The Mariner's Mirror Podcast

By The Society for Nautical Research and the Lloyds Register FoundationSociety & Culture Education History

The Mariner's Mirror Podcast episodes

February 08, 2021 The Most Important Book in Maritime History? Lloyd's Register
Dr Sam Willis speaks with Charlotte Ward to explore the remarkable history of Lloyd's Register, perhaps the most influential book for the maritime world ever to be published. It all begins in a coffee house run by Edward Lloyd, and a book, called the Register of Ships, first published in 1764, to give underwriters and merchants an idea of the condition of the vessels they insured and chartered. Maritime history from that moment on was fundamentally changed, particularly in relation to safety at sea. The Lloyd's Register Foundation now curates an immense archive of material relating to global maritime history.

But we begin this episode as ever by catching up on our sailors on the whaleship swan of Hull, trapped in the ice off the west coast of Greenland in the new year of 1837. Each week we have been reading a little from their logbook – which is now kept in the archives of the national maritime Museum in London. They have been trapped now for almost four months. Life has been terrifying and they are entering a period of intense cold. Even the most minor of events is a major occurrence for these men perched on the cliff edge of their existence.
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34 min
January 27, 2021 Trafalgar Battle Surgeon: William Beatty
In this special episode Dr Sam Willis explores the life of William Beatty, the surgeon on HMS Victory who tended Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. Beatty's life prior to Trafalgar is examined and his work put into context with primary sources that illustrate the life and work of naval surgeons in the age of sail, in their own words. This episode is designed to provide historic context for our previous episode, an interview with Jo Laird, a medic in today's Royal Navy, who launched a successful crowdfunder campaign to purchase William Beatty's medicine chest and donate it to the Haslar Heritage Group.
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22 min
January 22, 2021 The Medical Chest that Belonged to Nelson's Surgeon
An early nineteenth century medicine chest with a brass plaque engraved ‘William Beatty Warranted Surgeon RN 1803’ has come into the possession of a Hampshire antiques dealer from a private collector near Bristol. Members of the Royal Navy Medical Service are aiming to crowdfund to buy it to retain a part of the RNMS history and to donate it to the Haslar Heritage Group (http://www.haslarheritagegroup.co.uk). The Haslar Heritage Group have been granted the use of the Old Medical Supplies Agency building at the site of Haslar Hospital to develop into a visitor's centre with a museum for the Royal Navy Medical and Dental Services. In this episode, Dr Sam Willis speaks to Jo Laird, one of the navy medics behind the campaign – about her role as a naval medic in today's navy, and her interest in the chest as a means of commemorating the past but also of bringing attention to the role of navy medics today in the fight against Covid. This episode will be followed soon by a special episode on William Beatty and life as a surgeon in Nelson's navy.
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21 min
January 19, 2021 The Royal Navy's Bloodiest Mutiny: Murder and Mayhem on HMS Hermione
Dr Sam Willis discusses the infamous Hermione mutiny of 1797 with the naval historian Angus Konstam. In 1797 the British frigate HMS Hermione was serving on the Jamaica Station during the French Revolutionary war. Under the sadistic and mercurial Captain Hugh Pigot the ship became a floating hell as he flogged his men and ruled his ship through terror. When the men finally mutinied it became the bloodiest in the history of the Royal Navy. Pigot and his officers were hacked to death. The mutineers then took the ship to the Spanish main - and handed the ship over to the Spanish. The ship was then recaptured in 1799 in one of the most daring and brilliantly executed operations of the Age of Sail and the Admiralty launched a relentless and worldwide manhunt for the mutineers that lasted a decade.
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33 min
January 12, 2021 The Challenges and Rewards of Maritime History
Dr Sam Willis speaks to Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto, one of the world's leading authorities on global history. A British historian with Spanish roots who writes on world history, Fernández-Armesto offers a unique and comparative perspective on the importance of the sea in national histories. They discuss the challenges and rewards of studying maritime history from an international perspective. How is the sea remembered in national memory? How important is the sea to national identities of Spain and the UK? How valuable is maritime history as a tool for investigating encounters between different cultures and race relations? What are the current problems in maritime history - is it too dominated by narratives of western seafarers? You may never think about maritime history the same way ever again....
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53 min
January 06, 2021 Africans in Tudor and Stuart Port Towns
Dr Sam Willis meets with Dr Miranda Kauffman to discuss the research that led to her prizewinning book Black Tudors – The Untold Story, and in particular to her discovery of the lives of numerous Africans living in England and Scotland's port towns during the 16th and 17th centuries. She explains how they arrived in Britain, what occupations and relationships they found in the ports and how they were treated by the church, the law courts and the other inhabitants. Their lives are a crucial part of our understanding of this age in which England made her first steps as a colonial empire and their experiences shed light on many of the leading Tudor seafarers of the time including Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Ralegh. Miranda's research into the Africans living in England in the Tudor and Stuart periods encourages us to ask wider questions about Tudor perceptions of race, religion and the ethics of enslavement and colonialism.
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34 min
December 22, 2020 Great Sea Fights: The River Plate Part 3 - Analysis
This episode finishes the first story in our new ‘Great Sea Fights’ series, exploring the fascinating story of the Battle of the River Plate, one of the most iconic battles of the Second World War. In this episode Dr Sam Willis speaks to Professor Eric Grove, author of The Price of Disobedience: The Battle of the River Plate Reconsidered who offers an analysis of the battle. Why was the Graf Spee in South America? What were the tactical advantages of the German pocket battleship? How did the smaller, faster British ships maximise their capabilities? Why was the battle so important at the time and what was its longer-term legacy?
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29 min
December 14, 2020 Great Sea Fights: The River Plate Part 2 – The Sinking of the Graf Spee
This episode continues our first story in our new 'Great Sea Fights' series, exploring the fascinating story of the battle of the River Plate, one of the most iconic battles of the Second World War. The immensely powerful and fast German pocket battleship Graf Spee was hunted by a squadron of far smaller British cruisers and found off the River Plate in South America. She never returned home. The account continues, first gathered together by the Admiralty from the official dispatches of the Royal Naval squadron in the immediate aftermath of the battle. We have reached a crucial stage in the battle: The German pocket battleship Graf Spee has been found by a hunting group of British cruisers near the River Plate in South America and battle has broken out. The engagement is evolving at immense speed. The Graf Spee is damaged, zigzagging to keep out of harm and throwing up smokescreens. One of the three British ships, HMS Exeter, is disabled and has ceased firing. The two remaining British ships are operating at full speed to close the range with the German ship.
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25 min
December 13, 2020 Great Sea Fights: The River Plate Part 1 - The Dispatches
This episode, published on the anniversary of the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December 1939, launches our Great Sea Fights series. Dr Sam Willis begins with a brief overview of seapower at the start of the Second World War before introducing the battle. An account is then read, first gathered together by the Admiralty from the official dispatches of the Royal Naval squadron in the immediate aftermath of the battle. The Battle of the River Plate was one of the most iconic battles of the Second World War. The immensely powerful and fast German pocket battleship Graf Spee was hunted by a squadron of far smaller British cruisers and found off the River Plate in South America. She never returned home.
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23 min
December 07, 2020 How to map climate change with 200 year-old ships' logbooks
One of the key aspects of maritime historical research that is helping us understand our modern world is the use of ships logbooks to understand and map climate change in various regions across the world. Today Dr Sam Willis Dr Matthew Ayre, a Climate Detective (or more officially a Historical Climatologist) at the Arctic Institute of North America. Matt uses 200 year old documents surviving from the Arctic whaling trade to look back at the Arctic climate.It's an important topic. Over the past 30 years, the Arctic has warmed at roughly twice the rate as the entire globe, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.

Ships’ logbooks are now an accepted data source in climate change studies.Matt is an expert on the particular issues surrounding logbooks from the Arctic region in what is known as the pre-instrumental period and has tackled important questions linked to this research – how, for example, can you reliably express narrative descriptions of wind, weather and sea ice in index form? An dhow then can you most effectively manage scientific analysis fo such data, which – remember -- was not recorded for such purposes. How do you digitize historical logbooks?
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39 min

About The Mariner's Mirror Podcast

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The world's No.1 podcast dedicated to all of maritime and naval history. With one foot in the present and one in the past we bring you the most exciting and interesting current maritime projects…