on "The British Navy : Its Strength, Resources, and Administration," which 

 dealt with the material side of the navy, its ships, its dockyards, and its sea- 

 men. So great was the value of this publication that the author decided a few 

 years later to issue a Naval Annual, and this publication, edited first by him 

 and subsequently by his son (The Hon. T. A. Brassey, afterwards Lord 

 Hythe), has now become a standard work with which his name will always 

 be connected. The Navy Annual includes particulars not only of the British 

 but of all the principal foreign navies, and upon it have been modeled 

 numerous similar publications at home and abroad. 



The "one clear call" which, above all others, predominated in his versatile 

 nature was undoubtedly the call of the sea. From earliest boyhood it had 

 exercised its fascination upon him, and when in later years the opportunity 

 arose for yachting on the grand scale, it was the Sunbeam that became, not 

 only his floating home for many a long and happy month and the nursery of 

 his children's early years, but it was the means of gratifying that love of travel 

 and adventure which he shared with all the members of his family. The 

 yachting habit had, however, been acquired long before the advent of the Sun- 

 beam on the scene. As far back as 1855, while still at Oxford, Lord Brassey 

 had successively owned two cutters, the Zillah and Cymba, in which the first 

 lessons of the sea were learnt with all the enthusiasm and glamor of ambitious 

 youth. Next followed the Albatross, an iron-hulled schooner of 120 tons, in 

 which a voyage to the Mediterranean was undertaken with not entirely happy 

 results; for the prevalence of adverse winds and the difficulties of navigation, 

 unaided by steam, were such that no further ventures were made in pure 

 sailing yachts. It was at this time (1859) that the proud owner of this 120- 

 tonner was elected to the Royal Yacht Squadron, of which he lived to be the 

 oldest member. After the Albatross came the Meteor, a good-sized auxiliary 

 schooner in which he undertook, as his own master and pilot, the difficult 

 navigation to the Baltic, until the fogbound coast of Sweden made the services 

 of a pilot indispensable. Lord Brassey was the first amateur yachtsman to 

 obtain by examination a Board of Trade master's certificate, and it is a proof 

 of his tmdaunted courage, not unalloyed with some of the rashness of youth, 

 that he forthwith undertook a task from which many a more experienced 

 master might have shrunk. 



The classic "Voyage in the Sunbeam Round the World" (1876-7), by 

 Lady Brassey, which was translated into nearly every language in Europe 

 and reached an enormous public, tells its own tale of voyage and adventure, 

 and brought a rich reward of experience and of lasting friendships. Tangible 

 records were seen in the collections that soon grew into a veritable museum 

 of souvenirs, of produce and workmanship in the hospitable mansion at Park 

 Lane and the spacious rooms of Normanhurst. In both these homes Lord 



