Dreadnoughts in Camera: Building the Dreadnoughts 1905-1920 [Hardcover]

Roger D. Thomas (Author), Brian Patterson (Author), England) Royal Naval Museum (Portsmouth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1998

The construction of British Dreadnought warships between 1905 and 1920 was an enormous financial and industrial undertaking which involved all the major ship builders in Great Britain and two Royal Naval Dockyards. The speed at which these warships could be built became a matter of national importance as Britain was inexorably drawn into an accelerating naval expansion race with Germany. The massive Dreadnought construction programme had to be mediated through the craft skills and working practices of a wide range of dock and shipyard workers. These leviathans of the sea were built at Portsmouth and Devonport naval dockyards and in the private shipyards of Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth, Elswick; William Beardmore, Dalmuir; John Brown, Clydebank; Cammell Laird, Birkenhead; Harland and Wolff, Belfast; Palmers, Jarrow; Scotts, Greenock; the Thames Ironworks, Blackwall; and Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness. A selection of illustrations have been drawn from the archives of Beardmore, John Brown and Vickers, and support the authoritative text. They depict the various stages of Dreadnought construction and are complimented by images of the gun and turbine shops and rolling mills of the major armaments manufacturers employed in the Dreadnought programme.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Pub Ltd (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750914467
• ISBN-13: 978-0750914468
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,719,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pictorial of Dreadnoughts under construction, July 29, 2004

By 

Jeremy (Madison, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreadnoughts in Camera: Building the Dreadnoughts 1905-1920 (Hardcover)

Naval enthusiasts should be so lucky that new volumes on World War 1 Dreadnoughts are still being produced. This 1998 volume contains arresting pictures covering all aspects of dreadnought construction in British yards. The accompanying text also is very interesting.

There are several pages containing descriptions of trade union working practices which I found myself skipping over. Perhaps a fifth of the book is given over to an Appendix, in which are rudimentary line drawings of British dreadnoughts along with the usual facts and figures universally available. Surely this space could have contained additional photos. In addition, there are a couple of editing errors involving photographs showing up twice, and with incorrect captions.