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Steam Power and Sea Power

Coal, the Royal Navy, and the British Empire, c. 1870-1914

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Steven Gray

    1. History, SSHLS, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

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  • Argues that coal was a key facet of naval and imperial defence
  • Develops a new angle to the study of industrial commodities
  • Enhances our understanding of the connections and complexities of the British Empire
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies (CIPCSS)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
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  2. Introduction

    • Steven Gray
    Pages 1-10

  3. The Rise of Coal Consciousness: Coal, State, and Imperial Defence

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11
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    2. Investigating the Coal Question

      • Steven Gray
      Pages 13-38

    3. From Coal Consciousness to Coal Consensus

      • Steven Gray
      Pages 39-64

  4. ‘An Enormous System Under Splendid Control’: The Development of a Coaling Infrastructure

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65
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    2. Sourcing Coal for the Navy

      • Steven Gray
      Pages 67-100

    3. Managing the Navy’s Imperial Supply

      • Steven Gray
      Pages 101-127

  6. Sojourning at the Coaling Station

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 183-183
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    2. A Maritime Community?

      • Steven Gray
      Pages 185-220

    3. Exploring the Station

      • Steven Gray
      Pages 221-251

    4. Epilogue

      • Steven Gray
      Pages 253-261

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 263-289
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines how the expansion of a steam-powered Royal Navy from the second half of the nineteenth century had wider ramifications across the British Empire. In particular, it considers how steam propulsion made vessels utterly dependent on a particular resource – coal – and its distribution around the world. In doing so, it shows that the ‘coal question’ was central to imperial defence and the protection of trade, requiring the creation of infrastructures that spanned the globe. This infrastructure required careful management, and the processes involved show the development of bureaucracy and the reliance on the ‘contractor state’ to ensure this was both robust and able to allow swift mobilisation in war. The requirement to stop regularly at foreign stations also brought men of the Royal navy into contact with local coal heavers, as well as indigenous populations and landscapes. These encounters and their dissemination are crucial to our understanding of imperial relationshipsand imaginations at the height of the imperial age. 

Reviews

“In Steam Power and Sea Power, Steven Gray explores the political, economic, social, and cultural implications of the British Navy’s transition to, and reliance on, mineral energy. Drawing from a diverse array of government and naval correspondence and reports, parliamentary papers, diaries and journals, ships logs, and a number of newspapers and periodicals from across the British empire, Gray brings together the well- established literature on the relationship between the Royal Navy and the British empire with the quickly-growing field of energy history.” (Andrew Watson, Canadian Journal of History, Vol. 53 (3), 2018)​

Authors and Affiliations

  • History, SSHLS, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

    Steven Gray

About the author

Steven Gray is Lecturer in the History of the Royal Navy at the University of Portsmouth, UK, where he teaches on the MA in Naval History. His PhD, completed at the University of Warwick, won the British Commission for Maritime History Doctoral prize for the best doctoral thesis, 2014. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Steam Power and Sea Power

  • Book Subtitle: Coal, the Royal Navy, and the British Empire, c. 1870-1914

  • Authors: Steven Gray

  • Series Title: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57642-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-57641-5Published: 06 October 2017

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-57642-2Published: 25 September 2017

  • Series ISSN: 2635-1633

  • Series E-ISSN: 2635-1641

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVI, 289

  • Number of Illustrations: 22 b/w illustrations, 5 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, Imperialism and Colonialism, Political History, Economic History

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