All members of the Hakluyt Society are invited to contribute to this page. Please let us know about any recent activities, appointments, awards, or books published, that you think might be of interest to other members and to the Society in general. Contributions should be sent to the website's editor, Ray Howgego, at
Society membership across three generations
The editor of this website has received this interesting note from member Geoff Sheddick, reproduced here with his permission:
My maternal grandfather, Ernest M. Mellor, probably joined the Society in 1922, because, although his collection includes a few notable volumes prior to that date, the run of the collection starts with vol. 52, issued for 1922. When he died in 1961, his widow gave my late father, [Professor] Vernon G. Sheddick, the price of the subscription as a Christmas present, and my father remained a member until his death in 1991. Following my father's death in 1991, I in turn joined the society, and have continued the collection. My grandfather's interest in the Society probably stemmed from his love of travel. Although his father was a victorian Stationmaster in Staffordshire, my grandfather trained as a chemist in Italy before the First World War, before setting up his own pharmacy back in England. This business gave him the wherewithal to holiday in Europe with his wife and daughters in the interwar years. I like to think that perhaps "The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe" enhanced his appreciation of some of the places that he visited!
[Ernest Mellor joined the Society in 1923 -- ed.]
New books by members of the Society
Members of the Society will be interested in a new book by John Robson, the Society's representative in New Zealand and an acclaimed authority on the life and voyages of James Cook. Titled Captain Cook’s War and Peace: the Royal Navy Years, 1755-1768, the book focuses on the Cook's early years with the Royal Navy during which he acquired the skills as a surveyor, astronomer and cartographer which would so admirably qualify him for leadership of the Endeavour expedition. The book will be available from Seaforth Publishing in the UK, UNSW Press in Australia, and the US Naval Institute Press in North America. Further details are published on their websites.
It is now 135 years since Albert Tootal and Richard Burton produced their Hakluyt Society annotated translation of the True History of the captivity of Hans Staden of Hesse, and 81 years since the Routledge translation of Malcolm Letts. Readers will therefore be interested to hear of a new definitive edition of this landmark anthropological work, co-authored by Society member Neil L. Whitehead, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, and Michael Harbsmeier, Associate Professor of History at Roskilde University in Denmark. Titled Hans Staden's True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil, the book is published in both cloth and paperback formats and is available from Duke University Press, Durham & London. For details please go to the publisher's website and copy the title into the search box.
Captain M. K. Barritt RN, a Vice President of the Society, has published Eyes of the Admiralty: J.T Serres, an artist with the Channel Fleet, 1799-1800, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2008. The book recounts the origins and progress of the artist’s appointment by the Admiralty to record the environs of Brest and other ports around the Biscay coasts of France and Spain. Many of his fine water-colour views are reproduced. They include vignettes of the ships of the inshore squadrons during the close blockade maintained by the Channel Fleet under the rigorous command of Admiral St Vincent. The coastal panoramas from Bayonne to Cape Finisterre are particularly fine. The challenges of coastal navigation in the period are explained, the co-operation between artist and navigation teams in the frigates La Nymphe and Clyde is described, and the resultant hydrographic products are analysed.
Captain Barritt is now writing a second book describing the front-line surveying activity of the Royal Navy in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and the consequent emergence of a specialist surveying service. He welcomes information on any manuscript material or early charts arising from RN surveys of the period which may be in private collections of members of the Hakluyt Society.
Raymond John Howgego, the editor of this site, at the insistence of the President, notes the publication of the fourth and final volume of his massive prime resource for all interested in the history of exploration of all periods and places: Encyclopedia of Exploration (Hordern House, Sydney, 2003-2008). The four volumes, which comprise one of the largest unaided single-author works in the English language, include over 4500 articles in approximately 3660 pages, some 3.7 million words. For further details see www.explorersencyclopedia.com
Ray Howgego's The Book of Exploration, a more modestly priced, lavishly illustrated popular history of exploration, was published simultaneously in August 2009 by Weidenfeld & Nicholson (Orion Books) in the UK and Bloomsbury (Walker Publishing) in the USA, and is available from online booksellers and local bookstores throughout the world. A German translation is in preparation (Primus Verlag) and should be available in September 2010. In addition, Ray has recently completed a biography of the prolific lady traveller Gertrude Benham. Titled A very quiet and harmless traveller: Gertrude Emily Benham 1867-1938, it was published by the Plymouth Museum in July 2009 and is available from the museum's bookshop.
Ray is currently Consultant Editor for the forthcoming Illustrated Atlas of Exploration, to be published by Weldon Owen, Sydney, Australia, and in his spare time is working on a definitive annotated bibliography of invented, imaginary and apocryphal voyages to be published by Hordern House as the fifth volume of the Encyclopedia. He has also contributed a number of articles on 'missing explorers' to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Obituary: Anthony John Farrington (1939-2008), archivist, historian and writer.
Anthony Farrington was born on 9 March 1939 in Chester. After reading history at University College London 1957-1961, he returned to his home town to work at the Cheshire Record Office 1962-1964. He then joined the India Office Library and Records, which was part of the Commonwealth Relations Office (later Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and subsequently British Library). He spent the rest of his career working on the archives of the English East India Company and its successors, and served as Head of the India Office Collections and Deputy Director at the British Library from 1989 until his retirement in 1999. For the last nine years of his life, he continued to work with the India Office Records as an independent archivist and editor. He died after a long illness on 5 September 2008.
Tony served on the Council of the Hakluyt Society from 1992 to 1996, and in 1992 delivered the Annual Lecture ‘The English in Japan 1613-1623’. His many and varied publications include Sir William Foster 1863-1951: a bibliography (London, 1972); The English Factory in Japan 1613-1623 (London, 1991); The English Factory in Taiwan 1670-1685 (Taipei, 1995); Catalogue of the East India Company ships’ journals and logs 1600-1834 (London, 1999); A biographical index of the East India Company Maritime Service officers 1600-1834 (London, 1999); The English Factory in Siam 1612-1685 (London, 2007). He was also the creator of numerous detailed archival catalogues which opened up large areas of the India Office Records to researchers, and curator of a major British Library exhibition ‘Trading Places’ in 2002.
Anthony Farrington will be remembered not only for his scholarship but also for his ebullient personality, charm, and joie de vivre. He was always willing to impart his extensive knowledge to anyone who shared his passion for the historical materials in the India Office Records, and his work will remain an inspiration to those who seek to follow in his footsteps. [Margaret Makepeace]
Awards recently received by members of the Society
On 17 September 2008 our President, Professor Will Ryan, was awarded the degree of doctor honoris causa by the Russian Academy of Sciences for his contributions to Russian history and philology. The presentation was made by Academician A. P. Derevianko at the Academy of Sciences, Moscow.
For his work in recording the life of the indigenous peoples of South America in a series of outstanding books Dr John Hemming CBE has been awarded Peru's highest civil honour - the Gran Cruz de la Orden al Mérito por Servicios Distinguidos.
For his services in navigational matters relating to leisure sailing our Honorary Treasurer, David Darbyshire, becomes a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation.
In 2006 World Hydrography Day was inaugurated in the UN calendar on 21 June. To mark the event in this country, the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office established the Alexander Dalrymple Award, named after the first Hydrographer, to be awarded annually to someone who had made an outstanding contribution to world hydrography. The first recipient, to huge acclaim, was Hakluyt Society member, Rear Admiral Steve Ritchie, Hydrographer of the Navy (1966-1971), President of the Directing Committee of the International Hydrographic Organisation (1972-1982) and distinguished author. In 2007 Captain Mike Barritt RN, a Vice-president of the Society who contributed to IHO capacity building work during the period 2003-2007, was especially delighted to be selected to follow in his footsteps.
