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Bill Broomfield, a former crew member of HMS Ramillies, recounts the story of a Maori grass skirt presented to the ship’s captain in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1940. The skirt, believed to bring…

Bill Broomfield, a former crew member of HMS Ramillies, recounts the story of a Maori grass skirt presented to the ship’s captain in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1940. The skirt, believed to bring…

A flurry of letters, minutes and memoranda between the C-in-C United States Fleet (COMINCH), Admiral Ernest J. King and Admiral Sir Percy Noble, head of the British Admiralty Delegation (BAD) and…

In the early 1870s, a little-known engagement between a Royal Navy squadron of turret ironclads and a German invasion force bound for England ended in confusion and catastrophe for the invaders amid…

This post introduces letters written by Midshipman Bryan Godfrey-Faussett when serving on board HMS Dido in 1880.These extracts from his letters start in the Atlantic at St Helena and Ascension…

These fascinating descriptive passages are transcribed extracts from the diaries of Thomas F. Richards who, in 1906, was a Royal Navy Artificer (Engineer) Warrant Officer aged 30. This is the third…

The Navy Records Society publishes an annual volume in print and online. Each work presents previously unpublished documents on naval history, edited, introduced and given an analytical commentary by…

​This book offers a holistic re-evaluation of the Royal Navy mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797, and their significance for British society.

This letter by Robert Hilton appears to be a collaborative account of the engagements of Trafalgar, as a surgeon’s mate would have been below deck during the battle.  Each of the surviving letters…

Publishing naval history since 1893.

This post presents the first of three recordings from Bill W.E. Broomfield (known as Bill), a leading seaman aboard the battleship HMS Ramillies during the Second World War. The tapes were first…

On 14th November 1941 HMS Ark Royal,  Britain’s first modern fleet carrier, sank after a torpedo attack by the German submarine U-81. The following year, acclaimed war correspondent Sir Herbert…

A wonderful new online historical resource has just been launched: The Merchant Fleet of Late Medieval and Tudor England, 1400–1580. This database transforms our understanding of the evolution of…

In 1930 when the Papers on the Dutch War were approaching completion, Mr A.C. Dewar was asked by the Council of the Navy Records Society, to look through the Dutch transcripts with a view to the…

This event marks the first public launch of the Laughton & Corbett Centre within the School of Security Studies at King’s College London. The Centre aims to link academics, policymakers,…