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This paper was first published in Astronomy and Geophysics (December 1998, Vol. 39) by the Royal Astronomical Society and the Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd and is reproduced here, with minor amendments, by kind permission of the Editor, Dr Sue Bowler.William Wales (1734–1798) contributed to astronomy through his observations of the 1769 transit of Venus, and his studies of latitude and longitude on Captain James Cook's second voyage to the South Seas. During this voyage, Wales was responsible for monitoring the performance of the chronometers. After returning from the Pacific, Wales took charge of the Royal Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital in London and, over the next two decades, he taught a succession of budding officers the principles of navigation.

L'A. etablit la liste de Greenwich des observatoires, instruments et montres du monde, de 1670 a 1850

During six years of war, shipborne radar had made such strides that, by 1945, a modern battleship or cruiser had up to three warning and as many as fifteen gunnery radars. However, owing to the rapid rate of development under the impetus of war, much of the equipment fitted was already obsolescent. Furthermore, the advent of jet-propelled aircraft and guided weapons meant that very different design targets would have to be met. All this was fully appreciated in the Admiralty and at ASE, and work on new systems and techniques was proceeding rapidly in 1945. Then came the surrender of Japan and peace, which removed much of the impetus, as well as leading to the exodus of many first-rate people from direct government service at ASE. In Britain, the bleak economic prospect forced a policy of making do with what was already fitted, with some limited research and development, one of the results of which was that the British ships which took part in the Korean War of 1950–3 had largely to rely upon World War 2 radar, though the war itself did result in a measure of rearmament.

And so we come to the end of our main story in which, as well as seeing how radar was used at sea in war, we have learnt: how development of radar in the Royal Navy started so slowly in 1936, starved of resources and at low priority largely owing to lack of interest and perhaps ignorance at the top, despite the efforts of C. S. Wright, in contrast to the Royal Air Force; how there was a dramatic improvement in 1938 when C. E. Horton had taken charge of radar development at HM Signal School, so much so that the Navy was able to enter the war with operational radar at sea: thereafter, it became a race between operational thought and technical achievement; how, with Admiral Somerville’s initial encouragement during the first months of the war, so much was achieved in 1939, 1940 and 1941 in design and development by so few staff at Signal School working all hours God made; how those at sea learnt to use their new ‘eyes’ to the best advantage, and how those in authority ashore, stimulated by operational experience, began to give the highest priority to fitting ships with radar; how the Royal Navy owed a great debt to Canada — and to C.S. Wright, himself of Canadian origin, for arranging it — for the many Canadian physics graduates who kept so much of the British naval radar working at sea during the earlier years

The ‘Phoney War’ came to an end on 9 April 1940, when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. For the Navy, the Norwegian campaign from April to June 1940 provided the first real trial for the Navy’s newly radar-fitted ships, all eight of whom took part. Ships already fitted at the beginning of the campaign were Rodney, Valiant, Sheffield, Suffolk, Curlew, Carlisle and Curacoa. Coventry completed her radar trials just in time to take part in the evacuation of Narvik in June. The four AA cruisers in particular learned the limitations of operating close inshore, radar results being very severely restricted by the high cliffs and surrounding high land in the fjords. Curacoa was severely damaged and Curlew sunk. This description of the latter’s last moments, by Mr F. E. Butcher, who was a telegraphist and radar operator on board at the time, reminds us how secret radar then was: A high-flying aircraft dropped a bomb which struck us on the starboard side aft, below the waterline … After about an hour, she capsized. My departure from the radar scene [he became a normal telegraphist after this] is fixed as a picture in my memory of Jimmy Green, the killick sparker [Leading Telegraphist] in charge of the office, going into it and smashing everything to pieces as much as he could with a heavy hammer, in an effort to make it as difficult as possible for the enemy to gain information about it.1

On 11 February 1942, the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and a destroyer screen, sailed from Brest after dark, turning up-Channel unobserved by any British forces. Such a move had been expected in Britain and the most detailed preparations had been made to meet this eventuality — or its alternative, breaking out into the Atlantic — to be put into force by the codeword ‘Fuller’.

On 3 September, the day war was declared, the only two radar-fitted ships that were operational, Rodney and Sheffield, were with the Home Fleet, based on Scapa Flow in Orkney. Of the next two being fitted, the AA cruiser Curlew was completing her refit at Chatham, reaching Scapa for ‘work-up’ in October (then to be employed principally in escorting East Coast convoys), while the heavy cruiser Suffolk was completing her refit at Portsmouth; she sailed to the Mediterranean early in October but returned to join the Home Fleet at Scapa in November. The battleship Valiant was to complete her refit at Plymouth in November, the AA cruiser Curacoa at Chatham in December.

Yeo returned from Orfordness on 9 October and DSD lost no time in calling a meeting at the Admiralty — attended by the Director of the Tactical Division, DSR and his deputy, and the Captain and Experimental Commander of the Signal School — to hear Yeo’s report and to decide what ought to be done next.

On 22 January 1944, two Allied divisions, one British, one American, were landed over beaches near Anzio about 30 miles south of Rome — operation ‘Shingle’ — to attack the right flank of the German army who were facing the main British 8th Army and US 5th Army north of Naples. This amphibious assault differed from those on Sicily and Salerno in that no aircraft carriers were present, but two fighter direction ships took part: Palomares, who had the misfortune to strike a mine off the beach during the early stages of the assault, and Ulster Queen, who controlled day fighters with marked success, besides issuing air raid warnings to the beaches and anchorage based on German radio intercepts and radar. Both ships returned to the United Kingdom after the operation and, as we shall see, Ulster Queen returned to the Mediterranean in time for the South of France invasion in July, fitted with Air Force GCI radar for the control of night fighters.

During 1940 and 1941, tremendous efforts were directed towards getting as many ships as possible fitted with some kind of radar. In deciding what alterations and additions had to be made to existing ships, the Admiralty had a system of priority categories lettered from A to D, the most important items being Classification A. In January 1941, priorities became such that a new superior Classification A* had to be created.1 In June, even that proved not to be strong enough for radar fitting. ‘Generally speaking,’ said the Admiralty, ‘RDF items are considered of the first importance among A* items.’2

At the beginning of 1941, the British Commonwealth had stood almost alone against the Axis powers: by the beginning of 1942, thanks to the aggression of Germany and Japan, it had two powerful allies, Russia and the United States. During 1942 and 1943, the Allied fortunes turned from almost uninterrupted disaster to almost unbroken success. This chapter tells the story of radar in the Royal Navy during the last of those years — when, thanks in no small measure to 10cm radar, airborne as well as seaborne, and to HF/DF, the Battle of the Atlantic turned in the Allies’ favour; when, thanks largely to British metric radar and the development of naval fighter direction, the German air force was denied air supremacy over the waters of the Mediterranean; when the Royal Navy’s Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean was greatly strengthened and the United States Navy in the Pacific began to push back the Japanese.

N.A.M. Rodger, The Insatiable Earl: A Eife of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich 1718-1792 . HarperCollins Publishers, London, 1993. Pp. xviii + 425, 19 illustrations, £20. ISBN 0 00 215784 5 ‘Corrupt politician remembered as the inventor of sandwiches , to eat at the gaming-table.’ 1 — this is how the subject of the book under review, John Montagu, fourth Earl' of Sandwich, is dismissed in one of the reference books on your reviewer’s desk. Great- great-grandson of the Commonwealth admiral given an earldom by Charles II, Sandwich was appointed a member of the Board of Admiralty under the Duke of Bedford in 1744 at the early age of 26 and held the post of First Lord from 1748 to 1751. He was One of the Secretaries of State under George Grenville from 1763 to 1765, taking a leading part in the prosecuttion of John Wilkes for the North Briton episode, and returned to the Admiralty as First Lord in 1771, serving in Lord North’s administration for eleven years through the greater part of the War of American Independence.

In 1680, a band of English buccaneers marched across the Isthmus of Darien from the Atlantic to the Pacific and, off Panama, captured several Spanish vessels, one of which they made their flagship. From this vessel they terrorized Spanish possessions on the west coast of the Americas. On July 29, 1681, they captured another Spanish ship, from which they obtained a derrotero, or book of charts and sailing directions. Their depredations over, the pirates sailed eastward around Cape Horn to the Caribbean, where they distributed their booty. When they arrived in England, the Spanish ambassador demanded that the buccaneers be brought to trial. The derrotero was ordered to be brought to King Charles II, who apparently appreciated its great intelligence value. The buccaneers were acquitted; as a result the English ambassador to Spain was expelled from Madrid. The derrotero was subsequently translated, and one of the buccaneers, Basil Ringrose, added a text to the compilation and information to the Spanish charts. The resulting atlas, consisting of 106 pages of charts and 106 pages of text, is published in full for the first time in this volume. Covering the area from California to Tierra del Fuego, the Galapagos, and Juan Fernandez, Basil Ringrose's south sea waggoner is a rich source of geographical information, with observations on navigational, physical, biological, and cultural features as well as on ethnography, customs, and folklore. After almost exactly three hundred years, this secret atlas is now made available to libraries and individuals. The editors have provided an extensive introduction on historical, geographical, and navigational aspects of the atlas, as well as annotations tothe charts and text, and they have plotted the coverage of the charts on modern map bases.

"Background to Discovery" recounts the great voyages of discovery, from Dampier to Cook, that excited such fervent political and popular interest in eighteenth-century Europe. Perhaps this book's greatest strength lies in its remarkable synthesis of both the achievements of European maritime exploration and the political, economic, and scientific motives behind it. Writing essays on the literary and artistic response to the voyages as well, the contributors collectively provide a rich source for historians, geographers, and anyone interested in the history of voyage and travel.

Early in 1967, a few months before the restored Meridian Building of the Old Royal Observatory was opened to the public by Sir Richard Woolley, the Astronomer Royal, I received a visitor in my office then in the Meridian Building — later, I was to move to the west summer house of Flamsteed House. My visitor was Colonel Humphrey Quill, Royal Marines, Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers that same year and author of the hookJohn Harrison, the Man who Found Longitude, which has become a standard work. He brought with him some manuscripts written by the subject of this lecture — Nevil Maskelyne, fifth Astronomer Royal, who lived in Flamsteed House for 46 years from 1765, making most of his important astronomical observations in the very building in which Col. Quill and I were sitting.

(1979). THE PRINCIPAL SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS TAKEN ON CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGES OF EXPLORATION, 1768–80. The Mariner's Mirror: Vol. 65, No. 2, pp. 119-135.

(1986). Navigation and astronomy the first three thousand years. Renaissance and Modern Studies: Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 60-86.