This paper provides a comparison of morbidity and mortality rates on warships of the Imperial Russian and the British Royal Navy during a series of naval wars fought between 1770 and the end of the Napoleonic era. From this it will be shown that, despite a close and frequent collaboration between the two services, morbidity rates were much higher on board Russian warships, with consideration given as to why this disparity should exist. While warships of all nations during this period, given the overcrowded and ill-ventilated conditions in which crews were accommodated, were constantly threatened by disease and other maladies, Russian ships suffered continuous outbreaks of infection, especially epidemic typhus and scurvy, whereas in the British navy such outbreaks were either less frequent or better controlled.

Archaeologia Cantiana

Malaria: Its Influence on a north Kent Community

Of the many diseases which have, from time to time, afflicted the inhabitants of Great Britain, it is, perhaps, indigenous malaria which has been least researched by the historian. At one time it was an illness to be found throughout much of southern England, and as far north as the marshy tracts of the Ribble. In Kent, it was particularly prevalent, with the Thames-side marshes being affected, together with Romney, parts of Thanet and east Kent gaining, for themselves, a most notorious reputation for unhealthiness.

Granite and lime: The building of Chatham Dockyard's first stone dry dock

Between the years 1816 and 1821 a total of £160,000 (approximately £.50m in today's money) was expended upon the construction of a new dry dock within the royal dockyard at Chatham. Representing an important land-mark in the yard's history, this dock was not only larger than any of the existing dry docks at Chatham, but it was also the first in the yard to be built of stone. Finally, it had the added refinement of an attached engine-house that was built to accommodate a 50 h.p. Boulton and Watt steam engine used for the purpose of pumping the dock dry.

The Abortive Plan for Northfleet Naval Dockyard during the Napoleonic Wars

During the period of wartime hostility with French Revolutionary and Napoleonic France (1793-1815), the British Admiralty became increasingly disillusioned with the ability of its four eastern dockyards to undertake the roles for which they were designed. The four yards concerned - Chatham, Sheerness, Woolwich and Deptford - were all located in the county of Kent. Between them, these yards possessed approximately 50 per cent of all government facilities available to the navy. Employing over 6,000 artisans and labourers and housing all of the necessary facilities for building, repairing, fitting and refitting ships of war, the four Kentish yards were a massive and integral part of the nation's rapidly expanding military industrial complex. Yet, despite their national importance, these yards were seriously disadvantaged. This was primarily a result of their geographical location, none of them particularly well positioned for the reception and repairing of large warships. For this reason, the Admiralty began to give thought to the very real possibility that all four should be closed. In doing so, an entire new dockyard was contemplated, this to be located at Northfleet.

Rope Making at Chatham during the early Nineteenth Century

Although an increasing amount of material is gradually being published on the naval dockyard at Chatham, relatively little is directed to the ropery. Further, that which has been written concentrates almost exclusively upon the eighteenth century. This is a most unusual oversight given that the Chatham ropery was of equal or even of greater importance during the nineteenth century, undergoing a massive series of changes in terms of management style, technology and the nature of the workforce. This paper concentrates upon the early nineteenth-century ropery and corrects this shortcoming in the history of such a large-scale industrial enterprise. Attention, in particular, is given to the introduction of steam power, and new workplace practices.

Histoire économie et société

L’estuaire de la Tamise et les eaux côtières du Kent

This paper explores the strategic importance of the waters around the Kentish coast and within the Thames estuary (referring to the latter in its broadest sense) during the age of sail and the value placed upon those same areas of water by the British Admiralty. Sections of the Kentish coast are separately examined, with concentration upon the microphysical weather processes that impacted upon each stretch of water combined with a description of various underwater geographical features. The difficulties of navigating Kent’s coastal waters are noted. Attention is drawn to the diminishing value of the Thames estuary due to silting, making it, during the later stages of the age of sail, near impossible for larger warships to navigate.

Mariner’s Mirror

https://snr.org.uk/the-mariners-mirror/

Hazardous Waters: Naval Dockyard Harbours during the Age of Fighting Sail

From the late 18th century to the end of the Napoleonic wars, shoaling and other environmental factors increasingly limited the ability of British dockyards to accommodate larger classes of warships. The problem was particularly acute on the Thames and the Medway, because of upstream urban and commercial development, but affected Plymouth and Portsmouth as well. Interim solutions, including development of new bases at Isle of Grain and Northfleet.

William Scamp and his Early Naval Works in the Mediterranean

The architect William Scamp (1801–72) was chief assistant to the Director of Admiralty Works 1845–52 then Deputy Director 1852–67. In 1841 he built for the Royal Navy a new steam-powered bakery at Malta, with iron stanchions and ceiling support joists on all three storeys, and completed the church of St Paul. In 1844 he started to build a dry dock, the first in a foreign yard, with attendant workshops (completed 1847). In 1841–45 he also repaired the sea wall at Gibraltar and designed an extension to the mole. Later he was involved with docking facilities and a commercial port at Malta and industrial buildings, the mole, and the completion of the sea wall at Gibraltar.

Gibraltar Dockyard: Problems of Recruitment 1939-1945

With increasing awareness that a further European war might one day occur, the decision was finally taken to enlarge two of the docks. From the point of view of labour recruitment, the adopted time table for work upon these docks turned a relatively simple problem into a nightmare. With both docks, at differing times, placed out of temporary use, the number of skilled workers had been allowed to fall beyond previous minimum levels.

The Formative Years: Malta Dockyard, 1800-1815

When Malta was captured in 1800, the Royal Navy inherited an established dockyard and large natural harbour. The dockyard was rapidly utilised but the peace of 1802 cast a shadow, with the Government having agreed to return the island to the Order of St. John. Delaying tactics ensured the Navy retained its dockyard when hostilities again commenced in May 1803. Over the next few years the dockyard flourished but the peace of 1814 again threatened its future. Napoleon’s return from exile reprieved it for a short time, with its final salvation coming with the advent of steam.

British Seapower and the Mysore Wars of the Eighteenth Century

The naval aspirations of Hyder Ali (1760–82) and Tipu Sultan (1782–99), rulers of the southern Indian state of Mysore, is a much neglected subject. In creating a naval force, that clearly emulated those of the European nations, it was seen as a means of first neutralizing the power of the British before being ultimately used to remove all European colonizers from the subcontinent. Factors both aiding and working against the creation of this fleet are discussed together with the interest shown by the French in developing a working arrangement with the nascent Mysore naval power. That the efforts of the two Mysore rulers came to very little was a result of a series of swift and decisive actions taken by the British at the outset of any period of hostility combined with the difficulties faced by a land power developing an effective maritime force.

‘So Complete Was Our Victory! So Complete Their Ruin!’: An analysis of the battle of Çeşme, 1770

This article traces the origins of use of steam power by the Admiralty. Vessels such as Comet were first used to attend to the wants of the fleet, and the need to service these craft at either Woolwich or Deptford was soon realised, despite the shallow water of the Thames. Construction of the new steamyard began at Woolwich in 1826, with convict labour. Difficulties were not all overcome, and eventually the decision was taken in 1863 to relocate the facility to Chatham.

This article presents an analysis of why a technically advanced Ottoman fleet of overwhelming numerical superiority operating in its home waters should have been decisively defeated by a Russian fleet operating in totally unfamiliar waters and hampered by a divided command structure, with no truly safe harbour to fall back on and with ships manned by crews completely untried and untested in a combat situation. In this assessment of the battle of Çeşme fought in July 1770, attention will be given to the organizational failings of the Ottoman navy combined with a general inability of those who commanded naval affairs to recognize the importance of sea power and how it could be used to most effect. It is also demonstrated that while lessons were learnt, the pace of subsequent reforms, especially those required to correct crucial administrative and leadership shortcomings, was painfully slow and not finally completed until the later years of the following century. The outcome was a series of further naval defeats and a resulting loss of territory that led to the navy starved of adequate finance, a situation from which it never recovered.

Lord Love the Irish and Damnation to the English:The naval mutinies of 1798

Concentrating on a series of mutinies that were planned during the summer of 1798 to take a number of British warships of the Channel Fleet into the enemy port of Brest, this article is a micro study of one of those ships, the 74-gun Defiance in the three-week period, 7–28 July 1798, during which the plot was hatched. The intention is to throw light on a number of key questions that relate to the organization and character of these planned mutinies, with consideration given to the motivating factors, the extent to which an organizational structure existed and identification of the key activists. Effectively a cross-sectional micro analysis of one ship’s crew at a single point in time, it will allow for a better understanding of the vast range of factors that coalesced in the development of a plot to seize not just this warship, but at least seven other ships of the Channel Fleet while cruising off the port of Brest.

Naval History – the journal of the USNI

The Valparaiso Incident Reassessed

The controversy surrounding the capture of the USS Essex during the War of 1812 has more to do with perception and character than combat. In a break with tradition, the author, a British historian, takes the Americans' side.

Southern History

A Demand Fulfilled: Analysis of an industrial dispute between the Admiralty and the civilian work force employed in the naval dockyards of southern England, 1833

In the autumn of 1833, the 5,500—strong work force employed in the six naval dockyards of southern England took their first step in a long drawn out and bitterly contested dispute with their employer, the Board of Admiralty. The immediate cause of discontent was the introduction of a scheme of classification which, for purposes of payment, separated the work force into three distinct divisions. However, several additional changes, such as the recent ending of a generous scheme of pension allowances and the removal of most overtime opportunities, also aggra~ vated dissatisfactions prevalent within the naval dockyards,

www.academia.edu

War, Health and the Russian Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

The Woolwich Steamyard

This paper concentrates on the relationship that existed between Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson and his Imperial Russian naval opposite number, Vice-Admiral Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov during the time of the blockade of Malta following the occupation of that island by Napoleon Buonaparte.. While both had as their objective that of defeating the French, no agreement emerged between them as to how this might be achieved, both conducting independent campaigns, while seeing the other as only waging the war against France as a means of gaining post-war advantage for their respective sovereigns. In this, Malta became of central importance, neither Nelson nor Ushakov, for strategic reasons, wanting the other to gain sole custody of Malta as a long-term possession.