In this post, we’re looking at my photos of ADM 7/639: Instructions for Admiralty Navy Board Officials. I have 185 images to share.
This is a very interesting volume, containing copies of a large number of orders to members of the Navy Board- particularly in foreign ports. This covers from 1660 to the 1720s, and then at the end includes copies of documents from the reign of James I and Charles I (though, in a different hand). These two are instructions to the Navy Board but from a different period.
ADM 7/639 f8v-f9r
(Apologies for the fingers). As you can see here, most of the documents are written in a fairly clean hand.
ADM 7/639 f18-19
Like many of these volumes of copied documents, there are annotations in the left column- either references for things that are descries in the text, or just commentaries. These are clearly put together at a later date- if I had to guess, I would think they were a similar effort to that that created the Corbett volumes (a copy of which are now held at the National Museum of the Royal Navy and which, frankly, are an amazing thing to consult). Alas, last time I checked they did not have an online catalogue and I’m not allowed to share those photos on social media.
ADM 7/639 f190-191
This volume is *particularly* useful/interesting to those who are researching the activities of the Navy Board at the various dispersed dockyards, as shown by this document which refers to the dockyard in Jamaica. There are also documents for Antigua and other ports as well. I very much wish I had made better use of this volume when I was working on my PhD, and I hope that it’ll be of use to others.
