For a living Richard Endsor designs computer models for various scientific applications. He is very well known on the maritime history conference/research scene and also lectures widely on various maritime topics. This project has taken twelve years to research and write in which time the author has taught himself to draw and paint to a very high level as evidenced by the illustrations in this volume. He lives in High Wycombe.
Conway is proud to introduce a comprehensive and expertly illustrated history of HMS Lenox, a 70-gun third rate of Charles II’s Navy.
Richard Endsor is an engineer by profession, but has devoted considerable time to researching seventeenth-century ships, the Lenox project taking twelve years to complete. Richard is a trustee of the Nautical Museum Trust and is a member of the Society for Nautical Research. He has had numerous articles published in Mariner's Mirror and is also an accomplished artist, having exhibited at the RSMA exhibition. He also lectures widely on maritime topics.
Endsor is concerned with a single, emblematic warship which manages
to sum up the characteristic mix of public and private interests
that drove the Restoration State. As artist and author, in the
manner of Jean Boudriot, he has produced a large handsome book
about the 70-gun 3rd rate HMS Lenox, filled with excellent detailed
drawings, ranging from ships and masts to deck fittings and
cannon... Built at Deptford Dockyard by master-shipwright John
Shish, every detail of the design, construction and service life of
the 1000-ton Lenox has been traced by Endsor using remarkably rich
archival resources generated by the Pepsian naval administration...
Endsor skilfully situates the ship’s activities with the War of the
League of Augsburg (1688-1697), highlighting the main actions, the
meaning of the 1688 Revolution... The Appendices provide a highly
detailed resume of the ships’ facts and figures, and key documents
from her construction and refits at Chatham. Endsor’s book is a
testament to the wealth of documentary, artistic and technical
material that has survived from the Restoration. Evidence which
Pepys preserved to prove he had done a good job is now transforming
the way we understand the navy at a critical moment in English
history. He has brought to life a ship built 300 years ago,
allowing us to understand that such ships were built, and fought,
as complex machines integrating technical systems, trained manpower
and money to achieve national objects. In this context the
structure, fittings and fixtures of the ship take on a much greater
significance than bare facts might suggest. Restoration Warship
will be essential reading for students of the 16th-17th-and
18th-century navies: for students of ship-technology, design and
operations. For those who may encounter the remains of such vessels
the excellent drawings and pictures provide a new level of access
to critical points of the structure. Artist/author, publisher and
printer are to be congratulated on a landmark work that integrates
text and image at the highest level.
*The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology*
This is a classic example of how the wider naval historical
community can enable its members to produce first class work...
Endsor covers this story in absolutely amazing detail. The book is
a veritable triumph of research into all aspects of naval life in
the late 17th Century, with Lenox as the perfect hook on which to
hang the analysis. There is fascinating material on, timber supply,
shipbuilding and shipbuilders; (including detailed analysis of
‘shipwright productivity’)...The author also fully understands the
political background of the period when connection, religion and
faction dominated appointment of officers. The day of the
apolitical servant of the sate was still a long way off. The book
shows that its publisher Conway, now taken over by Anova Press, has
lost none of its ability to produce a very handsome book. It is
exceptionally well illustrated with impressive fold out plans of
the ship, deck by deck, and diagrams of every aspect of her
fittings. The colour plates are excellent and I rather liked the
sepia tones used for the rest of the book which gave a suitable
‘period’ feel to it. The price asked is not an unreasonable one for
such a beautiful volume.
*Navy News*
"The subject of this book, HMS Lenox, may seem to be an innocuous
and commonplace late seventeenth-century ship-of-the-line but when
her conception, construction and career are examined in the detail
that Richard Endsor lavishes on her she assumes a particular
importance... The book now guides us through the process of
building Lenox and I could not find any matter related to wooded
ship construction of the period that the author did not describe in
detail...Of course the usual subjects of construction, masting,
rigging, fitting of sails, ordnance, boats, capstans, small arms
and so forth are all dealt with but for most of these subjects the
author has been able to find more and intriguingly different
information than usual. For example dockyard facilities and the
working, and living conditions of the shipbuilding tradesmen are
fully described...we are given a detailed service history that goes
beyond the usual “rebuilds and battles fought” but shows us how her
officers and crew lived and worked, what was expected of them and
what they could expect in return...The most important illustrations
in the book are, however, the author’s own as his abilities go
beyond the expected research and writing skills. He is an
accomplished draughtsman and artist and a comprehensive set of
scale drawings, that will easily satisfy a model maker, along with
a number of his own paintings of the vessel, are included. They are
all well executed and are, perhaps, the most attractive feature of
the work. Further, Lenox’s builder was expected to produce written
reports of the ship’s building progress every Friday and Endsor has
included sketches that show this progress and with these the reader
can see at a glance how the vessel was constructed. John McKay
International Journal of Maritime History, Volume XXII, Number 1
(June 2010)"
*International Journal of Maritime History*
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