We have received a letter from Polly Bence, a PhD student researching the ethnographic collections at Bristol Museum where they hold a group of objects collected by Admiral Francis Starkie Clayton, she is looking for anything that might shed light on his motivations for collecting.
A letter from Gideon Haigh about the midshipman George Vernon who sailed with Ralph Lyall Clayton and deserted on a visit to San Francisco in May 1903.
I have received a very interesting letter from Joanne Van Tilburg regarding the two paintings on the front and back of the log book of Midshipman John Warde Osborne, who was on the Flying Squadron Voyage of HMS Topaze to the Pacific from 1866 – 1869.
I have received two very interesting letters from Colin H Robertson which I think will interest our readers. Colin bought a copy of A Naval Life and found a transcript of his grandfather’s, Leading Signalman Johnston Robertson, written account of the action on 12th January 1917 against a German Submarine in the English Channel.
Recently we published a naval inquiry by Harold Peacock in Australia concerning his relative William Alfred Marfleet. Today we have heard the answer from a reader in Canada….Thank you Barrie Marfleet.
We have had a letter from Harold Peacock in Brisbane, Australia asking for help in identifying the insignia of his relative, William Alfred Marfleet, who served aboard the HMS Royal Oak in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Can any of our readers help him?
It has been very good to see how much interest and information our earlier inquiry about HMS Topaze and the log books of John Warde Osborne, has produced. Mike Pitts has kindly sent us a message: and Peter Klein has sent us photographs and details of an album.
An item concerning a lost purse/spectacle case, mounted with H.M. Queen Victoria’s monogram in gold, which was picked up by a member of the party sent by the Canadian government to Smith Sound in 1924. This was dropped by one of the 22 officers on the Nares’ Arctic Expedition of 1875-6 in an effort to reach the North Pole. In the papers of the May archive currently held by Mary Jones.
I have recently come across the log book of Midshipman John Warde Osborne, who was on HMS Topaze from 1866 – 1869. There are two paintings on the front and back that appear to have been painted by the ship’s surgeon Linton Palmer.
