Arming the Royal Navy, 1793–1815:

The Office of Ordnance and the State

---

Gareth Cole

Warfare, Society and Culture

The Office of Ordnance has been ill-served by previous accounts of its role during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Misunderstood and often misnamed, the Ordnance has been seen as inefficient and fatally flawed. By examining the Ordnance alongside other government bodies – the Admiralty, the War Office and the Home Office – Cole offers an account of how and why the Royal Navy was equipped as it was. It is shown that the Office of Ordnance was much more proactive, modernizing and efficient during this period than was previously thought.

Sample pages

• Introduction
• Index

Readership

Military History, Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Studies

Contents

Introduction
1 The Office of Ordnance and its Mode of Operation
2 Ordnance Relationships with Other Government Departments
3 Relations between the Ordnance and Its Contractors
4 The Supply of Gunpowder to the Royal Navy
5 The Supply of Iron Ordnance to the Royal Navy
6 Ordnance Shipping
7 The Operation of the Ordnance Outports
Conclusion

Related titles

• Harriet Martineau’s Writing on British History and Military Reform
• Merchants and the Military in Eighteenth-Century Britain: British Army Contracts and Domestic Supply, 1739–1763
• Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia
• War and the Militarization of British Army Medicine, 1793–1830

Return to top

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•