The NMM has recently published online watercolours by nonsense poet Edward Lear, who is remembered best for his work The Owl and the Pussycat.

The drawings capture scenes of ancient ruins and Nile vessels hard at work, which could fit perfectly with views of modern Egypt. It is very tempting to try and imagine that beautiful pea green boat sailing past that might have inspired Lear to write the poem.

I hope you enjoying viewing these wonderful sketches.

PAD9111 - The barren banks of the Nile with three gyassis

If you would like to know more about Lear, Curator of Fine Jenny Gashke has recently published a book about his Egyptian sketches and discussed why he was so inspired by the country in On the line

The National Maritime Museum has recently released 272 oil paintings onto Collections Online.

The themes range from great men and their great ships to battles and inspiring maritime landscapes.

I hope you enjoy these new additions.

I am a doctoral student at Cambridge University and recently undertook a summer internship at the Royal Observatory. My internship project studied navigational instruments as cultural artefacts - as objects which illuminate the attitudes and beliefs of those who made, possessed and used them. I was particularly interested in researching the 'characters' of specific instruments, as well as the broader cultural context which surrounded these objects.

I focused on the period 1550-1650, when new instruments, especially for astronomical measurement, were being developed and produced. It was during this period that the concept of an 'art' of navigation became common, in technical literature and wider political and artistic writings. This art came to be understood as a body of knowledge and practice which was discussed and developed in a variety of public media: in technical manuals, in government statutes, and in lectures and teaching, such as at the royal dockyards or the new institution of Gresham College. Navigation also possessed significance beyond its technical application: according to one navigator, John Davis, it was 'the meane whereby Countryes are discovered, and communitie drawne between Nation and Nation, [and] the word of God published'.

Within the maritime community, navigational instruments functioned as status symbols, because of the connection between the ability to navigate and authority onboard ship. Competent navigation was part of the cultural stereotype of the 'painfull [i.e. skilful] sea-man', who took pains to carry out all his duties correctly, and governed both himself and his crew with moderation. Such was the prevalence of this stereotype that some writers complained of shipmasters who possessed navigational instruments in order to exercise authority, but who did not actually know how to use these instruments. The status of instruments is also suggested by the depiction of navigators in fine, expensive clothes, a good example being Hendrick van der Borcht's A navigator with globe and dividers (BHC 3132).

BHC3132 - Borcht's navigator, 1624

Of the instruments studied, the magnetic compass possessed one of the most intriguing cultural characters. It was often portrayed as the basis of all navigation, and all young seamen were taught to 'say their compass' (to recite the thirty-two points).

NAV0463 - magnetic compass, circa 1650

Moreover, the magnetism by which the compass functioned was considered to be a miraculous, divinely inspired quality, a heavenly guide granted to navigators. The importance of this instrument was often contrasted with its comparative simplicity and fragility as an object, as in a poetic prayer by gentleman-captain Thomas James:

We have with confidence relied upon
A rustie Wire, toucht with a little stone,
Incompast round with paper, and alasse
To house it harmless, nothing but a glasse.

Four paintings from the NMM have been shortlisted in a competion to create a mural that will enhance the back of the shops on Frankham Street in Deptford.

The paintings all display activities that were once so prominent in the area, from ship building and launches to the daily work of international companies such as the East India Company. Celebrating Deptford's maritime past was a theme that the local community were keen to promote when consulted about the Deptford regeneration programme and here at the Museum we are very happy to become a part of it.

It is great to know that a piece from the Museum's collection will be enjoyed by so many people on a day to day basis.

Happy voting everyone! We look forward to the results.

The votes are in for the Common Ground: a community curated meetup and it is great to know that so many of our images have caught your eyes. A taster of which can be seen below.

It's wonderful to know that this weekend people accross the world will be enjoying the "people's choice" of the Flickr Commons in a larger than life way. So if you are attending a meetup at one of the participating institutions we hope you enjoy yourselves and the images.

In summer 1884 an exhibition of William Wyllie's watercolours of the Thames was held at the Fine Art Society in New Bond Street, London. The writer Grant Allen, in his introductory chapter to the catalogue of the artist's first one-man show The Tidal Thames, noted that the Thames contemporaries commonly called up to the mind was a peaceful and placid rural river, and went on to say:

But there is a second and far other Thames ... the Thames of history and of commerce... the Thames which makes London what it is ... which has made the wealth of London and, in fact, much of the greatness of England.

This was the Thames W. L. Wyllie (1851-1931) portrayed in his work. In the river below London Bridge in particular was the Pool of London, the hub of British maritime commerce and the busiest waterway on earth at the time. Though the site was mostly shrouded in the clouds of smoke and grime and wasn't a place either Londoners or tourists remembered to visit, Wyllie, having found artistic inspirations in the Pool, represented its aesthetic qualities in his works to bring the poetry of the sights to the public mind. Most memorable among such images would be Toil, Glitter, Grime and Wealth on a Flowing Tide. The NMM holds the etched version (PAF2187) of the painting that was purchased for the nation in 1883.

Toil, Glitter, Grime and wealth on a Flowing Tide 1884

Even on the print the power of contrast of light and dark, of Glitter and Grime, of Toil and Wealth is acutely envisaged. However, modernity doesn't end in the magnitude of the imperial port: where are we looking towards in the picture? It is Greenwich with the dome of the Old Royal Naval College visible in the background of the painting.

This is a kind of questions I ask in my PhD dissertation (The University of Edinburgh), an integral part of whose research was carried out on the Caird Short-Term Research Fellowship at the NMM. Using the visual representations of the Thames I explore ways in which the turn of the 20th century London's modernity related to imperialism and maritime commerce and to the idea of continuity, the respect for the past, and I examine the role of images in the public imagination of London. It has been a privilege working on images in the Fine Art collection with excellent resources and support at the NMM. I'm immensely grateful for the opportunity and the kindness of those who assisted my research and who encouraged me and stimulated my thoughts.

Here at the National Maritime Museum we would like to celebrate our one year anniversary of joining the Flickr Commons. It was at this time last year when we uploaded our first images into our Beside the Seaside, Freeze Frame, Bedford Lemere and Port Cities sets, and boy were we given a welcome!

It has been wonderful to know that so many people have enjoyed our pictures and are continuing to do so. We have received some fantastic comments and questions, and people have even managed to answer some of ours. Thank you to you all.

I know all of us at the Museum are looking forward to an exciting second year with a lot more images being uploaded, discovered and enjoyed by the Flickr community.

The National Maritime Museum has recently published on Collections Online a selection of ship plans from The Admiralty collection of sailing warships, commonly known as the Sailing Navy Collection.

The plans range in date from 1700 to 1850 allowing visitors to visualise the leaps that were made in ship design during this period and show how as political situations changed (such as the War of American Independence and the Napoleonic War) so did the Navy's needs.

The collection also holds plans for ships that were never built as well as experimental vessel that varied in their success.

I hope that you enjoy viewing the plans.

Following the precedent set by Harriet McKay in her blog post dated May 19th, I thought I'd promote the idea of inter-blog exchange and respond to Richard Dunn's post below. His introduction to 'Telescope stories: caught on film' was really interesting and made me think about the conspicuous and repeated presence of the camera in the post-war cruise film (my PhD research, based at the NMM and University of Sheffield, focuses on post-war images of Oceanic Cruises in the NMM Film Archive). Not quite a telescope, but - I would argue - the tourist's modern equivalent.

World At Three (1966), Dir. Frederic Goode, P&O

Frederic Goode's World At Three (1966) at one moment sees the passengers of P&O's Canberra decent onto the streets of San Francisco. Rather than offering us point-of-view shots of the city's undulating boulevards, Goode retains a staunch focus on the passengers themselves. With cameras glued to their faces, these zealous photographers suck up every last drop of the city's vibrant street life. Their identities are obscured as their instruments protect them from both the unknown of the city streets and the spectator's own prying gaze.

The World Is Your Oyster (1965), Dir: Richard Lester, Union Castle

Richard Lester's Union Castle film The World Is Your Oyster (1965) also contains the repeated motif of the camera. At certain moments it is seemingly used to make sense of the strange landscapes and people that are encountered. The woman in the above images surveys a coastline and a group of foreign children. The camera acts as her surrogate eye, sanitising these sites of otherness via the act of photography's familiarity and its implied powers of ownership and appropriation. This kind of moment reminds me of Susan Sontag's theories of the tourists' camera as gun. Like the colonial explorer with the rifle, the tourist wields a camera to similar, symbolic effect.

Aweigh to the Sun, Union Castle

Finally, Union Castle's Aweigh to the Sun (1960s) observes the film's central couple as they visit an African safari park. Again, a camera forms a centrepiece of the sequence, as a man peers through his car window at a group of lions. Antagonised by the presence of these British tourists and their recording equipment, the lion charges at the car, causing the man to hastily and comically wind up his window. Here, the untamed forces of nature bite back against the western tourist, and the camera's protective shroud is exposed as a dangerous fallacy.

As a great film fan, I've had enormous fun over the past couple of years trying to spot telescopes in the movies, and have been able to call it research for the book the Museum recently published on the history of the telescope.

Pair of stills from 'As Seen through the Telescope'

One of my favourite is an early film called As Seen Through the Telescope, directed in 1900 by George Albert Smith. It's a simple tale in which a dodgy old man uses his telescope to have a good look at a couple across the street. It's also interesting as an early example of action cut across successive shots, with the viewer sharing what he sees: the young man's hands caressing the woman's foot and ankle, shown within a circular mask to mimic the telescopic view. In case you're worried, the voyeur doesn't go unrewarded - at the end of the film the younger man punches him. Perhaps that's why it was called L'astronome indiscret in France.

For those with time to spare, here are some of the telescopic films I've enjoyed:
Rear Window - A classic Hitchcock which explores the ethical issues raised by our irrestistible urge to peek at our neighbours
A Short Film about Love - Krzysztof Kieslowski takes on the same issues with less laughs
Notorious - another great Hitchcock. Check out the scene at the races - a witty touch with the binoculars
Storm over Mont Blanc - Leni Riefenstahl falls in love with a meteorologist, saves his life and abandons her large telescope for the kitchen
Contact - Jodie Foster wrestles with science, faith and telescopic evidence
The Dish - you'll believe a radio telescope can be a film star
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - not the greatest film, but it does use telescopes for some really unsophisticated humour

For those interested, I'll be talking about some telescopic film stars in a couple of weeks at our conference, The Long View: 400 Years of the Telescope.

Following the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, a Royal Navy squadron was stationed off the West African coast to intercept and capture slaving vessels of other nations. My PhD is exploring the personal testimonies of the naval campaign to suppress the Atlantic slave trade in the nineteenth-century. This research is part of an AHRC-funded collaborative project between the National Maritime Museum and the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) at the University of Hull.

One of the many benefits of working in collaboration with the NMM is the access to its naval collections. The Caird Library holds a number of records of anti-slavery service, such as this watercolour by Captain Henry Need of HMS Linnet, depicting the capture of a slaver in the Rio Ponga in 1853.

'Capture of a Slaver, the Brigantine Paulina, 30th April 1853'. Watercolour by Captain Henry Need of HMS Linnet, National Maritime Museum (ART/10)

Employment on the anti-slavery patrols was unpopular due to the West African climate and the high risk of disease and violence (West Africa was commonly known as the 'white man's grave'). Added to this was the emotional trauma of the nature of service. One area I am investigating is the extent to which naval personnel believed in the anti-slavery cause. Finding themselves on the frontline of Britain's relations with Africa, their narratives are valuable as ways to investigate and understand attitudes and anxieties about the slave trade and slavery.

Sir George Ralph Collier was the first Commodore of the West Africa squadron, and a convinced abolitionist. In a report to the Admiralty in 1819, Collier wrote passionately of how the slave trade 'is more horrible than those who have not had the misfortune to witness it can believe, indeed no description I could give would convey a true picture of its baseness and atrocity'.

Lieutenant Francis Meynell painted this scene of enslaved Africans on a captured slaver in 1846, and his letters home revealed how he was affected by his experiences. He described conditions on HM Sloop Albatros after taking on board the Africans: 'We lost on the voyage 150 slaves three or four dying every day ... It's a very horrible business this slave trade.'

'Slaves below deck', c. 1846. Watercolour by Lt. Francis Meynell, National Maritime Museum (MEY/2)

These and other naval stories of suppression reveal profound emotions in those engaged in the service: of sympathy and humanity but also tensions regarding the ambiguities of freedom, and their own struggles for survival on the African coast.

I am a doctoral student sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, partly based here at the National Maritime Museum. The focus of my PhD is The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which was founded in 1839. From 1842 the Company's ships regularly transported mail, people and goods between Britain and the Caribbean. The Company expanded its operations into Brazil and the River Plate during the 1850s. My research, which focuses on the second half of the nineteenth century, aims to relate the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's history to its broader imperial context.

The NMM holds most of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's archive, and I have been working with these manuscripts. There are plenty of financial records available for those with an interest in business history (and a head for freight rates), but as I am concerned with the social aspects, I have been reading through managers' and directors' minutes, Company regulations and official correspondence. I will be juxtaposing this official Company perspective against a range of other sources within my thesis.

My studentship is one that is based on close university collaboration with the NMM (my other base is Royal Holloway, University of London.) This means that you get two supervisors and two desks instead of one. (Make of that what you will!) Working with the NMM is, of course, a great way to tap into maritime expertise and resources. As one of a number of students based at the museum, you also have an extra set of peers outside of your university department. Being part of two research communities is particularly useful for gaining wide-ranging advice and feedback on your work.

'La Plata', Royal Mail Steamer, 1852

Steamships carrying mail around and across empires might not sound too exciting at first, but there is plenty of drama caught up in the history of these ships. 'La Plata' (pictured) was purchased by the RMSPC to replace the 'Amazon' after that ship was lost in a disastrous fire. 'La Plata' too had a brush with fire and burnt for hours at Southampton in 1860. Other episodes in 'La Plata's story relate to yellow fever on her maiden voyage and a narrow escape from a tidal wave at St Thomas in 1867.

The answer to the blog posted by Harriet McKay on 19 May is:

Sid James, Chintz, Eddy Grant and the NMM Royal Brass Foundry, Woolwich are all related to the collaborative doctoral award project that I am undertaking, supervised by the NMM and Kingston University. My doctoral research topic is: Accommodating the Passenger: Interior Design for the Union-Castle Line, 1945 - 1977.

Popular 1960s comic actor Sid James featured in and narrated a 1966 Union-Castle promotional video 38a Bus to Cape Town about escaping from London to South Africa on board Transvaal Castle. (See the blog posted by Phil Rich, another NMM doctoral student on March 10, 2009) James was himself South African.

Chintz was a favourite stylistic device of Union-Castle line decorator Jean Monro. She produced an aesthetic reminiscent of the popular British and North American 'English Country House style' for some of the passenger accommodation on board Pendennis and Windsor Castles, whose first voyages were in 1959 and 1960 respectively.

Eddy Grant's Anti-apartheid anthem 'Gimme Hope Joanna' contains the lyrics:

She's got supporters in high-up places,
who turn their heads to the City Sun,
Joanna [South Africa] gives them the fancy money,
Oh! to tempt anyone who'd come.

This neatly describes South African immigration policy during the period and Union-Castle's importance in ferrying immigrants to the republic.

Finally, the National Maritime Museum Brass Foundry, Woolwich Arsenal is where the principal photographic research material for the project is located.

An exploration of a key 20th-century British shipping company, my thesis, Accommodating the Passenger, examines the interior design of the Union-Castle liners in the period 1945-77. In addition to its core - a focused design historical study - this project argues the use of an interdisciplinary approach to design history. It discusses the crucial need to address the political economy of this UK-South African shipping route for an understanding of the design of the ships which sailed it. In contextualising its research in the political and social history of the period it also covers new ground; its overarching theme will be to investigate the impact of Apartheid upon design.

At the heart of the thesis lie ideas about representation and issues around design as cultural practice. Was there a Union-Castle aesthetic and what did it represent if there was? Did this vary according to place on board, or passenger class? Embedded within contemporary social and political culture, does the design of these ships represent their place of origin in the UK, their destination ports in South Africa or both? How might the liners have embodied concepts of national identity and if so, what does this say of British-South African relations in the post war period? Finally to what extent did the ties that Nelson Mandela has described as 'a special relationship and its mutual benefits, which history has bound us in' affect the look of the Union-Castle liners interiors? This project will argue that Union-Castle's passenger accommodation was very much influenced by South African culture and politics of the post-war years.

Looking at the collection of telescopes in the Royal Observatory, it's notable just how many hand-held instruments we have. This is mainly because although we usually think of the telescope as an instrument for astronomy, most of those ever made were for far much more earthly purposes. And to their makers and sellers they were above all commercial products.

Portable telescope by George Willdey, about 1710

This now slightly damaged telescope is one of our decidedly commercial examples. It was made in about 1710 by a London maker called George Willdey. With its black shagreen barrel, gold-tooled green leather draw tubes and ivory fittings, it was obviously a luxury item for the rich and fashionable of the metropolis.

This point becomes even clearer when you look at the range of stuff Willdey sold, shown in one of his advertisements from the same period.

Advertisement for George Willdey's shop

At the time, all these different items would have been classed as 'toys', meaning not children's playthings but small fashionable items for adults, such as fans, snuff boxes, writing tools and game pieces. Willdey's advert shows quite beautifully that the telescope could be not just a tool of science, but also a firmly commercial luxury item.

You can hear more about George Willdey and his telescopes at our forthcoming conference, The Long View, in July.

OK. So what do the following have in common?

Sid James

Chintz

Brass Foundry

Eddy Grant

Answers... in a blog sometime in the future...

PS there is a big clue contained in Phil Rich's blog: Researching the NMM's film archive: post-war images of the oceanic cruise, posted 10 March '09.