Review: Daniel Owen Spence, Colonial Naval Culture and British Imperialism, 1922-67. Manchester University Press, Studies in Imperialism, 2015 – full details here. This is not your traditional naval history. Aligning himself with those whom he describes as ‘cultural-naval historians’ (2), Spence aims – as he puts it in the book’s final sentence – to understand […]
Such was the infamy of the English prison hulks that Napoleon Bonaparte is reported to have shouted before the battle of Waterloo: “Soldiers, let those among you who have been prisoners of the English describe to you the hulks, and detail the most frightful miseries which they endured!”[1] It is interesting that Napoleon, the person […]
During the late nineteenth century the Boys’ Brigade in London sought to provide its young members with a form of recreation that would offer a break from the ills of urban life. It was thought that a camping expedition would help lift restrictions imposed at home and would remove lads from the pressures of the […]
Despite a concerted effort by the establishment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to create an image of professional, respectable men, Jack’s licentious proclivities ashore have continued to form a key part of his popular image.[1] Yet what did sailors themselves record on the subject of sex? Christopher McKee has argued that ‘most […]
So reads a famous signpost at the port town of Bluff, which is located on the south coast of New Zealand’s South Island. With little between it and the Roaring Forties, Bluff was indeed “one of the farthest corners of the British Empire.” A key inlet for British migrants from the 1860s and a key […]
There remains a stereotypical image of Jack Tar as a man with loose morals who enjoyed himself ashore whenever he got the opportunity. Yet, how far this stereotype stands up has increasingly been questioned by historians.[1] This article does not intend to join in this debate per se but rather to reflect on the stereotype […]
