There are Riots, and there are Riots

One hundred years ago next weekend, two innocent men were shot dead by soldiers during rioting in my home town of Llanelli. John John, aged 21, and Leonard Worsell (the latter a Londoner, on a break from his TB sanatorium), had been merely watching the tussle on the main railway line through the town between striking railway workers and their allies on the one hand, and on the other, soldiers of the Worcestershire Regiment commanded by Major Brownlow Stuart. While attempting to escort a train past the strikers, the soldiers were attacked with stones. Stuart evidently panicked, getting a local magistrate to read the Riot Act - the last time this was ever done in Great Britain - before ordering his troops to fire. These tragic events are being commemorated in Llanelli by a three-day long series of events, including a march to the cemetery where the two men are buried; I'll be attending the unveiling of a plaque by John Edwards, the outstanding local historian who has written the definitive history of the riots. The railway shootings remain very much a cause celebre for the left, some of whom look back on the period 1910-14 as something of a golden age of organised socialist militancy.

Obviously, the anniversary has been given even greater relevance by last week's chaotic scenes in English cities. But to call both events 'riots' reveals the problems caused by employing that all-embracing word. The Llanelli 'rioters' were, in most cases, skilled workmen forced into action by nearly intolerable working conditions (such as weeks of 72 hours plus). They were organised, with a strong sense of communal solidarity; many were well educated and genuinely motivated by socialist principles. Contrast that with the scenes in Tottenham, Croydon, Salford etc: forget deep-rooted social causes, this was simply opportunistic criminality by feral pondlife, nothing more, nothing less. But perhaps the example of Llanelli should also give pause to those who called for the army to be sent in, and who no doubt will do so again if and when the next set of similar disturbances take place. Soldiers have guns, and are trained to fire them; the law of averages dictates that some will be more trigger-happy than others; and unfortunately, there is always the risk of a Major Brownlow Stuart and some innocent bystanders being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Today I'm launching a second, and much more regular, blog - Gentlemen and Tarpaulins, which will deal exclusively with my writing and with 17th century naval history. View From the Lair will stay 'live', and I'll post on it from time to time whenever I want to comment on other matters.

Enter the Dragon

I'm delighted to be able to confirm that The History Press has commissioned my latest non-fiction project, Britannia's Dragon: A Naval History of Wales. This will be the first book ever to focus on the long history of connections between Wales and the Royal Navy, as well as on naval warfare in the era of the independent princes. English seapower was one of the most important factors in ending Welsh independence, and during the 16th and 17th centuries the Welsh developed a formidable reputation as pirates and buccaneers. However, the main focus of the book will be the contribution made by Wales and Welshmen to the development of the Royal Navy from the 17th to the 21st centuries, looking at the careers of Welsh sailors and officers, the nature and success of recruitment in the country, the experiences of Welshmen in naval service, and the activities of warships with strong ties to Wales - such as HMS Glamorgan in the Falklands War and HMS Cardiff in the Gulf War. The Battle of the Nile might not have been such a great victory for Nelson without the input of a Welshman; the Battle of Jutland really might have won or lost World War One in an afternoon were it not for the actions of another Welshman. Without Welsh copper, it is doubtful whether 'Nelson's Navy' would have been as successful as it was; without Welsh coal, the Victorian navy probably could not have imposed the 'Pax Britannica'. The book will also look at the history of Wales's only royal dockyard, Pembroke Dock, and at the ships built there (including many royal yachts); and it will also include a study of the naval shipwrecks of the Welsh coast.


I'm really looking forward to working with the team at the History Press on this. I actually began research on Britannia's Dragon some time before its commissioning was confirmed; indeed, in some senses I began work on it when I was eight and saw HMS Seraph, of 'the man who never was' fame, being broken up at Briton Ferry! As part of the research for it, I'll be visiting all of the county record offices in Wales (Carmarthenshire, Flintshire and Denbighshire already 'ticked off') and making use of all the major repositories in London (again, a very large amount of material already examined). But I also want to call on the collective memories of those in or from Wales who served in or otherwise had experience of the Royal Navy, and will be announcing the means of doing this in due course. 


The research and writing for Britannia's Dragon should dovetail neatly with my current writing schedule for the Quinton journals, and also with the entry into service of HMS Dragon, the splendid new Type 45 destroyer which will have strong links with the Principality. Mae'r ddraig yn deffro! 






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A Wing and a Bear

A very jolly evening at Greenwich for the reception opening the first exhibition at the Sammy Ofer wing, the National Maritime Museum's new showpiece extension for the 21st century (with not a little focus on the Olympics, as demonstrated by the equestrian test event marquees littering the park opposite). The wing is named after an Israeli shipping magnate, ex-Royal Navy matelot and generous philanthropist who unfortunately died just a month before the opening that his largesse had made possible. A large audience consumed champagne (plenty), canapes (minimal) and listened to some brief and entertaining speeches, notably from Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Media, Olympics, Sport and Dubious Antipodean Media Moguls, who by his own admission was hugely relieved to be doing something so pleasant and non-controversial for a change. There was also confirmation of the new collective name for the Maritime Museum, Royal Observatory and Queen's House, namely the Royal Museums, Greenwich - a story first broken, albeit with a slightly different form of words, on this blog much earlier in the year. 

We then had ample opportunity to explore the new building, and first things first - as a piece of architecture, it's stunning. A brilliant piece of design has created a part-sunken structure that preserves the integrity of the original buildings behind while also making a bold statement of its own, and yours truly was particularly pleased to see that the statue of King William IV, Britain's most avowedly naval monarch, which spent many years in an obscure locked garden, has been given pride of place in the approach to the new entrance. The interior of the new entrance space is light and spacious, and leads into a fascinating introductory exhibition on the centrality of the maritime element to British life that has a significantly greater proportion of naval material than has sometimes been the case in this museum in the last twenty or so years.

As soon as we were able, certain of us made directly for the new Caird Library on the first floor. I have to declare an interest here: I was on the panel of stakeholders which advised on its design. And it has to be said that it has huge plusses, notably a clear separation (aka a glass wall) between groups of chatty amateur genealogists and serious individual researchers, rather more spaces than were available in the old Caird, and above all, having a much greater amount of important archival research material held actually in the building rather than outhoused. Unfortunately, at the moment it has the appearance (and smell) of a brand new hospital ward; it will need some imaginative deployment of pictures on the ample wall space to liven it up and make it feel more homely. Moreover, the functional long tables and plastic chairs bear a distinctly uncomfortable resemblance to some of the less atmospheric classrooms in which I taught, and there are clearly aspects of the internal layout that will have to be fine-tuned - notably the reservation of all the best desks for Caird fellows and research staff of the museum (thereby suggesting implicitly, or perhaps even explicitly, that what the rest of us are doing is far less important), as well as the selection of open-shelf materials. As a very distinguished naval historian remarked with some horror, The Mariner's Mirror (one of the most essential tools for any maritime researcher) isn't on open shelves, while to this observer, it seemed somewhat perverse that the Navy Records Society volumes should fill up all the space to the end of the top shelf of a bookcase, with the rest of the case occupied by other books - despite the fact that, as the library staff must know full well, the society publishes three volumes in every two years, and that additional shelf space will therefore need to be found on this particular bookcase by October of this year at the latest.

But enough of a researcher's gripes, which will doubtless be resolved by patience and good humour on all sides. The focus of the event was meant to be the exhibition 'High Arctic', which is a piece of installation art. I intend to say very little about this, as I am to modern art what King Herod was to mother-and-toddler groups, and I always thought 'installation' was what one did with kitchen units. Suffice it to say that I'm still trying to work out what the word 'Southamptonbreen', on top of one of hundreds of white columns with similarly cryptic slogans and readable only by means of the little ultra-violet torches handed out on entry to the gallery, actually means. (As an ex-teacher, I can only imagine what fun entire legions of little darlings will have in disobeying the injunctions not to point these torches into people's eyes.)

Let's look on the bright side, though; at least the exhibition has provided an excuse for the museum's splendid new shop to stock some adorable toy polar bears.