Introduction

Persona Naval Press is a small, new initiative designed to bring hitherto unpublished accounts and memoirs of Royal Navy officers in the later Victorian and Edwardian Navy into the public arena.

Persona Naval Press is pleased to announce its first production: A Naval Life: The Edited Diaries and Papers of Admiral John Locke Marx, 1852 - 1939. More information on this book
Edited by Mary Jones and published by Persona Press, Brushford, January 2007. Read reviews

Buy the Book

A Naval Life can be bought from the publisher at Bridge House, Brushford, Dulverton, Somerset.
Click here for details on buying 'A Naval Life'.

Forthcoming Books

A Life Cut Short, the edited letters of Lieutenant Ralph Clayton, 1882 - 1916.

Does anybody know what happened to this?

An item concerning a lost purse/spectacle case in the papers of the May archive currently held by Mary Jones. See documents

For those who may be interested, Sir William May's Sledge Journal for the Nares' Arctic Expedition of 1875 - 6 will shortly be posted on this site. For his part in this expedition May was promoted Commander over the heads of 60 Lieutenants.

Nomination Database

Click here to read an article about nomination and patronage which serves as a useful introduction to the sociological and genealogical background of Victorian officers. It also serves as an introduction to the Nomination Database which is available at the end of the article.

Can you help?

An intriguing question: Who painted the pictures? Can anyone help?
I have recently come across the log book of Midshipman John Warde Osborne, who was on the Flying Squadron Voyage of HMS Topaze to the Pacific from 1866 - 1869. Read more

Articles

Marjorie Rear has now written the concluding articles about Captain Charles Barker (1811 -1860). They detail his involvement in the Peruvian revolution, the latest hostilities in China and diplomatic negotiations with Japan.

PAX BRITANNICA: (2) Patrolling the Seas - At last in command of his own ship, the ten years between 1849 and 1856 show Charles Barker carrying out naval duties, first, in the Straits of Malacca and, then, off the west coast of South America, in what one might call the “workaday” peacekeeping role of the Royal Navy. Read this article

Free Trade in the Far East - In the final stages of his career Charles Barker found himself involved in the latest hostilities with China and with diplomatic negotiations with Japan. Read this article