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Comprises atlases, maps and plans; ephemera; general records and descriptions; merchant shipping: historical records; narratives; and Royal Navy order books and orders.

Ship's logs from the Royal Navy, merchant shipping and foreign Navies.

This class consists of eighteen volumes of sailing directions, navigational notes and coastline sketches, seventeenth to twentieth centuries. The earliest volume is French, 'Journal en forme de Borthlan de la campagne des galeres au voyage d'Alger', 1682, but the majority of the items date from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They include a description of Hadley's quadrant, c 1770; sailing directions for the Mediterranean, 1798, 1830; a nautical description of the south coast of England, 1805 to 1808, compiled by Graeme Spence (1758-1812) from Murdoch Mackenzie's surveys; and a sketchbook of Nelson's anchorages in the Mediterranean, 1804. There are also two twentieth-century volumes, one of which is the current angle and distance tables, 1911.

This class, consisting of forty-fve volumes, relates to the history, practice and business methods of British, French and German shipbuilding, seventeenth to twentieth centuries. The seventeenth-century volumes include a manuscript on shipbuilding theory by A Symmer, c 1636; a volume of fifty-four documents containing proposals by Sir William Petty (1623-1687) for a double-hulled ship, 1662 to 1685. A disbound volume contains engraved plates by Thomas Fagge, 'the bends of a ship, their various sorts and shapes', undated, together with nine contracts between the Navy Board and contractors, 1649 to 1701, including one for the HAMPTON COURT, 1699, and the WARSPIGHT, 1701; also included in this volume is a Charter Party between the Navy Board and the master of the ANNE AND FRANCIS to transport naval stores from Deptford to Portsmouth, 1701.

There is a copy of Edward Battine's 'The Method of Building, Rigging, Apparelling and Furnishing His Majesty's Ships of War', 1684. Finally, there are two French volumes, one consisting of thirty-four drawings in pen and ink of the construction of a galley, 1685, and the other by Morineau de rochefort, 'Memoire sur la Conaissance et proportions des lois qui composent la construction des vaisseaux de premiere position at liaison', 1698. Among the eighteenth-century volumes are a contract book, 1775 to 1807, and a memorandum book, 1777 to 1801, of John Perry and Company of Blackwall, 1775 to 1808; a book of five contracts of ships built for the Navy by Adams of Buckler's Hard, 1776 to 1797; the notebook of William Wilkins, a shipwright at Chatham dockyard, containing lengths and dimensions of ships as well as methods and theory, 1754; and a pair of notebooks chiefy on mastmaking by two shipwrights John Williams 1720 to 1750, and Richard Reynolds, 1785. French shipbuilding is again represented by two works: 'Les descriptions Geometrique de toutes les pieces qui entrent dans la construction les agrez et les maneuvres d'une Galere', 1721, by Dr Sieur Debenat; and a volume on 'Carte de l'Architecture Navale concernant les proportions de la Mature', 1788, by a Bordeaux shipwright, Of the seventeen volumes relating to the nineteenth century, there is one of drawings and descriptions of the blockmaking machinery desinged by Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849) and installed in Portsmouth dockyard between 1802 and 1805; a private account book, 1839 to 1840, of Kelsick Wood (1771-1840), shipbuilder of Maryport, recording details of ships built and the purchase of materials; a book on 'Sailmaking, 1811 to 1840', by W Rutter; and two day books of the sailmakers J Morice and Company of Liverpool, 1883 to 1904. On the subject of steam there is a book of wash drawings and text by Robertson Buchanan of Glasgow, dated 1815, and entitled, 'Memoir respecting the employment of steam vessels for the purposes of war'; and a large volume of drawings and reports on steam vessels, 1870 to 1873, by John Oliver (ca.1820-1883), Chief Inspector of Machinery Afloat. There are a small number of specifications and contracts for twentieth-century ships, and three volumes relating to the German battleship, BADEN, 1904 to 1908.

The Tunstall collection consists of signal books, both manuscript and printed, fighting instructions and essays concerning tactics. Among these are examples of some of the earliest signal books of about the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, but the bulk of the signal books and instructions date from the mid 18th to the early 19th century. Many have important additional notes and amendments made by various naval officers, including several by Admiral Richard Earl Howe and Admiral Sir John Jervis, the Earl of St Vincent. A secondary part of the collection consists of various naval pamphlets and printed books from the later 17th century to the 20th century. This includes a collection of pamphlets relating to the dispute between Admirals Thomas Mathews (1678-1751) and Richard Lestock which arose from a confusion over signalling and instructions. There is also a collection of military books, including some rare 16th century Italian examples collected by Sir Julian Corbett, and a number of small manuscript collections of correspondence, mainly that of naval officers.