Forthcoming Volumes

The Navy Records society publishes three new volumes every two years. While as many as twenty volumes are in preparation at any time, the society is always preparing to print its forthcoming volumes.

There will be two volumes published in 2007. The first, printed in the spring of 2007 will be David Syrett’s second volume of the Rodney papers containing the admiral’s letters from the end of the Seven Year’s War in 1763 until August 1780, a key point in the American War of Independence. It covers the period of his life which was for him perhaps the most traumatic. From being a successful admiral, a member of parliament and governor of Greenwich Hospital, Rodney is plunged into debt and a debtor’s exile in France, only to rise again as a victorious admiral and a national hero. Key themes in the volume are his financial problems and deceptions, his pre-war service as Commander-in-Chief at Jamaica, his exile in Paris, his victory at the Moonlight Battle when relieving Gibraltar, and his successful defensive campaign in the West Indies as Commander-in Chief in the Leeward Islands.

The second volume to be printed in 2007 will appear in the autumn and is titled, Naval Intelligence from Berlin. The correspondence of the British Naval Attaches in Berlin, 2006-1914. The volume has been compiled by Mathew Seligmann and consists of the reports of British naval attaches on developments in Germany in the arms race with Britain prior to the First World War. It includes reports of conversations with Tirpitz and the Emperor, progress in German shipbuilding, the agitation of the German Navy League, and their airship building programme.

In 2008 the Society will probably publish a volume by Philip MacDougall on Chatham Dockyard 1816-1865, when the yard turned from building timber vessels to building iron ships. In 2009 the first volume to appear will be John Byrn’s volume on British Naval Courts Martial 1793-1815. In this he provides full accounts of the trials of seamen charged with different types of offence. Subsequent volumes will be printed in the order in which editors produce them. Further information may be obtained by getting in  touch with the General Editor of the Society by email at morriss@newtoshlt.wandaoo.co.uk

Roger Morriss

General Editor