X-Nico

53 unusual facts about Royal Navy


1921 in Northern Ireland

The main points of the agreement include the creation of an Irish Free State within the Commonwealth, an Oath of Allegiance to the Crown and the Royal Navy will be able to use certain Free State ports.

Anti-discrimination law

The reason given varies; for example, the British Royal Navy cite the reason for not allowing women to serve aboard submarines as medical and related to the safety of an unborn fetus, rather than that of combat effectiveness.

Army Navy Match

The Army Navy Match is the annual rugby union match played between the senior XV teams of the Royal Navy and British Army.

Basset-class trawler

Orders were placed at shipyards in Britain, Canada and India for the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Indian Navy.

Battenberg Cup

In 1905, Prince Louis of Battenberg, commanding the five ships of the Royal Navy's 2nd Cruiser Squadron, visited the United States, making port visits in New York City, Annapolis and Washington, D.C. Shortly after his return to England, Battenberg sent the cup to Rear Admiral Robley Evans who at the time commanded the US North Atlantic Fleet.

Battle of Fort Charlotte

He learned in April that additional reinforcements, including British Royal Navy vessels, had arrived at Pensacola.

Battle of Madras

Following the French decision to join the War of the Austrian Succession on the opposing side to Britain, the British despatched a Royal Navy squadron under Commodore Curtis Barnett to raid and harass French settlements in India.

Bowman Flag

It commemorates (by the motto England expects that every man will do his duty) the Royal Navy’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) a landmark event for Britain’s Australasian colonies.

Burial of Drowned Persons Acts 1808 and 1886

The passage of the 1808 act was one of the consequences of the wreck of the Royal Navy frigate HMS Anson in Mount's Bay in 1807.

Christmas on a Rational Planet

It also contains the first casual reference to the Faction Paradox, which become an important element in the BBC books Eighth Doctor Adventures and subsequent spin-off series, and an explicit explanation that the mark carried by the Third Doctor during his exile on Earth was a branding used to distinguish criminals by the Time Lords (in reality, this mark was a tattoo of a cobra that Jon Pertwee picked up while serving in the Royal Navy).

Craighead County, Arkansas

Napoleon maintained grandiose plans to establish a vast French Empire in Louisiana but the Royal Navy prevented him from transferring troops or settlers to the acquired territories.

Del Rio, Tennessee

According to family lore, Stokely was impressed into the British navy, but escaped and fought under American captain John Paul Jones.

E-class submarine

The E class of 58 submarines of the Royal Navy, built between 1912 and 1916 that served in World War I

Ferranti Argus

The 350 was used in various military simulators, including the Royal Navy for frigate, submarine and helicopter based anti-submarine training, and the Royal Air Force for a Bloodhound Mk.II simulator and the Vickers VC10 flight simulator built at Redifon and delivered to RAF Brize Norton in 1967.

Finsthwaite Heights

Wainwright's walk starts from Newby Bridge, climbs through woodland passing a tower which has a 1799 inscription commemorating the Royal Navy, passes through the village, and climbs to the man-made tarns of Low Dam and High Dam.

Galleass

The galleass was a popular type of vessel for England's Henry VIII, who had more than a dozen constructed for the English Navy during the 1530s and 1540s for his wars with the French.

Gardner gun

At this point, the British Royal Navy, which had successfully deployed the Gatling gun, became interested in the weapon, and Gardner was invited to England to exhibit his invention.

Greene Inlet

The name "Deep Inlet" was probably given by Lieutenant Commander J.M. Chaplin, Royal Navy, of the Discovery, during his survey of the Undine Harbour area in 1926 but it is not used locally.

Gunboat

With the introduction of steam power in the early 19th century, the Royal Navy and other navies built considerable numbers of small vessels propelled by side paddles and later by screws.

Habeas Corpus Parliament

I must needs put you in mind how necessary it will be to have a good Strength at Sea, next Summer, since our Neighbours are making naval Preparations...

Harry Benjamin

Following an ill-fated professional visit to the United States, the liner in which Benjamin was returning to Germany was caught mid-Atlantic both by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and the Royal Navy.

High-pressure nervous syndrome

"Helium tremors" were first widely described in 1965 by Royal Navy physiologist Peter B. Bennett, who also founded the Divers Alert Network.

History of the Halifax Regional Municipality

At the same time, the towns people and especially seafarers were constantly on-guard of the press gangs of the Royal Navy.

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn was ordered to live in at the headquarters of the Royal Navy's, North American Station in Halifax (1794- 1800).

HMS Usk

At least three ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Usk.

HMS Western Isles

HMS Western Isles was a command ship of the Royal Navy during World War II, serving as the flagship of the Anti-Submarine Training School at Tobermory on the Isle of Mull under Vice Admiral Gilbert Stephenson.

Hornblower in the West Indies

Hornblower in the West Indies, or alternately Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies is one of the novels in the series CS Forester wrote about fictional Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower.

Leander class

Leander class may refer to one of three ship classes operated by the Royal Navy (and in two instances, other naval forces);

Little Holm, Yell Sound

In 1983, the Royal Navy cleared ordnance from the area, and their bomb disposal team discovered an unrecorded shipwreck nearby.

Machias Memorial High School

The school yearbook, the Margaretta, is named after HMS Margaretta, a British schooner captured on the Machias River during the American Revolutionary War.

Marcos Christino Fioravanti

He graduated in Medicine and went to serve in the Napoleonic Wars as a doctor in the Royal British Navy.

Marlborough, New York

A land grant (patent) of this territory was made to Captain John Evans of the Royal Navy in 1694, and one of his first settlers arrived in 1697.

Mathew Macnider

The MacNiders quickly became one of the leading mercantile families there, selling Canadian timber and supplies to the Royal Navy and trading in wine and spices from Europe and the British West Indies to Quebec, London and Scotland.

Naval Service Bill

Prior to the bill's introduction Canada did not have a navy of its own, a state of affairs that left the Dominion dependent on the British Royal Navy for maritime defence.

Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay

A state-of-the-art Magnetic Silencing Facility (MSF) provides degaussing services, including ranging and the removal of permanent magnetism for submarines of the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy, as well as for steel-hulled surface warships.

P-class cruiser

He signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which allowed Germany to build up its navy to 35 percent of the strength of the British Royal Navy and effectively repudiated the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles on the German fleet.

Penelakut Island

British sailors surveying the area in 1851 cruised into a tiny group of five unnamed islands in the Strait of Georgia, naming the two largest Kuper and Thetis, after their Captain Augustus Leopold Kuper R.N. (1809–1885) and his frigate, HMS Thetis, a 36-gun Royal Navy frigate on the Pacific Station between 1851 and 1853.

Point Hope, Alaska

The cape at Point Hope was renamed by Captain Frederick William Beechey of the Royal Navy, who wrote on August 2, 1826: "I named it Point Hope in compliment to Sir William Johnstone Hope".

Public health

James Lind's discovery of the causes of scurvy amongst sailors and its' mitigation via the introduction of fruit on lengthy voyages was published in 1754 and led to the adoption of this idea by the Royal Navy.

Ray Cokes

His father was an officer in the Royal Navy, who was stationed at various navy bases around the world.

Redbone Coonhound

By late in the reign of George III much of the original oak forests of England, Scotland, and Ireland had long since been cut down to service the Royal Navy and many of the peat bogs were being mined for use as a source of fuel; with the exceptions of badgers, rabbits, and foxes much of the original fauna that would have inhabited these lands had become extirpated over time.

Robert Patten Adams

Adams was married twice; his first wife, who died in 1867, being Harriett Matilda, daughter of the Captain George King, R.N. He then married Kate, daughter of the George Francis Huston, JP, of New Norfolk, Tasmania.

Royston Tickner

He served in the Royal Navy in World War II and from 1947 took a break from the theatre to work as a lighthouse keeper, miner, fireman and publican, before returning to acting in 1958.

Salt-cured meat

The basic Royal Navy diet consisted of salted beef, salted pork, ship's biscuit, and oatmeal, supplemented with smaller quantities of peas, cheese and butter.

Sam Malcolmson

Malcolmson served in the Royal Navy and in 1969, whilst stationed at R.N.A.S. Culdrose in Cornwall, he played 14 games (5 goals) for Falmouth Town A.F.C..

Sharpe's Devil

Lord Cochrane, a former Royal Navy officer now in service to the Chilean rebels under Bernardo O'Higgins, ambushes the Espiritu Santo and, with the assistance of Sharpe and Harper, capture it, taking Captain Ardiles prisoner.

Society of United Irishmen

In October, Wolfe Tone himself was captured when a supporting French fleet of 3,000 troops was intercepted and defeated by the Royal Navy near Lough Swilly.

South Walls

South Walls has substantial remains from the WWII period, when Scapa Flow was used as a Royal Navy base.

Sylvia Breamer

Her father was Sir James De Courcey Breamer, a commander in the Royal Navy.

The Great War of 1892

The Great War of 1892 was a story of the genre termed "Invasion Literature" written by Admiral Philip Howard Colomb in which he sought to alert Britain to what he saw as the weakness of the Royal Navy.

Torpedo gunboat

A number of torpedo gunboats, such as the Alarm class and the Dryad class, were built for the Royal Navy during the 1880s and the 1890s; similar vessels were also constructed or otherwise acquired by a number of European nations and Japan.

Ubisoft Red Storm

Tom Clancy and Doug Littlejohns, a British Royal Navy submarine captain, founded Red Storm Entertainment in 1996.

Whiggism

The opposing Tory position was held by the other great families, the Church of England, and most of the landed gentry and officers of the army and the navy.


15 Cheyne Walk

On Balchen's death the house passed to his son-in-law Commodore Temple West (later vice-admiral), who had married Balchen's daughter Frances.

Action of 9 February 1945

The Action of 9 February 1945 refers to the sinking of the German U-boat U-864 in the North Sea off the Norwegian coast during the Second World War by the Royal Navy submarine HMS Venturer.

Arnaud de Borchgrave

He served in the British Royal Navy (1942–1946), from the age of 15, after running away from home and using falsified papers to enlist.

Carlyon Bellairs

In 1885 he entered the Royal Navy, receiving his education at Stubbington House School and HMS Britannia and the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

Charles Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer

Cecil Edward Robert Spencer RN DSC Croix de guerre (1894–1928), died unmarried in a riding accident.

CSS Tallahassee

The iron Confederate cruiser Tallahassee was named after the Confederate state capital of Tallahassee in Florida and was built on the River Thames by J & W Dudgeon of Cubitt Town, London for London, Chatham & Dover Rly. Co. to the design of Capt. T. E. Symonds, Royal Navy, ostensibly for the Chinese opium trade.

Daniel Oliver Guion

Daniel Oliver Guion (London, 20 April 1776 – Ringkøbing, 24 December 1811) was an officer of the Royal Navy.

Dawsonne Drake

During his administration in the Philippines, his term was scandalized by bitter quarrels with various military officers (General William Draper; Admiral Cornish; Major Felt; Captain Thomas Backhouse (command British forces in Manila); and Captain William Brereton, RN).

Defence College of Communications and Information Systems

The College consists of a headquarters based at Blandford Camp in Dorset, the Royal Navy CIS Training Unit at HMS Collingwood, Fareham, Hampshire, The Royal School of Signals at Blandford Camp and the Royal Air Force Number 1 Radio School, collocated with the headquarters of the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering at Cosford, of which the Aerial Erector School at RAF Digby is a part.

Dugald Campbell Patterson

In 1915, during World War I, Patterson accepted a commission by the British government to travel overseas to supervise a group of Canadians in the construction of submarines for the Royal Navy on the River Clyde near Glasgow, Scotland.

Edward Keane

His father, also Edward Keane, was a captain in the Royal Navy, and was a relative of John Keane, 1st Baron Keane, who had been made a peer for his service in India.

Elizabeth Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington

One of her brothers was the ornithologist Viscount Walden, and another the Admiral of the Fleet Lord John Hay.

Ethel Gee

She thus handled top secret documents on Britain's underwater warfare work and HMS Dreadnought, the Royal Navy's first nuclear submarine.

Future of the Royal Navy

At the beginning of the 1990s the Royal Navy was a force designed for the Cold War: with its three small aircraft carriers and a force of anti-submarine frigates and destroyers, its main purpose was to search for – and in the event of an actual declaration of war, to destroy – Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic.

George Vallings

Educated at Belhaven Hill School in Dunbar and the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Vallings joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1950 and took part in the Korean War.

Georgiana Molloy

However in December 1836, she received a letter from Captain James Mangles, asking her to collect botanical specimens for him.

Glen Iris, Victoria

Captain Thomas Henderson, of the Royal Navy, arrived in Melbourne on a ship called Iris in 1850.

Her Majesty's Australian Ship

This prefix is derived from HMS (Her/His Majesty's Ship), the prefix used by the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, and can be equally applied to warships and shore bases (as Australia follows the British tradition of referring to naval establishments as ships or stone frigates).

History of the Halifax Regional Municipality

He was instrumental in shaping that port's military defences for protecting the important Royal Navy base, as well as influencing the city's and colony's socio-political and economic institutions.

HMS Brighton

Four ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Brighton, after the seaside town of Brighton.

HMS Leven

Three ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Leven, probably after the River Leven, Fife in Scotland.

HMS Queen Charlotte

Four ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Queen Charlotte after Charlotte, queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.

HMS Squirrel

Eleven ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Squirrel after the animal, while four more carried the name while serving as the fishery protection vessel.

Hubert Acland

Captain Sir Hubert Guy Dyke Acland, 4th Baronet Acland of St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford, DSO (8 June 1890 – 6 May 1976) was an officer in the British Royal Navy who served during both World Wars.

James Holborne of Menstrie

Among the descendents of Major General Holburne are Sir Alexander Holburn, 3rd Baronet, Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Holburne, and Thomas William Holborne, founder of the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, all of whom served in the Royal Navy.

Japanese cruiser Tsushima

From mid-1915 to 1918, Tsushima and her sister ship Niitaka were permanently based at the Cape Town, assisting the Royal Navy in patrolling the sea lanes linking Europe to the east.

John Knox Laughton

Beginning his working life as a mathematically-trained civilian instructor for the Royal Navy, he later became Professor of Modern History at King's College London and a co-founder of the Navy Records Society.

LMS diesel shunter 7050

At some point it was rebuilt with a Gardner engine and was used at the Royal Navy base at Botley, Hampshire.

Naval Air Station Brunswick

Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine, was originally constructed and occupied in March 1943, and was first commissioned on April 15, 1943, to train and form-up Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm pilots to fly squadrons of the Chance Vought F4U Corsair, and of the Grumman TBF Avenger and F6F Hellcat, for the British Naval Command.

Ray Michie, Baroness Michie of Gallanach

She supported the campaigns to end submarine operations of the Royal Navy and United States Navy in the Firth of Clyde, to hold another inquiry into the Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994, and the successful bid for the residents of Gigha to buy their own island.

Ross Donnelly

Admiral Sir Ross Donnelly, KCB, (c. 1761 – 30 September 1840) was a Royal Navy officer of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who is best known for his service during the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, particularly as a lieutenant on HMS Montagu at the Glorious First of June after the death of Captain James Montagu.

Royal Navy Recognised Sea Scouts

There are 101 Sea Scout Groups in the United Kingdom and one group in Gibraltar who are affiliated to the Royal Navy in order to foster a close relationship between the Royal Navy and young people in the Scout Association by making naval facilities and equipment accessible.

Satsuma Domain

In 1862, in the Namamugi Incident an Englishman was killed by retainers of Satsuma, leading to the bombardment of Kagoshima by the Royal Navy the following year.

Service Prosecuting Authority

It was formed on 1 January 2009 by the merger of the separate prosecuting authorities of the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and is headed by Andrew Cayley QC, a civil servant, as Director Service Prosecutions.

Steam engine

Tower's engines were used by the Great Eastern Railway to drive lighting dynamos on their locomotives, and by the Admiralty for driving dynamos on board the ships of the Royal Navy.

Terry Casey

He was the first person to hold the appointment of Warrant Officer of the Naval Service and was therefore the most senior rating of the Royal Navy.

Tony Bastable

Bastable later moved into independent production, and he produced training and promotional films for companies such as the Ford Motor Company, the National Bus Company, the Royal Navy, the Department of Transport and the Institute of Advanced Motorists.

William Lashly

At the time he joined Scott's Discovery expedition in 1901, he was a 33-year-old leading stoker in the Royal Navy, serving on HMS Duke of Wellington.

William Pullen

Pullen was born in Devonport, Devon, the son of Royal Navy Lieutenant William Pullen and Amelia Mary Haswell.

Xavier Petulengro

Unusually among Gypsies at the time, he learned to read and write, later claiming that this was due to the assistance of Admiral Arthur Wilson VC of the Royal Navy and his sister, but also with the help of a farmer's wife, Martha Clark, in Whitehaven, Cumbria, where the family spent several winters.