After completing his studies at Trinity College, Oxford, John Charnock (1756-1807) joined the Royal Navy as a volunteer. Though details of his career at sea are lacking, he is known to have embarked on assiduous research into historical and contemporary naval affairs, and he cultivated contacts with many serving officers. His six-volume Biographia Navalis (1794-8), flawed yet still useful, is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. Published in three volumes from 1800 to 1802, the present work stands as the first serious study of naval architecture in Britain in particular, while also noting major developments in Europe and beyond. The volumes are illustrated throughout with numerous designs of vessels. Volume 1 (1800) traces the origins of marine architecture and how it was affected by commerce and war, from the ancient Chinese and Egyptians, through the Greeks and Romans, up to the death of Richard III.
