Difference between revisions of "Annual Report of the Torpedo School"

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| 1912||21 Feb 1913||52||120
 
| 1912||21 Feb 1913||52||120
 
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| 1914||[[Frederick Laurence Field|Field]]||31 Dec 1914||37||110
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| 1914||[[Frederick Laurence Field|Field]]||31 Dec 1914||37||125
 
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| 1915||rowspan=2|[[Henry Louis d'Estoteville Skipwith|Skipwith]]||31 Jan 1916||100||250
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| 1915||rowspan=2|[[Henry Louis d'Estoteville Skipwith|Skipwith]]||31 Jan 1916||100||380
 
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| 1916||colspan=3|no copy found
 
| 1916||colspan=3|no copy found
 
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| 1917||[[Frederick Charles Ulick Vernon-Wentworth|Wentworth]]||30 Aug 1918||190||280
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| 1917||[[Frederick Charles Ulick Vernon-Wentworth|Wentworth]]||30 Aug 1918||190||350
 
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| 1918||[[Arthur Kipling Waistell|Waistell]]||19 Jul 1919||300||450
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| 1918||[[Arthur Kipling Waistell|Waistell]]||19 Jul 1919||300||695
 
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Revision as of 17:15, 15 March 2011

The Torpedo School in Vernon issued an Annual Report of the Torpedo School of its work each year throughout the Dreadnought Era. Despite the dull title, each Report is a rich snapshot of the diverse work in all facets of its broad charter — torpedoes, electricity, torpedo and fire control instruments — and a vital resource for developing an understanding of the naval epoch.

I have partial photographic copies of editions from 1901 through 1918, excepting 1916 for which a copy has not yet been located, and you will see them cited very often on this site. To give an overview, here is a rough estimate of how many pages from each edition I have.

Approximate Pages+Plates in Hand
Year Captain Promulgated in Hand Available
1901 Robinson 8 Feb 1902 8 220
1902 Egerton 7 Apr 1903 8 120
1903 26 Apr 1904 15 120
1904 Briggs 27 Feb 1905 18 220
1905 16 Feb 1906 24 120
1906 23 Feb 1907 27 120
1907 Gamble 31 Jan 1908 22 120
1908 Hornby 9 Feb 1909 24 120
1909 27 Jan 1910 20 120
1910 31 Jan 1911 72 220
1911 Nicholson 21 Feb 1912 38 140
1912 21 Feb 1913 52 120
1913 20 Feb 1914 54 310
1914 Field 31 Dec 1914 37 125
1915 Skipwith 31 Jan 1916 100 380
1916 no copy found
1917 Wentworth 30 Aug 1918 190 350
1918 Waistell 19 Jul 1919 300 695

Each Report opens with a letter of promulgation (often from early in the succeeding year, but sometimes quite late in the succeeding year and then extensive introductory remarks, a list of plates, and then the content in sections, and then a series of appendices. The sectional structure changed slowly over time.

The 1901-1906 editions changed little, having sections with names roughly:

  1. Personnel
  2. Stores and equipment
  3. Instruction in sea-going ships
  4. Whitehead torpedoes
  5. Torpedo craft
  6. Electric lighting (sometimes "Electric lighting and motors")
  7. Mining and other practical work
  8. Gun circuits and communications
  9. Wireless telegraphy (removed in 1903, never to return)
  10. Foreign torpedoes ("Foreign services" from 1902, "foreign naval progress" from 1907, etc)

While the section names evolved slowly, the overall organization did not vary substantially until 1915 reduced the report to just six sections:

  1. Personnel,
  2. Stores and equipments
  3. Whitehead torpedoes and torpedo craft
  4. Electric lighting
  5. Mining and other practical work
  6. Gun circuits and communications

While our study is hindered by the lack of a copy of the 1916 edition, by 1917 some fundamental shift has occurred, as the six sections were now:

  1. Personnel and instruction
  2. Stores and equipments
  3. Whitehead torpedoes and torpedo craft
  4. Whitehead war running and torpedo control
  5. Electric lighting
  6. Fire control communications, &c.

The 1917 edition's use of the expression "Torpedo Control" was not entirely new, but the subject matter placed under it was nearly so, and it was extensive — comprising a fifth of the report's pages. In 1918, this section was about a third of the report's length.