David Watkin Waters
David Watkin Waters
Early life
Born in 1911 in Cornwall, the second and younger son of a naval engineer-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, David Waters' father was among the 35 officers and 512 men who died when
Illness delayed completion of his education at Dartmouth, but in 1929 he eventually joined the battleship
In 1940, he became a flying instructor in the
After the war, he remained in the Royal Navy on flying duty. In 1946, he contemplated doing further study in history and obtained an offer from Balliol College, Oxford, but the Navy declined to send him. Later that year, he was posted to the Admiralty's Naval Historical Branch to assist in writing staff histories of the war.[2]
Civil service career
David Waters retired from active service in the Royal Navy in 1950 and entered the Civil Service to work in the Historical Branch as a specialist in the defence of shipping. Here, he began studies on the general history of
In 1960, Waters became head of Navigation and Astronomy at the National Maritime Museum. There, he played an important role in converting the Old Royal Observatory, Greenwich into a museum in 1967. He served as secretary of the National Maritime Museum from 1968 to 1971 and then became deputy director from 1971 to 1978. Retiring from the civil Service in 1978 at the age of 67, he held two visiting professorships, a Caird Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum, and a fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library.[2]
Publications
- The True and Perfecte Newes of the Woorthy and Valiaunt Exploytes, performed and doone by that Valiant Knight Syr Frauncis Drake ... 1587, by Thomas Greepe, Now reproduced in facsimile from the original edition in the private library of Henry C. Taylor ... With an introduction, notes, and a bibliography of English military books by David W. Waters. [With a portrait and maps.] (1958)
- The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart times (1958, 2nd edition 1978).
- The Rutters of the Sea: The Sailing Directions of Pierre Garcie: A study of the first English and French printed sailing directions with facsimile reproductions (1967).
- Science and the techniques of Navigation (1968).
- The Saluki in history, art and sport by Hope Waters. (1968)
- Sir Francis Drake a pictorial biography by Hans P. Kraus, with an historical introduction by David W. Waters & Richard Boulind and a detailed catalogue of the author's collection. (1970).
- The Elizabethan Navy and the Armada of Spain (1975)
- Science and the Techniques of Navigation in the Renaissance (1976; 2nd edition 1980)
- Nautical astronomy and the problem of longitude (1983)
- English navigational books, charts and globes printed down to 1600 (1985)
- Reflections upon some navigational and hydrographic problems of the XVth century related to the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias, 1487-88 (1983)
- The rudder, tiller and whipstaff (1987)
- English maritime books printed before 1801: relating to ships, their construction and their operation at sea: including articles in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society compiled by Thomas R. Adams and David W. Waters (1995).
- "Defeat of the Enemy Attack upon Shipping, 1939โ1945, edited with an introduction by Eric J. Grove. Publications of the Navy Records Society volume 137 (1997).
Festschrift
- P.G.W. Annis, ed., assisted by Jan Allwright, Ingrid and Other Studies: Presented to David W. Waters, FRIN. Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum on the Occasion of his Retirement (1978).
Notes
External links
- Obituary in The Independent
- Obituary in The Telegraph
- Catalog Record of the D.W. Waters Collection (WTS) at the Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
- Gardner, W. J.R. (May 2013). "Lt Cdr David Watkin Waters RN, FSA, FRHistS, FRIN". The Mariner's Mirror. 99 (2): 136โ137. ISSN 0025-3359.