Admiral Edward Vernon’s capture of Porto Bello, a Spanish stronghold in the Caribbean, was met with enthusiastic celebration when the news arrived in Britain in early 1740. With just six ships, he had struck a dramatic blow to restore British honor and protect British trade. The response to Vernon’s victory was widespread and varied: public rallies, verse, sermons of thanksgiving, annual celebrations of Vernon’s birthday, and a diverse material culture. The capture itself accomplished little and the campaign’s small gains were entirely erased by Vernon’s failures at Cartagena in 1740-41, yet Vernon continued to be celebrated by the British public. It seems surprising that Vernon excited so much popularity and lasting commemoration during the period in which his short-lived successes and catastrophic failures were most obvious and consequential. To explain Vernon’s extraordinary and enduring popularity, this thesis employs a variety of primary sources viewed through the lenses of national identity and gender to argue that Vernon assumed lasting political and cultural importance because his admirers interpreted broader meanings from his actions and character. Celebrating Vernon gave Britons a way to articulate what Britishness meant to them, and what they believed it should mean for others. In chapter 1, I argue that the parliamentary opposition skillfully employed celebration of Vernon after his capture of Porto Bello in 1739 to argue for ministerial change. In chapter 2, I argue that Vernon enjoyed continued popularity in the 1740s in spite of his failures because his supporters argued that he embodied the “publick spirit” of the mercantile empire and aggressive masculinity that many believed had been lacking in public figures of the 1730s. Whatever his real successes or failures, Admiral Vernon became an important rhetorical tool for those who sought to imbue British politics and culture with the “national” values of the mercantile empire, aggressive foreign policy, and bold masculinity that many believed represented the way forward in a period of change and growing imperial challenges.

This study explores the role of the Royal Navy's North American squadron in protecting Britain's colonies and trade in North America from 1847 to 1815. The squadron had its origins in the war of 1739--48, when it became clear that a fleet based on the eastern Atlantic or the West Indies could not adequately support operations in the North American theatre. The British naval establishment, however, even when North America was the principle theatre of war, never developed as strong an attachment to the North American squadron as it did to its fleets in the West Indies or other theatres. It was, with a few notable exceptions, generally treated as one of the lesser commands of the Royal Navy, and rarely received more than secondary consideration from the Admiralty. This was especially true during the Napoleonic Wars, in which the North American station was viewed a one of the 'quiet' stations, especially when compared to the more active stations in the West Indies. / England's main priority was in defeating France, and she was willing to achieve this at the expense of antagonizing the United States, leading to an unnecessary war with them in 1812. Yet even when faced with a new war in North America, the needs of the squadron were considered of secondary importance to the war in Europe, and several months passed before sizable reinforcements were sent to the North American theatre. Even when the war in Europe ended in 1814, the British leaders continued to treat North America as a secondary theatre. Their efforts to gain victory were at best half-hearted, and the government was more interested in demobilizing the navy to cut costs than in defeating the United States. / The War of 1812 brought little glory to England or the Royal Navy, and there was much criticism in the way the conflict was fought after the war. The inability of England's leaders to correctly read the situation in the United States or to understand the American threat led them to send forces inadequate to wage more than a limited war in North America. Despite this, the performance of the North American Squadron in this period was far more commendable than has generally been acknowledged, especially in light of the handicaps set upon it. This work will give a detailed description of the operations of the squadron, to give a better understanding of its role in this period.

Horatio Lord Nelson, Britain's most famous naval figure, revolutionized what victory meant to the British Royal Navy and the British populace at the turn of the nineteenth century. But his legacy continued after his death in 1805, and a century after his untimely passing Nelson meant as much or more to Britain than he did during his lifetime. This thesis utilizes primary sources from the British Royal Navy and the general British public to explore what the cultural memory of Horatio Nelson's life and achievements meant to Britain throughout the Edwardian era and to the dawn of the First World War. An introductory literature review provides a thorough explanation of how Nelson's legacy has been perceived by past historians and how this legacy will be examined throughout the thesis. The manner in which Nelson was viewed by both his naval contemporaries and the general British public during his lifetime is then surveyed, with a specific focus on the outpouring of national grief that followed Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. A major portion of the thesis explores how Nelson's legacy developed throughout the century following his death. Separate studies of Nelson's professional memory among his Royal Navy successors and his cultural memory in British society as it became ever more focused on naval concerns follow; these take the thesis chronologically up through the final decades of the nineteenth century and are then combined in a discussion of the degree to which Nelson's legacy permeated all Britons, regardless of profession, in the early years of the twentieth century. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the impact Nelson's legacy had on Britain during the early months of the First World War and a broader analysis of how the cultural and professional memory of Horatio Nelson's naval achievements in 1805 created an atmosphere in which a naval victory decisive enough to satisfy all aspects of British society was impossible in 1914.

Note: / This study explores the role of the Royal Na'vy's North American Squadron in protecting Britain' s colonies and trade in North America from 1807 to 1815. The squadron had its origins in the war of 1739-48, when it became clear that a fleet based on the eastem Atlantic or the West Indies could not adequately support operations in the North American theatre. The British naval establishment, however, even when North America was the principle theatre of war, never developed as strong an attachment to the North American Squadron as it did to its fleets in the West Indies or other theatres. It was, with a few notable exceptions, generally treated as one of the lesser commands of the Royal Navy, and rarely received more than secondary consideration from the Admiralty. This was especially true during the Napoleonic Wars, in which the North American station was viewed a one of the 'quiet' stations, especially when compared to the more active stations in the West Indies. / Notre étude trace le role de la marine britannique en Amérique du Nord entre 1807 et 1815. L'origine de la flotte remonte à la guerre de 1739-48, quand c'était devenu évident que les flottes dans le secteur de l'est Atlantique ou dans les Antilles n'étaient pas capables de supporter des opérations en Amérique du Nord. Mais cette flotte était rarement considérée comme une des flottes importantes dans la marine britannique. Ceci était le cas durant la guerre contre Napoléon, quand la flotte américaine protégeait un secteur perçu comme tranquille comparativement à la flotte antillaise, elle plus active.

The Laird rams, built from 1862-1865, reflected concepts of naval power in transition from the broadside of multiple guns, to the rotating turret with only a few very heavy pieces of ordnance. These two ironclads were experiments built around the two new offensive concepts for armoured warships at that time: the ram and the turret. These sister armourclads were a collection of innovative designs and compromises packed into smaller spaces. A result of the design leap forward was they suffered from too much, too soon, in too limited a hull area. The turret ships were designed and built rapidly for a Confederate Navy desperate for effective warships. As a result of this urgency, the pair of twin turreted armoured rams began as experimental warships and continued in that mode for the next thirty five years. They were armoured ships built in secrecy, then floated on the Mersey under the gaze of international scrutiny and suddenly purchased by Britain to avoid a war with the United States. Once purchased, they were largely forgotten. Historians rarely mention these two sister ironclads and if mentioned at all, they are given short shrift. Built with funds obtained in part through the Confederate Erlanger loan, these ironclads were constructed at Lairds shipyard in Birkenhead and represented an advanced concept of ironclad construction through new proposals involving turrets, the ram, heavy guns and tripod masts on an armoured ship, as advocated by Captain Cowper Coles, R.N. They proved too much of a leap in one design but when their roles caught up to the revised designs, the ships were modified to meet new requirements. After several mission and design changes they then performed to standard. This belated success occurred when the concept of the ideal armoured warship was in flux throughout the middle Victorian years.

Popular navalism in nineteenth-century Britain was a natural but not inevitable outcome of the geographical reality of an island nation possessing a large maritime empire. The long-term evolution of democracy and the rapid growth of the mass-circulation press transformed the civil-military relationship in the last decades of the century, leading to a series of naval scares. These were episodes of intense public interest and engagement in naval affairs, manifested through Parliamentary speeches, newspaper and periodical contributions and in private correspondence. Naval historians have emphasized technological and strategic narratives in the modernization of the Royal Navy, and in the process neglected the dramatic political struggles in 1884–94 that provided the vital precondition for naval reform and expansion — money. The relevant question is not whether the naval scares were objectively justified, but how public discourses were employed by individuals and interest groups to transform the naval political economy by creating a ‘blue-water’ strategic common sense that would support the creation of ocean-going battlefleets designed to win and maintain ‘command of the sea.’ A triangular relationship between the Government, the navy and the public, connected largely through the press, rapidly evolved over the course of three naval scares, in 1884, 1888 and 1893. A pro-navy political equilibrium was constructed that raised peacetime naval expenditure to unprecedented heights and laid the foundations for the more widely known reforms of the twentieth-century ‘Fisher Era.’ / Graduate / 2018-08-21