Gosse, Dr Philip (1879-1959)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0064 GOS
Held at	: National Maritime Museum   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/ ›
Full title	: Gosse, Dr Philip (1879-1959)
Date(s)	: [1680-1819]
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 11/2ft: 45cm
Name of creator(s)	: Various Gosse | Philip | 1879-1959 | historian and collector

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Dr Philip Gosse (1879-1959) ended his career as Superintendent of the Radium Institute, London in 1930, after which he not only collected documents and books relating to piracy, but wrote many works on the subject.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

The collection illustrates the history of piracy from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It includes a journal of the voyage of Captain Bartholomew Sharp in the MAYFLOWER, 1680 to 1682, kept by his second-in-command, John Cox; it was on this voyage in the Pacific that Sharp captured a Spanish derrotero and the navigational information in it was used in the atlases of William Hack ([1656]-1708). Two letters from Sir Thomas Lynch (1603-?1684), Governor of Jamaica, give many details about measures taken to suppress piracy; the first, written to Sir Leoline Jenkins (1623-1683), Secretary of State, in 1683 relates principally to the interruption by privateers of the sugar trade of the West Indies; the second letter was written in 1683 to the Secretary of State for Northern Affairs, Lord Sunderland (1640-1702), and gives an account of the attack, led by Vanhorne (d.1683), on Vera Cruz. There is a journal and narrative account of the burning of La Trompeuse and other pirates in port at St Thomas's Island by Captain Charles Carlisle (d 1684) in the FRANCIS, 1683, and a collection of documents received by Sir Evan Nepean with some draft replies while Nepean was Governor of Bombay. These are mainly concerned with the expedition against piracy in the Persian Gulf between 1817 and 1819. There are also personal papers of Dr Gosse, which all relate to his publications on piracy.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Please contact the Archive for further information.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Please contact the Archive for further information.

Finding aids:

Detailed catalogue online at the: National Maritime Museum website .

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

The collection, purchased by Sir James Caird from Dr Gosse in 1939 and 1940.

Allied Materials

Related material:

The Museum also possesses his library of works on piracy.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Edited by Sarah Drewery, Jun 2011.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
2010-08-26