Letters and Papers of Professor Sir John Knox Laughton, 1830-1915

Traces the academic career of one of the most important figures instrumental in the foundation of the Navy Records Society.Detailing the academic career of Sir John Knox Laughton, this book shows how Laughton operated in his profession, the stages of his career, his patrons, friends and colleagues, how he exerted influence and recruited followers and how far he succeeded in the tasks he set himself. Born in 1830, he entered the Royal Navy as an Instructor in 1853, then having served afloat in the Baltic Campaigns of 1854 and 1855 and in the Second China War of 1856-58, he came ashore to teach at the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth in 1866. There he wrote important textbooks on oceanography and hydrographic surveying but his most significant contribution was to demonstrate the vital role of the past as the basis for the development of contemporary naval thought, culminating in the publication of his seminal Essay on Naval Tactics in 1873. The material in this volume all dates from after 1875, following the College's move to the old Hospital complex at Greenwich in 1873 which gave Laughton access to a wider audience in London, notably as the College's official academic spokesman at the United Services Institution. It was his 1874 Royal United Services Institution Lecture, The Scientific Study of Naval History, which established history as the basis for doctrine development and secured a place for the subject in the Naval College curriculum. Laughton left the College in 1885 to become Professor of Modern History at King's College, London where he made a significant contribution to the professionalisation of English history as well as writing more than 900 lives, virtually the entire naval component for the Dictionary of National Biography. The audience for his lectures, articles and books included the entire officer corps of the Royal Navy of his day together with army officers, defence analysts and major American thinkers such as Admiral Stephen Luce and Captain Alfred T. Mahan, the last two being two of the most frequently represented correspondents in this volume. Laughton and Mahan worked together for two decades to advance the cause of naval education, strategic thought and history. Edited by his biographer, the first Laughton Professor of Naval History at King's College London, the papers are grouped chronologically into six chapters:'The Scientific Study of Naval History', 1875-85; Professor of Modern History, 1885-90; The Navy Records Society, 1891-95; Fighting for Nelson, 1896-1900; Working to the End, 1901-15; and Laughton's Unfinished Naval History of England. They show how Laughton, in a career extending from the Crimean War to the First World War, advanced naval history as a fundamental intellectual resource for two great navies and laid the foundations for its present place at the heart of the historical profession.