The Mariner's Mirror Podcast

This is the first episode of our new series about the maritime history of Wales. Our Welsh presenter Eirwen Abberley Watton finds out about the Porth Felen anchor-stock, a unique find for British waters for its age: the Porth Felen anchor stock is believed to be Roman. It was found in the Bardsey Sound off the coast of the Llyn peninsula in the north of Wales in 1974, a very dangerous (b...

In this episode Dr Sam Willis explores the troubling history of safety at sea. In the eighteenth century seafaring was a very dangerous business indeed: not only were navigation and safety systems limited but unscrupulous owners of merchant ships would deliberately send ships to sea over-laden, but with enormous insurance raised on the vessel. These became known as ‘Coffin Ships’. To make matters...

In this episode Dr Sam Willis explores HMS Warrior , one of the most groundbreaking ships in the history of naval power. An iron-framed, iron-clad single-gundeck warship, launched in 1860 HMS Warrior defied categorisation and changed the way that seapower was both wielded and imagined. She was built in a period of intense rivalry between Britain and France when technology was advancing so rapidly...

In this, a joining-together of our Great Sea Fights and Iconic Ships series we feature HMS Pickle , the small topsail schooner that was chosen to sail as swiftly as possible back to England with news of the British success at the battle of Trafalgar, and also with the tragic news of the death of the British fleet’s commander, Horatio Nelson. The story of how the battle dispatches made it all the w...

Dr Sam Willis explores the many wounds that Nelson received in his life, as well as his fatal wound received at the Battle of Trafalgar. Sam speaks with Michael Crumplin, a retired consultant general and upper gastro-intestinal surgeon and Honrary Curator and Archivist at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Nelson was so damaged by a life of naval service it has been calculated that he would...

Dr Sam Willis explores the Battle of Trafalgar through two eyewitness accounts, both from the decks of the Royal Sovereign , the flagship of Cuthbert Collingwood. Bringing a new perspective to the battle of Trafalgar is challenging, but many forget that, with Nelson receiving his fatal wound early in the action, command of the battle fell to his great friend, Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood on b...

Today we are merging this month's theme on airpower with one of our running series – on iconic ships - in which we ask the curator of an existing historic ship to make the case for their ship being iconic or we ask a historian to make the case for a long-lost ship being iconic. Today we are certainly in the 'long-lost category' as the vessel in question - the carrier HMS Ark Royal - was torpedoed...

In this, the first of several episodes on the maritime history of airpower, Dr Sam Willis meets three Royal Naval flag officers to discuss the complexities and challenges of commanding and operating aircraft carriers. Sam's guests are Vice Admiral Jerry Kydd, the current Fleet Commander of the Royal Navy, who served as the very first commanding officer of the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabe...

This week we are exploring the maritime history of the Second World War with Professor Evan Mawdsley. For many years Evan was Professor of International History at the University of Glasgow. His recent book ‘The War for the Sea: The Maritime History of World War 2’ has recently won the prestigious Anderson Medal, awarded each year by the Society for Nautical Research for an outstanding book on mar...

This episode explores the fascinating history of RMS Mauretania, which was launched in 1906 and transformed shipbuilding and the expectations of passengers travelling on trans-Atlantic liners. After the launch of Mauretania, sea-travel and the maritime world was never the same again. To find out more, Dr Sam Willis met with Max Wilson of the Lloyds Register Foundation to explore their archives. Th...

Dr Sam Willis meets the team at the ss Great Britain in Bristol to discover why she deserves the title 'Iconic'. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and launched in 1843 she was to be a luxurious passenger ship the likes of which the world had never seen. The largest vessel afloat; the longest in the world; made of iron rather than timber; fitted with a steam engine of 1000 hp, the most powerful e...

In this episode we explore the fascinating history of ships' figureheads. Why did shipbuilders begin to place carvings of humans and animals on the bows of their ships in the sixteenth century? And why did this practice stop 300 years later? Dr Sam Willis meets Rear Admiral David Pulvertaft, an expert on figureheads, to find our more about these remarkable carvings and to consider a number of exam...

As a follow up to our recent interview with The First Sea Lord exploring the Royal Navy in the modern world, today we look at the the broader question: Is Britain still a global power? Globalisation is a topic that sits at the heart of maritime and naval history. We are all now hugely interconnected - whether it's transportation under normal circumstances, the economy, society, social media, our h...

Dr Sam Willis meets with the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin to discuss the many challenges the Royal Navy faces exercising sea power in the modern world. They discuss life on a modern warship; how the sea provides prosperity, security and stability; exercising seapower hand in hand with a Government's policies; G7 and NATO; 'Global Britain' and Britain's overseas territories; the Gulf of...

The underwater heritage around Malta is one of the richest collections of maritime archaeology in the world. The quality of preservation is outstanding as well as the number of sites, and yet they are inaccessible to so many of us. Not only do you need to be able to dive to see these sites, but for most of them you need to be able to dive very, very deep and that is only possible for a tiny fracti...

In this, the sixth episode of our Great Sea Fights series, we explore the remarkable events of 19 August 1812 when the powerful frigate USS Constitution fought and destroyed the British frigate HMS Guerriere in one of the greatest shocks to the Royal Navy in its history and one of the most ferocious single-ship actions ever fought. It is an extraordinary story: how did the United States get to a s...

In this, the sixth episode of our Great Sea Fights series, we explore the remarkable events of 19 August 1812 when the powerful frigate USS Constitution fought and destroyed the British frigate HMS Guerriere in one of the greatest shocks to the Royal Navy in its history and one of the most ferocious single-ship actions ever fought. It is an extraordinary story – how did the United States get to a...

In this, the sixth episode of our Great Sea Fights series, we explore the remarkable events of 19 August 1812 when the powerful frigate USS Constitution fought and destroyed the British frigate HMS Guerriere in one of the greatest shocks to the Royal Navy in its history and one of the most ferocious single-ship actions ever fought. It is an extraordinary story: how did the United States get to a s...

In this, the sixth episode of our Great Sea Fights series, we explore the remarkable events of 19 August 1812 when the powerful frigate USS Constitution fought and destroyed the British frigate HMS Guerriere in one of the greatest shocks to the Royal Navy in its history and one of the most ferocious single-ship actions ever fought. It is an extraordinary story: how did the United States get to a s...

In this the third and final part of our special mini Great Sea Fights series on the Tudor naval battle of St Mathieu in 1512, one of the Mary Rose's earliest engagements and possibly the first ever naval battle in which guns were fired out of gunports. We explore the problems posed to historians trying to recreate a medieval sea fight. What sources are available? How can you recreate the tides on...

In this, Part II of our special episodes on the battle of St Mathieu in 1512 and its aftermath, we hear three contemporary accounts. The first is from the Venetian Ambassador Nicolo di Favri, fascinating as it includes a great deal of information on life and manners in Tudor England as well as war news. The writer was newly appointed to the court of Henry and was a member of the Ven...

In this, the fifth episode of our Great Sea Fights series we explore the remarkable battle of St Mathieu, of 10 August 1512. In one of the earliest engagements of the Mary Rose a French squadron is surprised near Brest, and it ends with two major warships one French, and one English - and the largest in both fleets, on fire. It is also possibly the earliest naval battle fought with cannon, firing...

This the third episode in our special series on the maritime history of Scotland. Dr Sam Willis explores the remarkable career of Joannes Wyllie, a Fife man who made a fortune running guns from Glasgow to the confederate south during the American Civil War (1861-5) – revealing Scotland's hidden history of supporting slavery. He talks with John Messner a curator for transport and technology at...

In this, our second episode dedicated to the remarkable maritime history of Scotland, we explore the fabulous shipbuilding heritage of Leith, the port just to the north of Edinburgh. To unpick this story Dr Sam Willis speaks with Ron Neish . Ron is a remarkable man with many man stories to tell. Born and bred in Leith he served his apprenticeship as a Ship Loftsman, in the Henry Robb Shipyard in L...

In the latest episode of The Mariner's Mirror Podcast we begin three episodes dedicated to the maritime history of Scotland. In this episode I speak with Ben Saunders, a senior marine archaeologist with Wessex Archaeology, based at their office in Edinburgh, and we talk about the hulks of two X-Craft on the shore at Aberlady Bay, East Lothian. An innovative video has been created to accompany this...