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During the French Revolutionary War the Channel Fleet played the
crucial role of defending Britain from invasion, protecting
Britain's incoming and outgoing trade through the Channel and
Western Approaches, and preventing the French Brest fleet from
setting forth on raids and expeditions. Presenting documents
revealing the evolution of this role during the war, this book
focuses on the blockade of Brest. It shows how the blockade
developed and tightened through the increase of Admiralty control
of the disposition of the Channel Fleet. It reveals the political
conflicts that existed between the Commanders-in-Chief and the
Admiralty, the logistical demands that had to be met, and the
response of the Admiralty and fleet officers to the Spithead
Mutiny. Above all, it reveals the response of the Fleet to the
challenges it met from the French in their sequence of break-outs,
and from the perennial problem posed by the necessity to preserve
the health of seamen. Here, confuting the claims of contemporary
medical officers, is evidence that shows how scurvy remained a
scourge to the very end of the war.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the technology
employed by the British navy changed not just the material
resources of the British navy but the culture and performance of
the royal dockyards. This book examines the role of the Inspector
General of Naval Works, an Admiralty office occupied by Samuel
Bentham between 1796 and 1807, which initiated a range of changes
in dockyard technology by the construction of experimental vessels,
the introduction of non-recoil armament, the reconstruction of
Portsmouth yard, and the introduction of steam-powered engines to
pump water, drive mass-production machinery and reprocess copper
sheathing. While primarily about the technology, this book also
examines the complementary changes in the industrial culture of the
dockyards. For it was that change in culture which permitted the
dockyards at the end of the Wars to maintain a fleet of
unprecedented size and engage in warfare both with the United
States of America and with Napoleonic Europe.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Samuel Bentham
influenced both the technology and the administrative ideas
employed in the management of the British navy. His influence
stemmed from his passion for science, from his desire to achieve
improvements based on a belief in the principle of Utility, and
from experience gained over eleven years in Russia, a large part in
the service of Catherine the Great and Prince Potemkin. Having
travelled extensively throughout the north and south of Russia,
Poland and Siberia, he managed Potemkin's industries at Krichev,
built fast river galleys, armed the Russian flotilla of small craft
at Kherson and served with the flotilla that defeated the Turks in
the Black Sea. His main ambition was to open river communication in
Siberia and develop trade into the Pacific. However he returned to
England and in 1796 became Inspector General of Naval Works, a post
in which he fought for innovations in the technology and management
of the British royal dockyards. Regarded then by the Navy Board as
a dangerous maverick, this book reveals the experiences, creativity
and thinking that made him a major figure in British naval
development.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the technology
employed by the British navy changed not just the material
resources of the British navy but the culture and performance of
the royal dockyards. This book examines the role of the Inspector
General of Naval Works, an Admiralty office occupied by Samuel
Bentham between 1796 and 1807, which initiated a range of changes
in dockyard technology by the construction of experimental vessels,
the introduction of non-recoil armament, the reconstruction of
Portsmouth yard, and the introduction of steam-powered engines to
pump water, drive mass-production machinery and reprocess copper
sheathing. While primarily about the technology, this book also
examines the complementary changes in the industrial culture of the
dockyards. For it was that change in culture which permitted the
dockyards at the end of the Wars to maintain a fleet of
unprecedented size and engage in warfare both with the United
States of America and with Napoleonic Europe.
Recent work on the growth of British naval power during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has emphasised developments in
the political, constitutional and financial infrastructure of the
British state. Naval Power and British Culture, 1760-1850 takes
these considerations one step further, and examines the
relationship of administrative culture within government
bureaucracy to contemporary perceptions of efficiency in the period
1760-1850. By administrative culture is meant the ideas, attitudes,
structures, practices and mores of public employees. Inevitably
these changed over time and this shift is examined as the naval
departments passed through times of crisis and peace. Focusing on
the transition in the culture of government employees in the naval
establishments in London - in the Navy and Victualling Offices - as
well as the victualling yard towns along the Thames and Medway,
Naval Power and British Culture, 1760-1850 concerns itself with
attitudes at all levels of the organisation. Yet it is concerned
above all with those whose views and conduct are seldom reported,
the clerks, artificers, secretaries and commissioners; those
employees of government who lived in local communities and took
their work experience back home with them. As such, this book
illuminates not only the employees of government, but also the
society which surrounded and impinged upon naval establishments,
and the reciprocal nature of their attitudes and influences.
British power and global expansion between 1755 and 1815 have
mainly been attributed to the fiscal-military state and the
achievements of the Royal navy at sea. Roger Morriss here sheds new
light on the broader range of developments in the infrastructure of
the state needed to extend British power at sea and overseas. He
demonstrates how developments in culture, experience and control in
central government affected the supply of ships, manpower, food,
transport and ordnance as well as the support of the army,
permitting the maintenance of armed forces of unprecedented size
and their projection to distant stations. He reveals how the
British state, although dependent on the private sector, built a
partnership with it based on trust, ethics and the law. This book
argues that Britain's military bureaucracy, traditionally regarded
as inferior to the fighting services, was in fact the keystone of
the nation's maritime ascendancy.
British power and global expansion between 1755 and 1815 have
mainly been attributed to the fiscal-military state and the
achievements of the Royal navy at sea. Roger Morriss here sheds new
light on the broader range of developments in the infrastructure of
the state needed to extend British power at sea and overseas. He
demonstrates how developments in culture, experience and control in
central government affected the supply of ships, manpower, food,
transport and ordnance as well as the support of the army,
permitting the maintenance of armed forces of unprecedented size
and their projection to distant stations. He reveals how the
British state, although dependent on the private sector, built a
partnership with it based on trust, ethics and the law. This book
argues that Britain's military bureaucracy, traditionally regarded
as inferior to the fighting services, was in fact the keystone of
the nation's maritime ascendancy.
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