Steam Power and Sea Power

Steven Gray is Lecturer in the History of the Royal Navy at the University of Portsmouth, UK, where he teaches on the MA in Naval History. His PhD, completed at the University of Warwick, won the British Commission for Maritime History Doctoral prize for the best doctoral thesis, 2014.

“In Steam Power and Sea Power, Steven Gray explores the political, economic, social, and cultural implications of the British Navy’s transition to, and reliance on, mineral energy. Drawing from a diverse array of government and naval correspondence and reports, parliamentary papers, diaries and journals, ships logs, and a number of newspapers and periodicals from across the British empire, Gray brings together the well- established literature on the relationship between the Royal Navy and the British empire with the quickly-growing field of energy history.” (Andrew Watson, Canadian Journal of History, Vol. 53 (3), 2018)​

• Chapter 1 — Introduction.- Part I: The Rise of Coal Consciousness: Coal, State, and Imperial Defence.- Chapter 2 — Investigating the Coal Question.- Chapter 3 — From Coal Consciousness to Coal Consensus.- Part II: ‘An Enormous System Under Splendid Control’: The Development of a Coaling Infrastructure.- Chapter 4 — Sourcing Coal for the Navy.- Chapter 5 — Managing the Navy’s Imperial Supply.- Part III — Coaling Labour.- Chapter 6 — ‘Gifted with Strength That Is Not Human’: Using Indigenous Labour for Coaling.- Chapter 7 — ‘A Shadow Would Come Over the Ship’: Using Naval Labour for Coaling.- Part IV — Sojourning at the Coaling Station.- Chapter 8 — A maritime community?.- Chapter 9 — Exploring the Station.- Chapter 10 — Epilogue.