ROYAL NAVAL SHIP'S LOG. LOG & JOURNAL OF HM SHIPS TRAFALGAR

ROYAL NAVAL SHIP'S LOG. LOG & JOURNAL OF HM SHIPS TRAFALGAR, ASTRAEA, VICTORIOUS AND NAUTILUS KEPT BY W B WATKINS GRUBB, MIDSHIPMAN, JANUARY 1895 - JULY 1898 INTERLEAVED WITH SEVENTY FINE WATERCOLOURS, ALMOST ALL OF SHIPS and many finly drawn charts and pen and ink and pencil sketches, 31 x 21cm, contemporary navy morocco gilt, worn, spine partly detached, tegProvenance: Lieutenant Commander Walter Bousfield Watkins-Grubb, RN (1879-1914).A meticulously kept ship's log from 22 January 1895 with Grubb's joining the HMS Hercules at Portsmouth before transferring to HMS Trafalgar in Salonika on 12 February. The log is particularly interesting for the description of the days leading up to the Diamond Jubilee Grand Naval Review at Spithead, June 26 1897 and the event itself, which was upstaged in audacious style by the appearance of the first turbine powered steamship Turbinia: "Two of our steam boats were running between ship & shore conveying to the ship the guests of the officers for the day. From 12.30-50 the course was kept clear by the picket boats of the fleet who hunted everybody including the Turbinia going at over 30 knots off the course." W B Watkins-Grubb was the son of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Grubb and Susan Mary Watkins. He married in July 1914 Marguerite Dunbar two months before his being killed in action on HMS Cressy, one of the three cruisers of the 'live bait' squadron sunk by a German U Boat off the Dutch coast in The Action of 22 September 1914.