Another book I was fortunate to acquire, as well as the one which sparked-off this series of blogs and described in Humber Beacons 1939, has the overall title ‘The North Sea Pilot’, published in 1841. Its more descriptive title is ‘Sailing Directions for navigating the North Sea and its Bays and Harbours … the coasts of England and Scotland from Orfordness to Cape Wrath with the Orkney and Shetland Islands and the opposite coasts of France, The Netherlands etc. … with part of the coast of Norway. The whole carefully compiled from the latest English, French, Dutch and Danish surveys including all the improvements made by order of the Honorable Corporation of the Trinity House, … by an officer of the Royal Navy’. The book was published in London by Blachford. A long and descriptive title leaving no doubt as to the subject of the text; much preferable to many modern books where a brief and obscure title gives no clue as to the content. That said, it was a reference book.
Couple of things noticed in the title. The compiler of the text is not named but simply identified as ‘an Officer of the Royal Navy’. This is, possibly, not uncommon for the time, some maps do not credit the cartographer personally but do credit the commissioning organisation/person. Although it names Trinity House, still responsible for aids to navigation around the British coast in 1841 (unlike by 1939), it is not clear who commissioned the book. It is interesting that the term ‘North Sea’ is used rather than the historic ‘German Ocean’, it is often claimed that the term German Ocean was dropped during the Great War, especially after the Battle of Jutland, but this may be a half-truth myth, one of many.
With covering such a wide area the author’s descriptions of the Humber cover just six pages out of 260.
(to be continued).