This article considers the introduction of steam powered warships to the Royal Navy to show how oceanic mobility in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was contingent on the global availability, and consequently mobility, of coal. Whilst the introduction of steam technology may have freed warships from the vagaries of wind and tides, the navy was now chained not just to coaling stations, but also to the wider infrastructure which guaranteed coal's movement to these stations around the globe. Thus, the ability to control both the source of the fuel and its movement was crucial to the mobility of British naval vessels tasked with protecting British interests worldwide, and was, therefore, central to British global power. This article explores how the navy ensured the availability of high quality steam-coal at British overseas stations, analysing the processes involved in sourcing high quality coal for naval ships and its transportation overseas. It also shows how the admiralty sought to make such arrangements more professional, and to guarantee the highest quality of coal at every station. It explores how these changes ensured that the infrastructure remained remarkably robust, despite its complex nature. It then assesses how Britain's rivals failed to achieve the same control over fuelling in the age of the coal ship, offering Britain a huge advantage in the wider world. Finally, the paper considers the ramifications of Britain losing this advantage when it switched to oil. Overall, it argues that, although generally ignored, fuel, and particularly the ability to control its global movement, is crucial to understanding naval mobility. This, of course, is true not just in terms of the navy, but also applicable to other significant geopolitical contexts and processes.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
David Boursnell;
(2021)
Developing Early Iron Armour: The Development of Rolling as the Preferred Method of Manufacture Between 1854 and 1863
(/isis/citation/CBB859927279/)
Article
Vorotnikov, O. S.;
(2011)
The Revival of Interest in Solid-Fuel Military Rockets during the 1920s and 1930s
(/isis/citation/CBB001211388/)
Article
Nuvolari, Alessandro;
(2010)
The Theory and the Practice of Steam Engineering in Britain and in France, 1800-1850
(/isis/citation/CBB001180624/)
Book
Géraldine Barron;
(2019)
Edmond Pâris et l'art naval: Des pirogues aux cuirassés
(/isis/citation/CBB032424502/)
Article
Rose, Susan;
(2013)
Maritime Logistics and Edward I's Military Campaigns: What Can Be Learnt from the Surviving Documentation?
(/isis/citation/CBB001422457/)
Article
Jones, Christopher F.;
(2013)
Building More Just Energy Infrastructure: Lessons from the Past
(/isis/citation/CBB001320574/)
Thesis
Snyder, David Allan;
(2001)
Petroleum and Power: Naval Fuel Technology and the Anglo-American Struggle for Core Hegemony, 1889--1922
(/isis/citation/CBB001560706/)
Article
Johnson, Oliver;
(2014)
Class Warfare and the Selborne Scheme: The Royal Navy's Battle over Technology and Social Hierarchy
(/isis/citation/CBB001422530/)
Chapter
Smith, Crosbie;
(2011)
“The “Crinoline” of Our Steam Engineers”: Reinventing the Marine Compound Engine, 1850--1885
(/isis/citation/CBB001231562/)
Book
Girard, Marion;
(2008)
A Strange and Formidable Weapon: British Responses to World War I Poison Gas
(/isis/citation/CBB000954662/)
Article
Kahanov, Yaacov;
Stern, Eliezer;
Cvikel, Deborah;
Me-Bar, Yoav;
(2014)
Between Shoal and Wall: The Naval Bombardment of Akko, 1840
(/isis/citation/CBB001422520/)
Article
Klaus Staubermann;
(2014)
The Transfer of Shipbuilding Knowledge: Reconstructing HMAS "Warrega" (Part 1)
(/isis/citation/CBB233184010/)
Book
Howard J. Fuller;
(2021)
Turret versus Broadside: An Anatomy of British Naval Prestige, Revolution and Disaster 1860-1870
(/isis/citation/CBB092585039/)
Article
Leggett, Don;
(2014)
Naval Architecture, Expertise and Navigating Authority in the British Admiralty, c.1885--1906
(/isis/citation/CBB001421387/)
Article
Sebastian Rojek;
(2019)
Landmilitärische oder seemilitärische Expertise? Transformationen der Legitimationsbasis der Kaiserlichen Marine, ca. 1871–1900 (Expertise by Land or Sea? Changing Patterns of Legitimation of the German Navy, c. 1871–1900)
(/isis/citation/CBB429779897/)
Article
Peter Merriman;
Kimberley Peters;
(2017)
Military mobilities in an age of global war, 1870–1945
(/isis/citation/CBB656060900/)
Book
Howard, Roger;
(2008)
The Oil Hunters: Exploration and Espionage in the Middle East, 1880--1939
(/isis/citation/CBB001033676/)
Book
H. R. Everett;
(2015)
Unmanned Systems of World Wars I and II
(/isis/citation/CBB265113538/)
Article
Gray, Steven;
(2015)
Coaling Warships with Naval Labour, 1870--1914: “I Wish I Could Get Hold of That Man Who First Found Coal”
(/isis/citation/CBB001422546/)
Article
Heitz, Jesse A.;
(January 2013)
British Reaction to American Civil War Ironclads
(/isis/citation/CBB467642480/)
Be the first to comment!