NavList:

While corresponding wiith Frank on another subject it became apparant to me that I should help get the message count up and hopefully generate some discussion. While typing a post to Frank my wife presented me with a package that had just been delivered by a courier. It was the 1914 edition of the Admiralty Manual of Navigation. I have recently posted a message about S M Burton Master Mariner so maybe the ADMN also  dseerves some comment.

In 1914 the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty decided that a standard work on navigation was required. The result was the Admiralty Manual of Navigation. The following books were superceded and were to be destroyed:

     Notes bearing on the Navigation of HM Ships.

     Handbook of Pilotage.

In 1964 the Ministry of Defence subsumed the Admiralty. For the purposes of collecting the manual I consider anything from 1914 to 1964 to be valid. Post 1964 I think that the manual has had various names  but I do not find the details particularly interesting.

The manual comes in one volume, two volume or three volume sets. Some years there was a fourth volume dealing with the performance of HM ships. This volume was not available to the public.

1928 was a two volume set. It was bound incorrectly and one volume contains signatures from the other volume. Very confusing trying to read it.

Various authors were consulted during the writing of the 1914 manual. Here are some of them :

Bowditch

Brent

Sir William Thomson

Raper

Cauvenet

Lecky

G H Darwin (fifth son of Charles Darwin)

This demonstrates that the ADMN probably summarised existing knowledge. rather than creating new knowledge.

In the early years there were editions in 1914,  1922,  1928, 1938. Off the top of my head I cannot give you the editions from the 1940s to 1964. I commented in another thread that  the 1938 edition is the easiest to find a copy of. I suspect due to the number of copies printed during the war.

That is all for now.

David C

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