Mrs Pam Arnold-Palmer, a direct descendent of Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811), recently donated to the Museum a fascinating collection associated with the fifth Astronomer Royal, who worked at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich from 1765 until his death in 1811. The objects range from letters to medals, notebooks to clothing, chronometers to sketches. Maskelyne is principally known for creating the first Nautical Almanac, published in 1766, which provided the tables seamen needed to enable them to find longitude from sextant measurements of the Sun, Moon and stars. The medals show how widely his work was appreciated as they include examples from Russia, France and USA, as well as the Copley gold medal of the Royal Society of London. Maskelyne’s international links are also highlighted by his correspondence with astronomers in other parts of Europe.
The letters, notebooks and accounts contain much interesting material about Maskelyne’s role in preparing the scientific work of several voyages of exploration. They reveal the equipment he recommended and some of his efforts to secure the services of suitable astronomers to carry out observations. These documents are a fascinating combination of the official and the personal, throwing light on his life at Greenwich and his recipes for various medicinal remedies, as well as his work as Astronomer Royal. The clothing includes dresses belonging to his wife, Sophia, and only daughter, Margaret, as well as a padded silk observing suit sent from India by his brother-in-law, Robert Clive. The personal nature of much of this material helps to provide a more rounded picture of Maskelyne than emerges from the official records of the Observatory, or from more recent accounts of the story of finding a method of measuring longitude at sea.

‘Portrait of Nevil Maskelyne by John Russell RA, made when Maskelyne was in his forties’ (ZBA4305)

As a collaborative doctoral candidate based in a Geography department (as well as at the NMM), I am seeking to write not the history, but rather an historical geography of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSPC). In other words, I am looking through a geographical lens at the Company’s routes and undertakings. At the moment, I am examining the vessels’ ports of call as nodal points within networks, and in particular, I am currently exploring the place of St Thomas in the RMSPC’s operations.

St Thomas (Parti af Byen og Havnen) (PAD0938)
During much of the 1840s and 1850s, St Thomas occupied an important position in the RMSPC’s timetable, with a number of inter-colonial branch routes departing from this island. During the early 1850s, for example, a vessel on the ‘Jamaica and Mexican’ route would leave St Thomas once a month and would travel to Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Veracruz, and then onwards to Tampico, before returning via the same route. But unlike other islands that also acted as points of departure and Company coaling stations in the region (such as Barbados and Grenada), St Thomas formed part of the Danish West Indies. Unlike many of the RMSPC’s other ports of call, which had entered into the post-emancipation period by the commencement of service, the slave system prevailed in St Thomas until 1848. The economic and social disparities at the RMSPC’s various Caribbean ports of call meant that logistical considerations, such as the hire of local labour, operated differently from island to island. It is these kinds of complexities that are of particular interest to my research in the Company’s activities during the period of transition in the Caribbean.