Peter G Hore FRHistS (born 1944) naval officer, historian and obituarist, served a full career in the Royal Navy (1962-2000), spent ten years working in the cinema and television industry (2000-2009) and is a successful biographer and obituarist. One of his books, Habit of Victory, was the Daily Telegraph reader's choice and another book, Sydney, Cipher and Search was praised for its literary quality and depth of research and shortlisted for the Mountbatten Media Awards. His reasons for becoming an historian are published at British Naval History. [1]
Captain Peter Hore served worldwide as a logistics specialist in the British Royal Navy, including exchange service in the United States Navy (1964), and two tours of duty in NATO's Standing Naval Force Atlantic (1972-3).
During his Navy service he qualified as an interpreter in Spanish in 1968, interpreter in Swedish in 1970 and linguist in Cantonese in 1986. During the 1982 Falklands War he was the Joint Logistics Commander on Ascension Island, and he has since had the unusual distinction of both having helped to direct the Royal Navy's applied research programme (1992-4) and having headed its non-technical research programme (1997-2000). From 1997-2000 he was Head of Defence Studies during the British government's Strategic Defence Review.
He is a former Vice President of the Royal Navy Museum and was chairman of its Curatorial Working Party (now the National Museum of the Royal Navy). He has been a trustee of The Naval Review, a member of the council of the Navy Records Society, a member of the board of the Society for Nautical Research and chairman of its Research, Technical and Programmes Committee.
In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, [2] and was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Society of Naval Sciences.
He is also a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
In 2000-09 he was Chief Executive of the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund, a multi-million £ casework charity open to everyone behind the camera in British film and television industries. The charity raises funds principally through the Royal Film Performance. He retired as CEO in November 2009. [3]
Peter Hore is the editor or author of many reviews, articles and books including three biographies, numerous obituaries and several books on naval history and strategy. He is recognized at Historic Naval Fiction [4] as an established author. In 2009 his book Sydney, Cipher and Search, [5] an account of his ten-year search through the archives, interviews with survivors, and the breaking of a German wartime code, solved the mystery of the disappearance in 1941 of the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney (D48). [6] Sydney, Cipher and Search was awarded the Sir Robert Craven Trophy. [7] a certificate for literary merit from the Maritime Foundation at the Mountbatten Maritime Prize awards, and was nominated for the Anderson Medal award of the Society for Nautical Research. He is associate editor and book review editor of the influential monthly magazine Warships International Fleet Review, [8] was an op-ed writer on defence and international affairs for Newsday in New York, and has written over half a million words in some 600 obituaries for the London Daily Telegraph.
He is a consultant and contributor to the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. and some examples of his contributions can be referenced here:
Recent books include Dreadnought to Daring: 100 Years of Comment, Controversy and Debate; Nelson’s Band of Brothers: Their Lives and Memorials, containing a selection of rare illustrations and the biographies of all the officers who commanded under Horatio Nelson at his three great battles; and HMS Pickle: The Swiftest Ship in Nelson’s Trafalgar Fleet, a history of HMS Pickle (1800) and her captain at the Battle of Trafalgar, John Richards Lapenotière.
His latest book is Lindell’s List, the life and times of a group of American and British agents who were imprisoned by the Germans in the Second World War and rescued by the Swedish Red Cross from the ‘women’s hell’, a concentration camp at Ravensbrück, concentration camp, north of Berlin.
Peter Hore has contributed more than 1000 obituaries to the Daily Telegraph on Special Forces and members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and maritime subjects including British and overseas naval officers, men and women, Royal Marines, Merchant Navy officers, yachtsmen, life-boatmen, naval architects and shipping magnates. Each obituary is on average about 1,000 words long, highly factual and based on interviews and archival research. See examples here: [12]
A partial bibliography is on Amazon. [13]
Numerous newspaper and magazine articles, including regular features and op-ed articles for Warships International Fleet Review, the Kedge Anchor and Trafalgar Chronicle. Since 2015 he has been the editor of the Trafalgar Chronicle [14] Peter has also contributed a large number of book reviews for The Naval Review, The Linguist, Mariner's Mirror, and is Series editor for The British Navy at War and Peace.
The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
Eight ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Pickle:
HMS Royal Sovereign was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, which served as the flagship of Admiral Collingwood at the Battle of Trafalgar. She was the third of seven Royal Navy ships to bear the name. She was launched at Plymouth Dockyard on 11 September 1786, at a cost of £67,458, and was the only ship built to her design. Because of the high number of Northumbrians on board the crew were known as the Tars of the Tyne.
Sir John Thomas Duckworth, 1st Baronet, GCB was an officer of the Royal Navy, serving during the Seven Years' War, the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, as the Governor of Newfoundland during the War of 1812, and a member of the British House of Commons during his semi-retirement. Duckworth, a vicar's son, achieved much in a naval career that began at the age of 11.
HMS Pickle was a topsail schooner of the Royal Navy. She was originally a civilian vessel named Sting, of six guns, that Lord Hugh Seymour purchased to use as a tender on the Jamaica station. Pickle was at the Battle of Trafalgar, and though she was too small to take part in the fighting, Pickle was the first ship to bring the news of Nelson's victory to Great Britain. She also participated in a notable single-ship action when she captured the French privateer Favorite in 1807. Pickle was wrecked in 1808, but without loss of life.
The International Fleet Review was the most recent Royal Navy review, continuing a tradition going back to the 15th century. It took place on 28 June 2005, as part of the Trafalgar 200 celebrations to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. For the celebrations to mark Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, instead of a Fleet Review such as marked that of Queen Victoria, there was a cavalcade of boats down the Thames.
Andrew Lambert is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London.
Captain John Richards Lapenotière was a British Royal Navy officer who, as a lieutenant commanding the tiny topsail schooner HMS Pickle, observed the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, participated in the rescue operations which followed it and then carried the dispatches of the victory and the death of Admiral Nelson to Britain.
Commander Robert Benjamin Young, RN was an officer in the Royal Navy. His service in small ships led to his presence observing the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 from the deck of the tiny 10-gun cutter HMS Entreprenante. Following this battle, Young performed well, acting as messenger and rescue boat during the storm, although the honour of carrying the dispatches back to England was given to John Richards Lapenotiere, commander of HMS Pickle; Young maintained that prior to the battle Admiral Nelson had promised this honour to him.
HMS Edgar was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, that saw service in the American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Launched in 1779, she fought in the battles of Cape St Vincent and Copenhagen, two of the major naval engagements of the wars.
The 1805 Club was founded in 1990 to accomplish three objectives. To assist in the preservation of monuments and memorials relating to Vice- Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and seafarers of the Georgian era. To promote research into the Royal Navy of the Georgian period, and especially of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson. To organize cultural and historical events.
Rear-Admiral Samuel Sutton was an officer in the Royal Navy. He entered the service shortly after the start of the American War of Independence, and spent most of his early career serving with Captain and later Admiral Joshua Rowley. He saw action at several engagements with the French fleets in the West Indies, and ended the war as a lieutenant. Left without active employment by the following years of peace, Sutton briefly returned to service during the Spanish Armament in 1790, but the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793 brought him steady work. After serving in a number of ships and being present at Cornwallis's Retreat in 1795, Sutton received command of a sloop, and with it the opportunity to render a service to a member of the French aristocracy, and the future Charles X of France. Promoted for his good service, Sutton served as a flag captain to several admirals, including Horatio Nelson. He briefly commanded HMS Victory, before surrendering her to Thomas Hardy, who would go on to command Victory at Trafalgar, and be present at Nelson's death. Sutton instead took command of a frigate, and in 1804 was involved in a controversial action that saw the capture of three Spanish frigates and the destruction of a fourth. Made wealthy from the spoils, Sutton nevertheless remained in the navy, taking part in the chase of the French fleet to the West Indies in 1805. His health declined during this period, and he went ashore in October that year. He retired from active service, and served as a magistrate and local official for his community, being promoted to rear-admiral in 1821 and dying in 1832.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Martin was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. During his long naval career he took part in several significant battles, for which he was awarded a number of honours and promotions; he commanded ships at Cape St Vincent and Cape Finisterre.
Sir John Lawford was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Brian Lavery, is a British naval historian, author, and Curator Emeritus at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, England.
Peter Goodwin is a British maritime historian and author, and the former Keeper and Curator of HMS Victory.
This Bibliography covers sources for Royal Navy history through the 18th and 19th centuries. Some sources may be duplicated in sections when appropriate. Among the contemporary and earlier historical accounts are primary sources, historical accounts, often derived from letters, dispatches, government and military records, captain's logs and diaries, etc., by people involved in or closely associated to the historical episode in question. Primary source material is either written by these people or often collected, compiled, and/or written and published by other editors also, sometimes many years after the historical subject has passed. Primary sources listed in this bibliography are denoted with an uppercase bold ' (P) before the book title. Publications that are in the public domain and available online for viewing in their entirety are denoted with E'Book.
The British Baltic Fleet and also known as the Baltic Squadron was a series of temporary or semi permanent fleets of the Royal Navy. They were assembled at Spithead a naval anchorage in the English Channel for various naval operations in the Baltic Sea from 1658 to 1856 commanded by the Commander-in-Chief, Baltic Fleet.
William Cuming (1760–1824) was an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the American and French Revolutionary Wars. He was the captain of HMS Russell at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, where his men captured the Danish ship of the line Prøvesteenen. In 1805, as flag captain aboard HMS Prince of Wales, he returned to England for Robert Calder's court martial, following perceived inaction at the Battle of Cape Finisterre. Cuming, therefore, missed the Battle of Trafalgar.