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Loney home Life & career Album Ships Portrait Uniform

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Letterbook Admiralty correspondence Medical journals Ships' logs Edward Loney ships' logs

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Letterbook

A letterbook (34 x 21 cm) contains many of William Loney's Commissions, and correspondence between him and the Admiralty and other parties regarding his employment. The documents were originally glued into the book, but unfortunately many have since been ripped out and some have become lost or torn.

Where possible I have identified the signatories of received letters. The letters send by William Loney himself are presumably drafts or copies made by himself. I have included transcriptions of hand-written documents which may be difficult to read.

• William Loney's Commissions:
  Commissions were signed by the Second (later Permanent) Secretary of the Admiralty, and by two Commissioners of the Admiralty. The Letters of Appointment are generally signed by the Second Secretary, and later by the Naval Secretary. An Order in Council of 9 June 1860 decreed that thereafter only one commission or warrant would be required for each grade of rank, so he would have received only a Letter of Appointment, and not also a Commission for Emerald, Cumberland and Glasgow.
  The Amphritrite Commission and the Commission as Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals and Fleets are on parchment, the other documents are on paper.
  • Commission & Letter as Surgeon in HMS Amphitrite (and William Loney's acknowledgement)
  • Commission & Letter as Surgeon in HMS Apollo
  • Commission & Letter as Surgeon in HMS Hydra (and a reply to William Loney's request, two months previously, for an appointment)
  • Commission & Letter as Surgeon in HMS Melampus
  • Commission as Surgeon in HMS Arrogant
  • Commission as Surgeon in HMS Dauntless
  • Letter as Surgeon in HMS Emerald (and an informal letter, sent a few days previously, enquiring if he would like this appointment; a note on the back of the formal letter documenting his response)
  • Letters as Surgeon and Staff Surgeon in HMS Cumberland
  • Warrant & Letter as Staff Surgeon at Haulbowline Naval Hospital (and memo granting one month's leave of absence)
  • Letter as Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals and Fleets
  • Warrant as Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals and Fleets at Haslar Naval Hospital (incomplete)
  • Retirement as Inspector General of Hospitals and Fleets and Abstract of Services
• Unsuccessful applications:
  • Application for a post as Medical Inspector of Contagious Diseases, and an Admiralty acknowledgement of receipt
  • An Admiralty acknowledgement of receipt of an application for the position of Staff Surgeon at Woolwich dockyard (and his note on the back)
  • Application for promotion to Deputy Inspector General at Bermuda, with a somewhat strange covering letter, an Admiralty acknowledgement of receipt, and his bitter comment on the back of the latter
  • Another application for promotion to Deputy Inspector General, with a covering letter, and an Admiralty acknowledgement of receipt (two months later he was appointed Staff Surgeon at Haulbowline, but had to wait another 8 years for promotion to Deputy Inspector General)
  • Letter from Vice-Admiral Arthur Cumming promising to support an attempt to gain an unspecified promotion (I assume, to Inspector General, see Loney's correspondence with the Admiralty at about this time) just before he retired in 1877
  • Formal response to an application, when retired, to be appointed Honorary Surgeon to the Queen (and two cool notes, apparently in response to unofficial requests for preferment)
• Other Admiralty correspondence:
  • Sir William Burnett’s report of William Loney’s application to become an Assistant Surgeon
  • A fragment of a letter addressed to: Dr Loney, Pantaloon, invalided 11 May 1846
  • Two letters thanking William Loney for contributions to the "Museum and Library established at Haslar, for the benefit of the Medical Officers of the Navy"
  • Summary of service made up in 1872, when William Loney had achieved 26 years service and became entitled to pay of 30/- (thirty shillings; £1.50) per day
  • A letter concerning William Loney's choice of pay regulations, from the Admiralty to the Commander-in-Chief China station, and Loney’s reply
  • A letter from the Commander-in-Chief China station, expressing his high opinion of William Loney upon his leaving the station (and a printed copy of this letter); a copy of a letter from the Admiralty to the Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth expressing satisfaction with that opinion
  • A letter from the Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth explaining why William Loney was transferred from Hong Kong to Haslar
• British Association for the relief of the extreme Distress in Ireland & Scotland:
  • Letter from Commander Caffin of H.M.S. Scrouge to the Times describing "The destitution of Ireland"
  • Letter from William Loney to the Admiralty offering his services in famine areas in Ireland, and a note describing his involvement with the Association
  • Three Admiralty replies and a note on the back of the last
  • List of the Agents of the Association in Ireland (and my map showing the allocated areas)
  • General instructions of the Association to its Agents in Ireland
  • Specific instructions of the Association to William Loney
  • Earlier specific instructions of the Association to Mr M.J. Higgins
  • Letter to William Loney suspending the operations of the Association in Ireland
  • Letter to William Loney from the Admiralty enclosing a copy of a letter from the Association "expressing the strongest testimony" in favour of the Naval officers employed as Agent by the Association
  • Extracts from William Loney's reports to the Association, included in the Association's 1849 report.
• Other documents:
  • Certificate from the Original School of Anatomy, Medicine & Surgery, Dublin (background: the Original school)
  • A Passport issued to William Loney by the French Embassy in London in 1846 (when he was on half pay after serving in Pantaloon and on Ascension Island), with visas on the back
  • A Passport issued to William Loney by the British Embassy in Brussels in 1860, two days after HMS Emerald, in which he was serving, arrived in Antwerp (because he was a member of Queen Victoria's entourage when she visited Coburg?).

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Letterbook Admiralty correspondence Medical journals Ships' logs Edward Loney ships' logs

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Admiralty correspondence

Correspondence preserved in Admiralty records in the National Archives is included here.

• A Pamphlet privately printed by William Loney in 1864 (and now preserved in ADM 105/75 at folio 198) apparently as part of his continuing campaign to gain promotion.
• Although much of the correspondence between William Loney and the Admiralty has not been preserved, many of it subjects have been preserved in service records in ADM 104.

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Letterbook Admiralty correspondence Medical journals Ships' logs Edward Loney ships' logs

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Medical journals

There are two surviving Medical Journals of William Loney in the National Archives: one from Hydra and one from Glasgow.

These journals are not a day-to-day record of the activities of the Surgeon, but a periodic report to the Admiralty, to be submitted at the end of a year, or upon leaving a ship, consisting of three parts:

• case-by-case descriptions of the most important cases during the period
• tables of the incidence of various diseases and medical conditions (so-called nosological tables)
• "General Remarks"; this is the most interesting part of the journal for the layman, as it gives summaries of the ships cruise during the period under consideration, and the medical conditions encountered during that time.

HMS Hydra; 1 January - 31 December 1853
This journal (ADM 101/104/7) covers the second year of Hydra's commission on the Cape of Good Hope Station.

• The General Remarks transcribed in full.
• An article on Leprosy at the Cape, a subject that apparently engrossed "such a considerable share of public attention at the Cape" that William Loney availed himself "of the leisure which a cruize in the Mozambique Channel" afforded him, to "append a brief statement of the case in this place" (and this is probably the reason that this journal has been preserved).

HMS Glasgow; 1 January - 10 November 1872
This journal (ADM 101/186) covers that part of 1872 during which William Loney served as Staff Surgeon in HMS Glasgow, the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief on the East Indies station. It has been preserved because it contains descriptions of the death of Rear-Admiral Cockburn, the C-in-C at the time, and the assassination of Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India.

• Case notes concerning the sickness and death (from "dysenteric colitis") of Rear-Admiral Cockburn (one of the case-by-case descriptions)
• A sample nosological table giving the incidence of various diseases and medical conditions
• The General Remarks transcribed in full. This is the most interesting part of the journal for the layman. It contains a description of William Loney's measures to improve hygiene in the ship and in the "sick quarters" at Trincomalie, for which he was also responsible; a description of the Glasgow's travels (compare this with the ships log); descriptions (sometimes in travelogue-style) of the places visited, and a sort of "executive summary" regarding the various types of diseases and conditions encountered.
  It also allows a glimpse of the surgeon himself: On the one hand getting the venereal patients back to work as soon as possible (but not letting them go ashore), suspecting some of the rheumatism cases of malingering, finding another patient "very lazy and indolent, and addicted in excess to smoking, which I felt it my duty to check", and considering Captain Jones's retention of an asthmatic servant, "a delicate man, but a good, trustworthy servant", indulgent. On the other hand he had a path laid out and garden seats installed under a banyan tree so that his Trincomalie patients could sit in the shade and admire the view of the ships in the harbour, and he considered a young marine, in charge of the wardroom's wine cellar "very intelligent and as steady as a man of his age and with his temptations could be expected to be". He talks about the beauty of the Andaman Islands, and his feeling of "regret that they should be devoted to the exclusive use and benefit of the offscourings of Indian society" (they were in use as a penal colony); and he is "hurt" when Admiral Cockburn takes a cool farewell of him, feeling - incorrectly as it soon turned out - that Loney exaggerated his medical problems.

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Letterbook Admiralty correspondence Medical journals Ships' logs Edward Loney ships' logs

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Ships' logs

Ships' logs reveal at least the location of the ship day by day (sometimes, as in the case of HMS Glasgow and HMS Hydra, also shown on handdrawn maps included in the log). Although generally limited to details of the ships position, navigation and handling, the weather, the levels and depletion of ships stores, and main occupations and punishment of the crew, they sometimes also allow a glimpse of life on board.
Early logs were kept in journals of blank pages. Later ones consist of preprinted forms, with per day a whole page (or half a page if in port); in HMS Penelope a preprinted log was in use from 6 April 1845 (a typical page from the log of HMS Apollo).

• HMS Wanderer (14 November 1839 - 15 September 1840, Sheerness - Spithead - Plymouth - St Jago - Sierra Leone - Ascension)
• HMS Persian (16 September 1840 - 8 January 1841, Ascension - River Congo - Saint Helena - Annobon - Cabinda)
• HMS Dolphin (8 January 1841 - 29 November 1842, Cabinda - Ascension - Bight of Benin - Ascension - Bight of Benin - Bight of Biafra - Bight of Benin - Ascension - Cabinda - Ascension - Portsmouth)
• HMS Rolla (22 February - 23 May 1845, Chatham - Plymouth - Madeira - Boa Vista - Porto Praya - Ascension - Sierra Leone); on passage to join Penelope at Sierra Leone)
• HMS Penelope ([22 February -] 23 May - 29 July 1845, [Gallinas - Accra - Lagos -Accra - Ascension - St Helena - Ascension - Gallinas -] Sierra Leone - Cape Verde Islands - Sierra Leone - Ascension)
• HMS Pantaloon (28 July 1845 - 4 May 1846, Ascension - Accra - Lagos - Princes Island - Badagery - Popoe - Ouitta - Princes Island - Lagos - Princes Island - Popoe - Ouitta - Prinses Island - Ascension)
• HMS Amphitrite (14 July 1847 -26 July 1850, Portsmouth - Spithead - Plymouth - Lisbon - Sierra Leone - Ascension - Bight of Benin (with a number of visits to Princes Island and Ascension) - Ascension - Rio de Janeiro - Valparaiso - Callao - Honolulu - Hawaii - Valparaiso - San Blas - Mazatlán - San Blas - Manzanillo - Valparaiso - Rio de Janero - Portsmouth)
• HMS Apollo (19 January - 20 August 1851, Sheerness - Plymouth - Queenstown - Gibraltar - Corfu - Malta - Gibraltar - Port Royal, Jamaica - Montego Bay - Halifax - Spithead - Dover - Sheerness - Chatham)
• HMS Hydra (14 January 1852 - 10 May 1856, Sheerness - Portsmouth - Spithead - Devonport - Madeira - Sierra Leone - St Paul de Loanda - Simons Bay (Cape of Good Hope) - Danger Point - Simons Bay - Port Elizabeth - Bird Islands - Simons Bay - surveying in Danger Bay - Simons Bay - surveying - Simons Bay - surveying Danger Point to Cape Agulhas - Simons Bay - Mauritius - St Denis (Réunion) - Johanna (Comoro Islands) - Mayotte (Comoro Islands) - Mozambique - Delagoa Bay - Port Natal - Port Elizabeth - Simons Bay - "Marion shoal" - surveying Cape Agulhas to Danger Point - Algoa Bay - Simons Bay - Quillimane River - Mozambique - Johanna - Matembo - Quillimane River - Simons Bay - Saldanha - Simons Bay - East London - Port Elizabeth - Simons Bay - Algoa Bay - Simons Bay - Algoa Bay - East London - Algoa Bay - Table Bay - Port Elizabeth - Algoa Bay - Mussel Bay - Table Bay - Cape Natal - Simons Bay - Ascension - Santa Cruz de Tenerife - Spithead (Royal review) - Sheerness)
  • Map: England - 12 ° North (January - February 1852)
  • Map: 12 ° North - Simons Bay (February - April 1852)
  • Map: Table Bay - Bird Islands - Simons Bay (October 1852)
  • Map: Simons Bay - Port Louis - St Denis - Johanna (May - June 1853)
  • Map: Johanna - Mayotte - Mozambique - Delagoa Bay - Port Natal - Port Elizabeth - Simons Bay (July - August 1853)
  • Map: In search of the "Marion Shoal", surveying near Agulhas Point, then - Algoa Bay - Simon Bay (October - November 1853)
  • Map: Simons Bay - Gordon Bay - Simons Bay (19 December 1853)
  • Map: Simons Bay - Quillimane River - Mozambique - Johanna - Matembo - Quillimane River - Simons Bay (January - April 1854)
  • Map: Simons Bay - Ascension - Santa Cruz de Tenerife - England (February - April 1856)
• HMS Melampus (17 December 1856 - 28 February 1858, Sheerness - Spithead - Southampton Water - Spithead - Portsmouth)
• HMS Arrogant (1 March 1858 - 22 August 1859, Portsmouth - Southampton Water - St Helens - Southampton Water - Portsmouth)
• HMS Dauntless (23 August 1859 - 18 January 1860, Portsmouth - Southampton Water - Portsmouth)
• HMS Emerald (4 July 1860 - 13 April 1861, Plymouth - Spithead - Alderney - Spithead - Flushing - Antwerp - Flushing - Spithead - Plymouth - Tagus - Plymouth)
• HMS Glasgow (24 May 1871 - 12 November 1872, Portsmouth - Plymouth - Madeira - St Vincent - Cape of Good Hope - Trincomalee - Rangoon - Moulmain - Andamans - Calcutta - Trincomalee - Bombay - Aden - Suez - Aden - Bombay - Trincomalee - Mauritius - Tamatave - Zanzibar - Seychelles - Trincomalee)
  • Map: Plymouth - Madeira (June 1871)
  • Map: Trincomalee - Rangoon - Moulmain - Andamans - Calcutta - Trincomalee - Bombay - Aden - Suez - Aden - Bombay - Trincomalee (January - May 1872)
  • Map: Trincomalee - Mauritius (June - July 1872)
  • Map: Mauritius - Tamatave - Zanzibar - Seychelles (August - September 1872)

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Letterbook Admiralty correspondence Medical journals Ships' logs Edward Loney ships' logs

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Edward Loney ships' logs

• HMS Express (2 July 1851 - 16 March July 1852, Plymouth - Bermuda - Cap Haitien (Haiti) - Guantanamo (Cuba) - Port Royal (Jamaica) - Greytown (Mosquito) - Blufields (Mosquito) - Greytown - Cartegena (Columbia) - Port Royal)
• HMS Buzzard (15 January 1853 - 10 December 1855, Port Royal (Jamaica) - Havana (Cuba) - Port Royal - Georgetown (Grand Cayman) - Belize - Port Royal - Guantanamo - Porto Bello (Panama) - Port Royal - Port au Prince (Hiati) - Port Royal - Bermuda - Halifax - St Johns - Sydney (Nova Scotia) - Harbour Breton - Forteau Bay (Labrador) - St Johns - Belle Isle - Forteau Bay - Halifax - Bermuda - Port au Prince - San Domingo (Dominican Republic) - Guantanamo - Port Royal - Sacrificos - Sisal (Yucatan) - Havana - Port Royal - Cartagena (Columbia) - Bluefields (Mosquito) - Greytown (Mosquito) - Port Royal - Courtown Cays - Port Royal - Belize - Greytown - Port Royal - Bermuda)
• HMS Eurydice (25 August 1855 - 5 December 1855, Port Royal - Greytown - Bluefields - Corn Islands - Greytown - Havana - Bermuda)
• HMS Caesar (14 June 1858 - 14 July 1861, Portsmouth - Torbay - Plymouth - Berehaven - Plymouth - Port Royal (Jamaica) - Greytown (Mosquito) - Sacrificios (Mexico) - Havana - Portsmouth - Torbay - Plymouth - Gibraltar - Malta - Naples - Malta - Beirut - Malta - Corfu - Malta - Corfu - Laute Bay - Corfu)

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