CRUISER

[HMS Berwick, Royal Navy cruiser.] Duplicated 'List of Urgent Defects', ninety-two in number, with the priority of the necessary work indicated in manuscript, compiled on the verge of the ship's decommissioning in 1946.

Author: 
[HMS Berwick, Royal Navy County class heavy cruiser, of the Kent subclass, launched 1926 and decommissioned 1946; Second World War; North Sea convoys; Norwegian campaign]
Publication details: 
No place. [Admiralty, Whitehall.] Latest reference to December 1944.
£150.00

9pp., foolscap 8vo. Duplicated carbon, printed in purple (except for Item 27, added in black), with the type breaking up heavily at points. Listing 92 numbered items, with columns for 'Departmental Serial No.' and 'Priority', the latter marked up in red pencil with 'A' (top priority), 'B' and 'C'. The list is divided into the following subsections: 'Hull & Miscellaneous', 'Auxiliary Machinery & Gunmountings', 'Electrical', 'First Fitting Stores'. The document was presumably produced as part of an assessment of whether the ship should be saved or scrapped.

1910 manuscript diary of the purser of, first, HMS Cornwall (with much golf played) and, second, SS Balmoral Castle, describing the Duke of Connaught's voyage to the Union of South Africa, to open its first Parliament on behalf of King George V.

Author: 
[Purser's diary, Royal Navy Armoured Cruiser HMS Cornwall and SS Balmoral Castle; Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn; opening of first Parliament of the Union of South Africa, 1910; golf]
Publication details: 
19 January to 28 December 1910.
£850.00

99pp., in 'Army & Navy Octavo Scribbling Diary (with a week on an opening) for 1910'. Good, on aged paper, in worn boards, with some preliminary leaves torn out, and a few childish scrawls by Irene and Pauline Knott (grandchildren of the author?) at beginning and end (not affecting text) . The author is intelligent and well-educated, pious and with a keen interest in sport, but there are few clues regarding his identity: his family is from Staines, and he trained at the Royal Naval College, Osborne. The itineraries of the two ships mentioned in this diary are as follows.

Manuscript diary of the purser of the Royal Navy Armoured Cruiser HMS Cornwall, describing Mediterranean and Baltic tours of duty (while Captain W. R. Hall was spying for Britain)

Author: 
[Purser's diary, Royal Navy Armoured Cruiser HMS Cornwall, under Captain (later Admiral Sir) William Reginald Blinker Hall (1870-1943), future Director of Naval Intelligence; golf]
Publication details: 
1 January to 17 December 1909
£380.00

Manuscript diary of the purser of the Royal Navy Armoured Cruiser HMS Cornwall, describing Mediterranean and Baltic tours of duty (while Captain W. R. Hall was spying for Britain), with descriptions of golf and other sports and recreations. 'Letts's No. 46 Indian and Colonial Rough Diary Giving Half a Page a Day. 1909'. 12mo, 161pp. Good, on aged paper, in worn boards. Diary proper consists of 210pp., with entries on three-quarters (159pp.) of them (few entries for periods of leave), preceded by two pages with lists of family birthdays and of books read.

Manuscript logbook, with diagrams, specifications and 'Diary of Way', of a First World War sailmaker in the Royal Navy's 3rd Cruiser Squadron.

Author: 
J. Ryan, AB, sailmaker [3rd Cruiser Squadron, Royal Navy; Battle of Dogger Bank, 1915]
Publication details: 
Government stamp: 'Supplied for the Public Service'. Diary entries dated from 29 July 1914 to demobilization on 31 May 1919.
£180.00

Landscape, with leaf dimensions 19 x 10.5 cm. The diary covers 48 pages at one end of the notebook, with the diagrams and specifications over 32 pp at the other end. In original sturdy brown leather binding, with brass clasp, empty wallet at front and pouch for pencil. Marbled endpapers. In good condition. Text clear and complete on lightly-aged paper. Binding worn and with split hinges. In pencil on fore-edge: 'J. RYAN.

Speech delivered in the House of Commons on the "Alabama" Question, on Friday, March 11, 1863.

Author: 
Sir Roundell Palmer, M.P., Her Majesty's Solicitor-General [the Earl of Selborne]
Publication details: 
London and Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1863. [R. Clay, Son, and Taylor, Printers, London.]
£150.00

Octavo: 28 pp. Unbound, stabbed and stitched. Slightly dogeared, on grubby, lightly-spotted paper. Loss to top right-hand corner of title-leaf (not affecting text). Marked up in ink in a contemporary hand. COPAC lists copies at the British Library, Manchester and National Library of Scotland. The 'Alabama Question' related to what indemnity should be paid by Great Britain for damage done to United States commerce by the Alabama and other confederate cruisers built in British ports.

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