Review of The Trafalgar Chronicle New Series 2

The Trafalgar Chronicle: New Series 2 by Peter Hore

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Royal Marines, whose history traces back to 1664, and the United States Marine Corps, first founded in 1775, gained distinction when the world was at war between 1792 and 1815. Past histories have often given short shrift to these sea soldiers, but here The 1805 Club allows them to take center stage. The various essays chosen for inclusion demonstrate the vital roles they played and illustrate why they participated in “every important action of fleet, afloat and ashore during the Great War.” (5) The contributors include navy and marine personnel, academics, researchers, writers, and historians.

The book opens with Julian Thompson’s “The Marines: The Early Days,” which explores the origins of the British Marines, how they became the Royal Marines, who they were, and what they did during their first 151 years. Anthony Bruce focuses on “The Marines in Boston, 1774-75,” with particular emphasis on the events leading up to and including the Battle of Bunker Hill, while Britt Zerbe examines their participation in the Battle of Trafalgar and their marginalized treatment in the age of sail in “That Matchless Victory: Trafalgar, the Royal Marines and Sea Battle in the Age of Nelson.”

In “Leathernecks: The US Marine Corps in the Age of the Barbary Pirates” Charles Neimeyer discusses the origins of their contemporary nickname and their activities in America’s war with Tripoli, which is immortalized in the “Marines’ Hymn.” Benjamin Armstrong also looks at this war, but his focus is on Commodore Edward Preble and naval diplomacy in “‘Against the Common Enemies’: American Allies and Partners in the First Barbary War.”

Two other essays discuss the naval officers who also held commissions in the Marines, even though they never served as marines themselves. John D. Bolt’s “The ‘Blue Colonels’ of Marines: Sinecure and Shaping the Royal Marine Identity” explains this practice and how Royal Marines viewed it, as well as how it affected their ability to advance through the ranks. David Clammer focuses on one particular officer, who was charged with defending England’s coastline from a French invasion in “Captain Ingram, the Sea Fencibles, the Signal Stations and the Defence of Dorset.”

“The Royal Marines Battalions in the War of 1812” by Alexander Craig looks at raids and encounters in the Chesapeake Bay and Canada, while Robert K. Sutcliff’s “The First Royal Marine Battalion’s Peninsular War 1810-1812” examines their activities in Portugal and Spain. Tom Fremantle explores the thirty-six-year career of “Captain Philip Gidley King, Royal Navy, Third Governor of New South Wales,” an ancestor who served on several ships before being sent to Botany Bay to establish a base for the convict colony.

Larrie D. Ferreriro discusses the French and Spanish navies in “The Rise and Fall of the Bourbon Armada, 1744-1805: From Toulon to Trafalgar,” while Jann M. Witt explores “Smuggling and Blockade Running during the Anglo-Danish War of 1807-14.”

Another author, Allan Adair, also writes about his ancestors. He focuses on two brothers – one a captain in the Royal Marines, the other a fourteen-year-old master’s mate – who participated in Trafalgar in “Loyal Au Mort: The Adairs at the Battle of Trafalgar.” Sim Comfort, on the other hand, turns his attention to a weapon and the man who wielded it in “The Royal Marine Uniform Sword by Blake, London, Provenanced to Captain Richard Welchman, Royal Marines.”

Two additional entries in this book provide glimpses into two men who were veterans of Trafalgar: “Marine Stephen Humphries 1786-1865” and “Captain James Cottell: The Pictorial Life of a Trafalgar Veteran.” Humphries’s account of Trafalgar, his first fight, his time as a prisoner of the French, and his participation in the march on Washington are from his memoir, one of the few written by a marine that has survived to the present day. In the other offering, John Rawlinson provides background to tie together Cottell’s life with the many sketches and watercolors that he made while at sea.

For me, these last two offerings are the most intriguing and absorbing, but all the essays enlighten readers and illuminate men who deserve more recognition, but rarely receive it. Excerpts from primary documentation are included in some, while resources consulted and other materials are listed in the endnotes. Recruiting posters, maps, portraits, paintings, and tables are among the illustrations included with the contributions. A center section of color plates, including Geoff Hunt’s painting of marines aboard a ship, further enriches the text. There is also a list of contributors with short biographies. As always, the yearbook shines a spotlight on tantalizing new naval research in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and this edition with its focus on the marines makes this a praiseworthy contribution to any library or historian fascinated with the Georgian Navy.




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