Seventeenth Century Rigging by R. C. Anderson

About the Author

Dr Anderson wrote extensively in the Mariner's Mirror with which he was closely associated [including the use of nom-de-plume 'South Goodwin']. Educated at Winchester and Clare College, Cambridge, he served in the RNVR during WW1, including Mine Layers based in Gibraltar, he was a founding member of the Society for Nautical Research and President from 1931-1960, Honorary Editor of the Mariner's Mirror 1913-23, 1931-32 and 1939-46. He was also an original member of the Board of Trustees of the National Maritime Museum in 1927, and the second Chairman (after Lord Stanhope).

His own collection of "manuscripts" mainly relating to the Royal Navy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but also including papers on merchant shipping and on the French, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish and Venetian navies are held by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, as are many of his books and models which he graciously donated.

Considered as an expert in early sailing ship rigging and building, his writings are occasionally dull, but always thoroughly trustworthy. George Naish, in his obituary notes on Dr Anderson, noted: "He thrived on facts and figures. He always named the ships, stated the guns they carried, and supplied the Captain with his Christian names."

Goodreads: 5.00

Paperback, 1972