24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage
Gateway to Over 3,000 UK museums, galleries and heritage attractions
Skip to navigation
Trails
Master and Commander - A Patrick O'Brian Museum Trail
By Max Glaskin
30/12/2001
Left: the first Aubrey/Maturin novel, Master and Commander.
The extraordinarily popular novels of Patrick O'Brian convincingly recreate navy life during the Napoleonic Wars, from the thunderous sea battles right down to the weevils in the ships' biscuits.
The heroes, Captain Jack Aubrey and his particular friend Dr Stephen Maturin, encountered numerous adventures around the world and in early 19th century English society.
Now readers can extend the sublime literary experience of the 20 volume series by following this trail designed especially for the 24 Hour Museum. It's suitable for lubbers and all ratings but laggards may miss the tide unless they hurry. There's not a moment to lose.
Image: Stern of HMS Trincomalee
HMS Trincomalee, Hartlepool
A visit to Britain's oldest floating warship, HMS Trincomalee, is almost like being on board Aubrey's first frigate, the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Lively, or on his even smaller and beloved HMS Surprise.Even though she was not launched until 1817, well after hostilities ended, the 46-gun Trincomalee, now moored at Hartlepool, is very similar in design to earlier ships and it is easy to imagine her crew practising their gunnery skills while Jack times them from the quarterdeck.
Frigates were the most dashing ships in the navy because they were fast and well-armed: highly suited to Aubrey's demeanour. The Trincomalee gives a fine insight into the cramped conditions on a warship and there is one particularly curious coincidence worth considering as you admire the futtockshrouds...
At the end of the 19th century the Trincomalee was renamed the Foudroyant, after Nelson's one-time flagship and upon which a certain (fictional) Lieutenant Jack Aubrey had served shortly before the beginning of the novel series.
HMS Trincomalee Trust
Jackson Dock, Hartlepool, TS24 0SQ, Cleveland, England
Red House Stables Working Carriage Museum, Matlock, Derbyshire
O'Brian maintains the momentum of his novels on dry land with some memorably exhilarating carriage rides. Fortunately Caroline Dale-Leech can offer similar experiences in the Derbyshire countryside. They are more sedate and certainly safer than those taken by the impetuous Diana Villiers in the books.
The museum has nearly 40 carriages available, including a stage coach, a Royal Mail coach, a park drag and a Hansom cab. If you have the time, a pleasant day can be spent riding to the great houses nearby, stopping at country hostelries for appropriate refreshment. Budding Dianas may even take lessons in driving the carriages themselves in period costume or otherwise.
Red House Stables Working Carriage Museum
Old Road, Darley Dale, Matlock, DE4 2ER, Derbyshire, England
HMS Victory, Portsmouth
Jack Aubrey once passed the salt to Horatio Nelson, one-time commander of this astonishing vessel, and that alone is reason enough to visit.But our main interest is the sickbay below decks. This is the kind of workplace of which Dr Stephen Maturin could only dream, being spacious, light, pristine, well-aired and as steady as a rock.
Yet it gives an excellent impression of where the ship's surgeon may have dispensed the bolus, potable soup and tincture of laudanum to crew suffering from the marthambles, the great pox and unbalanced humours.
And it's where he would examine the wounded before deciding whether to saw off their shattered limbs with ferocious-looking instruments or cut a little hole in their skull and cover it with a beaten coin.Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
Visitor Centre, Victory Gate, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth, PO1 3LJ, Hampshire, England
The Historic Dockyard, Chatham
"She is a Chatham ship...she is pretty spry," said Jack Aubrey describing HMS Bellona which he commands in The Commodore, the 17th book in the series. And here you can see exactly how she was built by following the Wooden Walls exhibition, a tour of some of the twenty-six trades required to build a wooden warship.
Eleven ships of the line were built at Chatham, including HMS Victory, but the featured vessel is the Valiant, a third-rater with the same 74 guns as Bellona which was launched a year later in 1760. It was here also that the great naval architect and master shipwright Robert Seppings perfected diagonal bracing to strengthen ships.
The Historic Dockyard Chatham
The Historic Dockyard, Chatham, ME4 4TZ, Kent, England
Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth
This treasure house of naval history contains some real gems that will inspire every O'Brian fan. The most captivating are the original cover paintings for the Aubrey-Maturin books by artist Geoff Hunt. The museum owns 12 of the pictures and exhibits them in rotation.Right: The Ionian Mission, by Geoff Hunt, RSMA. Copyright, Royal Naval Museum.The numerous models and displays illuminate the lexicon of O'Brian's text, from the Articles of War, which describes capital offences, through to the yardarm, from which offenders were hanged.
The area would have been quite familiar to Jack and Stephen, each joining and leaving several ships in Portsmouth harbour throughout the series of novels.
Royal Naval Museum
HM Naval Base, Portsmouth, PO1 3NH, Hampshire, England
Explosion! The Museum of Naval Firepower, Gosport, Hants
The Museum of Naval Firepower would astound Jack Aubrey. His love of gunnery knew no bounds but even he could not have foreseen how marine ordnance would develop.Try, if you can, to ignore the 20th century atomic bomb on exhibition, and take a look outside at Powder Quay,above.
It was here that small boats would pick up prodigious quantities of gunpowder in wooden casks and row it out to Jack's ship, moored safely in the middle of the harbour.The powder was made in mills in Kent and Essex and stored in the Great Magazine at Priddy's Hard. It was only released to officers with permission from the Ordnance Board or perhaps with a little of the captain's cash to buy more than the official quota.
Explosion! The Museum of Naval Firepower
Priddy's Hard, Gosport, PO12 4LE, Hampshire, England
Buckler's Hard, Hants
Now a peaceful and picturesque village where the Beaulieu river joins the Solent estuary, it was, in Jack's day, a major shipyard where 50 wooden ships were built for the navy, including four ships of the line and Nelson's own favourite, the Agamemnon.The exhibition of village life and its hardships in the 18th century gives a clue as to why so many man preferred to take their chances at sea, particularly if fortunate enough to crew a vessel commanded by 'Lucky' Jack Aubrey.
One cottage, above, is especially relevant. Inside is shipwright Henry Adams poring over plans under the scrutiny of an overseer from the Navy Board. As O'Brian readers know, Jack had particular ideas about ship design and a deep loathing of bureaucracy. He'd have befriended Adams and wasted not a moment with the overseer.
The Maritime Museum, Buckler's Hard
Buckler's Hard, Beaulieu, Brockenhurst, SO42 7XB, Hampshire, England
Websites worth visiting on the trail of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin :
www.hmssurprise.org - an inspiring site for O'Brian devotees www.io.com/gibbonsb/pob/ - an all-embracing compendium of O'Brian sites www.aubreymaturin.co.uk - organisers of trips and events associated with Jack and Stephen's adventures http://williamcalvin.com/bookshelf/POB.htm - for an appreciation of the Aubrey-Maturin novels and some particularly commendable extracts www.theorlopdeck.org - devoted to historical naval surgery www.btinternet.com/~lawrence.edwards/tallships/pob/pob.htm - Tall ships fan Lawrence Edward's Patrick O'Brian page.Max Glaskin is an award-winning freelance journalist regularly published in the Sunday Times, New Scientist and many other national publications.
Click here for the Museums contacts list
Search this site
Home Page
News Page
Exhibition Page
What's On
Trails Page
Website of the Week
Letters Page
Welsh Home
Graphical Version
Copyright © 24 Hour Museum
Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.