chickenfeet

There isn't anything comparable to Rodger's Wooden World, I'm afraid. Oliver Walton has worked on the social history of the second half of the 19th century, and finished his thesis last year; I don't know if it's being published but I hope so. There is a book called Rule Britannia. The Victorian and Edwardian Navy by Peter Padfield which although limited, and definitely written as a popular history, does try to look at the different types of work done by the RN in that period and the methods used, and to consider the sailor as well as the officer. Henry Baynham's Before the Mast, which you may know, is a sequel to From the Lower Deck and includes various useful personal accounts and letters from the 1840s to 1880s. If I think of anything else I'll let you know!