Nelson & His World

Does there exist anywhere a book or website that has a complete list of the ships and captains in Nelson's navy? Not just the ones present at particular battles. I'm beginning to become obsessive over every little detail of what exactly Nelson was talking about in his journals, letters etc!

Given that Nelson's career spanned the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary War and much of the Napoleonic Wars, we are of course talking about thousands of ships in the Royal Navy during that period, many of whose captains never even saw Nelson, let alone served with him. But the books you want are Rif Winfield's 'British Warships in the Age of Sail' series. The two relevant volumes are 1793-1815 and 1714-1792. These books are a result of a mammoth research project, and contain brief service histories for each ship, including captains' names, although this may not always be complete.

An earlier and much sought after book is David Lyon's 'Sailing Navy List', but while this includes the fate of each ship, it does not include service histories and captains.

<Edit: Website details deleted>

Another book that might interest you is Nicholas Tracy's 'Who's Who in Nelson's Navy' which contains biographies of 200 officers - obviously just a starter!

That's immense!

As much as I need books in my life, the Rif Winfield ones are a little out of my price range for now But that website looks amazing for what I want.

The "Who's Who..." is a much better price, though, so I'm sticking it up on my wish list.

Thanks!

I hate <edit: website name deleted> as I intensely dislike any site that takes the hard work of an author and slaps it up online for anyone to see. Will we get more books like Winfields's in future? No because there is no profit to be made.

Even without <edit: website name deleted> some idiot would scan the book and slap it up online anyway....

While it was obvious that much of the data on British ships came from Rif Winfield's books, I had assumed that the website in question had just used some basic information on ships, but having taken another look, it appears that virtually every word of the books has been transcribed onto the site, albeit in a different format to the books. Many pages on the site consist of information taken entirely from the books, with nothing else added. While you cannot copyright facts or data, this seems to me to go way beyond anything that could be considered fair use.

I now regret having recommended the site, and given that even adverse publicity may drive traffic to the site, I suggest we remove both links and all references to the name of the site from this thread. Unless there are any objections, I will go ahead and edit the thread accordingly.

Good idea! Thanks, Tony - and thanks Joss for the heads up on this. The internet is wonderful, but infringement of copyright, particularly on works of reference which are so labour intensive, is infuriating for authors; obtaining redress can be fraught with difficulties, so we must not encourage any breach of copyright.

I imagine this is how he's managed to get around copyright law – or would he actually still be liable?

I agree with you Tony, delete it. Useful information there I agree but, expensive though they are, it's surely better to buy the books and allow the author to have his due.

Unfortunately I think there are too many sites like this.

Well, I might use that site in the meantime, but I fully intend on buying the books when I have some spare pennies.

I've just now looked at the list of sources and it's huge (Rif Winfield among them). Isn't it possible that the author of the website has done their own extensive research, and there's only so many ways one could word a list of data like this?

No, he quotes the source for each item of information on a page, and for many many pages (on British ships), Rif Winfield is the only source.

Admittedly, many of the works are now old enough to be out of copywright but, as has been said, many are not. Besides Winfield, there are also works by Max Adams, Brian Lavery, Peter Goodwin, and our own Brian Vale, among them. I wonder what they think, that's if they know of the site? I find it difficult to believe he's come to some arrangement with all these authors. Perhaps we might hear something from Brian about this?

I also find it rather strange that there is no information about the compiler other than his name, Simon Harrison, which appears in very small print at the bottom of the page, and where it also says that the information is copyright to him, and that all rights are reserved. It's almost like he's trying to hide!

Vicki, sorry to have to side with the 'older' members here (I am one!), but breach of copywright can be serious – and expensive.

Oh I'm not trying to create an argument or 'sides', sorry if it seemed like that. I don't have any reason to defend the site or its author. Definitely wouldn't defend a breach of copyright, obviously. I was just interested in clarification because obviously you are all more experienced so spot these things straight away, and I'm a bit slow

No, I didn't think you were, and it didn't – and if anything, I'm probably slower than you are!