Maritime

Sam Willis welcomes the campaign to erect a statue of Admiral Benbow in Shrewsbury, but argues that we have a responsibility to explore and understand every part of this complex character.

Colin Greenstreet describes a new collaboration to transcribe and enhance 17th-century records of the High Court of Admiralty.

David Waller on the 150th anniversary of a ship that symbolised Liverpool’s ties to the Confederate states during the American Civil War.

Christopher Winn recalls the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and other mysterious drownings.

For a century the sinking of the Titanic has attracted intense interest. Yet there have been many vested interests keen to prevent media attention.

Nigel Richardson describes the impact of the Titanic disaster on Southampton, the city from which she sailed and home to more than a third of those who lost their lives when the ship went down on April 15th, 1912.

Richard Challoner unearths a letter, written in support of a widow and her children, which is revealing of a humanitarian aspect of Lord Nelson.

A series of archaeological discoveries off the coast of Sicily reveal how Rome turned a piece of lethal naval technology pioneered by its enemy, Carthage, to its own advantage, explains Ann Natanson.

With the chance of renewed political will to fund the Navy, possibly to the detriment of the Army, Nick Hewitt wonders if British defence policy is reverting to type.

The fortunes of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II and the regard in which their successive regimes came to be held were mirrored in the fate of one of their mightiest naval vessels, as Patrick Little explains.