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Preface

In general, collectors of historical warship photographs and naval enthusiasts and historians are a pretty mixed group of people. They come from all walks of life and range from motor mechanics to Members of Parliament; for some strange reason there is usually a heavy sprinkling of doctors and solicitors. But what starts a person’s enthusiasm off? Be it serious research or gathering collectables on yesterday’s navies, it is an enthusiasm that usually turns into an obsession (in the nicest possible way). The reasons are many, but in most cases cannot be explained very easily. At the turn of the century, it was not at all common for anyone other than naval personnel to gather ships’ statistics or indeed collect photographs of warships. In fact, other than a few resident photographers such as West, Hopkins, Cribb, Long and Symonds, who sold their photographs commercially, pictures of many warships of the day were extremely difficult to procure.

Dr Oscar Parkes in his Mediterranean outfit during his service in the Navy at the Dardanelles campaign, 1915.

One of the more notable characters of the time was F.T.Jane, a journalist and correspondent during the Boer War, who turned his attention toward warship design and construction. He became deeply involved in naval affairs, and one could read his biting remarks in most of the naval periodicals as well as in the daily newspapers. His brainchild was, of course, that now famous album All the World’s Fighting Ships, which appeared for the first time in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Throughout the initial preparation for the book, Jane was involved in making a series of small sketches of all major warships then in existence, and for help he turned to one of the more notable photograph collectors of the day, W. A. Beiber, who in turn was kind enough to lend Jane scores and scores of rare prints for reference. It took Jane eighteen months to complete the work and, in his own words, ‘it nearly gave me brain fever’. The book was to become more popular with both the Service and the public than any major naval reference work previously published.

There were no photographs in that first edition, nor indeed for the next few years, but for the 1903 edition it was found possible to include a few ‘real’ views. This was very well received, and it was only a matter of time before the annual featured photographs for the majority of ships within its pages. To supply the increase in views needed, naval photographers were suddenly in great demand: and names such as Cribb, Seward, Bekan, Abrahams, Cozens, Gregory, Hopkins and Symonds were soon familiar to the ever-growing number of warship enthusiasts. In short, Jane’s famous annual went a long way to encourage many to start becoming involved in naval matters.

Arrival of the dreadnoughts within the British Fleet. Anchored here at Scapa Flow, Dreadnought and Bellerophon lie alongside the pre-dreadnoughts Implacable, Lord Nelson, Irresistible and Bulwark.

Inflexible leads units of the pre-dreadnought King Edward VII class during manoeuvres in 1909.

One of the greatest warship historians of the twentieth century was soon to become actively involved with Jane; and Dr Oscar Parkes, who was deeply concerned in naval affairs, showed an enthusiasm found in few people. One can do no better than relate his own jottings on how he became a collector and enthusiast:

‘How long have you been interested in warships?’ is a common enough question between ship lovers, usually to be met with a full account of how the interest came about. My own goes back to a very early age – in fact, as far back as memory can reach, and that is to an infant’s high folding chair. This, when broken, provided a play table upon which was displayed strange composite pictures flanked on each side by a row of large coloured wooden beads on a rod. These latter may have helped in teaching one to count; to the former I owe my love of ships and locomotives because it displayed both warships and a train. Of the train I remember nothing except that it ‘symbolised’ the real thing which sometimes could be seen from my pram when one of our several ‘walks’ took us across the bridge below which ran the branch L&NWR line. But the ship! she was indeed a strange misshapen thing, which afterwards I knew to be the Devastation – and in the middle of the eighties she and her sister Thunderer were still regarded by the man in the street as the symbols of Britain’s greatness afloat.

With attention focused upon engine and ship every day, it did not require any family or environmental background to germinate a ship or engine lover with the desire to see a real ship as I had already seen a real engine. But it was to be some years before that wish was satisfied, and in the meantime I had to be content with ship pictures. And here may I add that throughout boyhood, until well into the nineteen hundreds, none of my friends had the least interest in ships; never once did I have the opportunity to ‘talk ship’. It was without the help of periodicals, societies, picture postcards and recognition books, which are so familiar to the enthusiast today – thus it was a lonely hobby.

Hence, while the engine love could be satisfied by the nearby railways, the ship side was more difficult. Even if I did demand pictures, none were forthcoming – we never took in any paper which showed them; and so my memories of those early years must be confined to the isolated occasions when special pictures and naval occasions served to keep interest alive until a wider field discovered in the local library provided what was necessary to develop that side of life which was to mean so much. The Naval Annual came to notice, and they were sporting a range of Brassey’s on their shelves. I felt a wonderful storehouse had been opened, but unfortunately these were in the reference library and could not be taken away, so much of my spare time as could be managed was spent trying to understand the plans and reading about new ships. The many pages giving details of the world’s fighting ships delighted me, but at the age of ten I was not tempted into becoming a compiler of lists by copying out sections of Brassey’s. About this time, Newnes had brought out The Army and Navy Illustrated, a fine glossy sixpenny-worth, half of which was devoted to the Navy. It raised a new standard in photograph reproduction, which has never been surpassed, and we got splendid pictures of the naval manoeuvres, visits to dockyards, and big shipbuilding establishments with photos of their famous productions, accounts of past naval battles, mostly illustrated by Chas de Lacy, and portraits of our leading commanding officers, as well as every new ship. One grudged space to life and scenes on board of the ‘cooks of the galley’ sort, and especially when a whole page was taken up by ‘Jack Ashore’ – kissing a nursemaid or wheeling a pram. Presumably the Editor, Commander C. N. Robinson, considered such sentimental relief held some publicity value – sailors were not always at sea – but I know they evoked my youthful scorn.

Special numbers showing the Channel, Mediterranean and Reserve Fleets were almost too good to be true, and in years to come were in much demand. A special delight was a magnificent view of the battleship Benbow, then port guard ship at Greenock, showing her 110-ton gun elevated in silent menace, and Symonds’ well-known view of the Devastation passing the old training ship St Vincent at Portsmouth. The joyous excitements from those special issues were very rarely surpassed.

It was during afternoon school at Berkhamsted that my father came into the classroom and announced that he was taking my brother and myself to see the Naval Review at Spithead. The form master thought it only proper to ask the Headmaster for permission, and so I proceeded toward the VII Form, where the formidable grey-bearded Dr Fry was instructing, to make my request. ‘Certainly not!’ he thundered (or seemed to), ‘I won’t have the term interrupted in such a manner. Go tell your Father that if every boy’s parent did the same the School would be emptied. Off you go.’ ‘Rubbish, of course you can. Come along and get your things packed,’ and without anymore ado we went and got Matron to make us parcels of what was wanted, and I had the rare delight of leaving school in mid-term with wonderful prospects ahead – my brother, because we should see thousands of different soldiers during the processions, and myself anticipated the supreme joy of seeing real warships for the first time.

King George V and Marlborough in attendance at the Fleet Review for HM King George V in July 1914.

Oscar Parkes went on to see active service with the Royal Navy in the First World War, and when demobilized in 1919 became the Editor of Jane’s All the World’s Fighting Ships and later Director of Naval Photographs at the Imperial War Museum. Dr Parkes, who wrote profoundly on naval affairs for many years, was considered to be the most knowledgeable person on warships throughout the whole of the British Empire. Every warship enthusiast and collector of today owes much to Dr Parkes and F. T. Jane – and that certainly includes the author of this book, who became deeply interested in the Royal Navy’s battleships after reading Parkes’s famous book British Battleships, published in 1957, as well as the Jane’s annuals when visiting the local library. Being primarily interested in battleships and battlecruisers, I noticed that, apart from a few publications currently available, the subject was not that well treated, and this applied in particular to the 1906–18 period. For many years I have anticipated putting this situation in order, and with the publication of this book comes an ambition fulfilled. I hope it will not only fill a gap in naval literature but will give as much pleasure to the reader as it has given to me while writing it.

R. A. Burt