings, as was another paper presented to the Royal Geographical Society. Nor did his sketches of the skulls (which were sent to Thomas Huxley) appear in print. At least one of his drawings from the Topaze was published in engraved form in the Illustrated London News before his return to London (20 March 1869), and other sketches may have reached wider public audiences in the same way.

...

Today Linton Palmer’s most well-known sketches are those he made on the island of Rapa Nui (Easter island) in 1868, during which one of the moai, Hoa Hakananai’a, was excavated from its underground resting place. The evidential quality of Linton Palmer’s writings on Rapa Nui have been questioned by later archaeologists, especially his supposed tendency to rely on what is regarded as hearsay rather than first-hand observation. However, his sketches of the sites of the moai and the marks upon them constitute a significant and in some respects a unique documentary record which still has value in archaeological study.

...

In view of the continuing debate amongst Rapa Nui specialists over the quality of Linton Palmer’s evidence, it is worth making two further points. The first concerns the place of accurate observation within his routine practice as a naval surgeon: it was his responsibility to observe the bodies of the crew, the condition of the ship and of the weather, and in this context precise documentation in multiple forms was essential. In a naval setting, moreover, the notion of isolated observation independent of ‘hearsay’ does not really make sense: here an observation which was not shared could not be tested or relied upon. The second point concerns Linton Palmer’s prior experience of archaeological survey which has hitherto been unknown. In fact, ten years before the Topaze voyage, Linton Palmer himself had undertaken the first field survey of the stone circle at Calanais (Callanish) in the Hebrides, just prior to its excavation..." - from Felix Driver, “Material memories of travel: the albums of a Victorian naval surgeon.” Journal of Historical Geography 69 (2020): 48.

[clove-pinks]

I'm so emotional over the Franklin Expedition daguerreotypes at auction that I don't know if I can even make fun of their 1840s hairstyles, which are more visible than ever in the high resolution images (which are better than anything SPRI ever released, as Logan Zachary pointed out).

But. Edward Couch and macassar oil and/or bear's grease or whatever product he has lmao.

I have seen this in many other mid-19th century daguerreotypes: so much styling product his hair gleams and is literally sculpted into shape. (I have also previously written about Dr. Stanley's 1840s juvenile delinquent hairstyle). Along with the low inseam and footstrap on trousers, it seems to be one of those things that rarely makes it into historical costume dramas.

The Franklin daguerreotype images are also high resolution enough that you get a better view of their wonderful black stocks tied with bows. It's an easy look but the bow gives it a certain elegance—Fitzjames and Goodsir have particularly good examples of stocks. As I understand it almost any black stock was acceptable per Royal Navy regs for a long time, allowing the 19th century officer a certain degree of fashion expression changing with the times.

I love Frederick William Beechey's portrait circa 1822 in pattern 1812 uniform (NMM):

Another great polar look! (Yes Beechey like Beechey Island, which he named after his father).

[veryinterestingbutstupid]

Hearts of oak are our ships, hearts of oak are our men, we always are ready

(Lieutenant of His Majesty's Royal NavyUndress uniform, circa 1805)

[theworldofwars]

The engine room of a Royal Navy battleship. WW1