Clio - sources

The Voyages of HMS Clio

A note on sources

While not “literally impossible” to track Clio’s every movement, it would be extremely difficult – and expensive! The only way to do it would be to look at each page of all her log books – and on a page-a-day basis for a ship that was in her seventeenth year in service when she was eventually scrapped, that would be in the order of 6,000 pages! Pea-Bee has not the time, opportunity and not even the inclination, to sit at Kew in the National Archives, reading each page. And getting them copied at £1.30 a page….!

However, much of Clio’s service was noted in newspapers of the time which published Admiralty notices of ship movements. These were far from complete at the time of publication – and the on-line digital libraries do not always pick up all the entries that were published. Poor print quality, contemporary typos, flecks in the paper, squashed insects … all can fox optical character recognition programs so the search engines miss relevant references.

Pea-Bee has put together what has been found in five on-line archives:

·      National Library of Australia’s Trove (trove.nla.gov.au) (mainly The Sydney Morning Herald)

·      National Library of New Zealand’s Paperspast (paperspast.natlib.govt.nz) (mainly New Zealand Herald)

·      National Library Board Singapore’s NewpaperSG (eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers) (mainly The Straits Times)

·      Hong Kong Public Libraries’ Multimedia Information System: Old HK Newspapers (mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/old-hk-collection) (Hong Kong Telegraph)

·      British Library’s British Newspaper Archive (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) via findmypast.co.uk (mainly Portsmouth Evening News)

The newspapers have an advantage over any log book in that, when Clio was involved in any special event, the newspapers could go into the background and what was happening around Clio.

There is a series of log books available on line at oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com (via naval-history.net). These cover most of the period from the beginning of October 1913 until the end of May 1920, with only a few months omitted when Clio was “resting” at the end of 1918.

For anyone really interested in a particular timespan, a list of log books and the National Archive reference number is given here.

ADM 53/18662 19 Jan 1904-6 Jan 1905

ADM 53/18663 7 Jan 1905-27 Dec 1905

ADM 53/18664 28 Dec 1905-31 July 1906

ADM 53/18665 31 July 1906-20 July 1907

ADM 53/18666 21 July 1907-23 Sep 1908

ADM 53/18667 23 Sep 1908-27 Feb 1910

ADM 53/18668 28 Feb 1910-10 Oct 1910

ADM 53/18669 10 Oct 1910-30 Sep 1911

ADM 53/18670 1 Oct 1911-16 Oct 1912

ADM 53/18671 16 Oct 1912 – 5 Oct 1913

ADM 53/38067 6 Oct 1913-21 Nov 1914

ADM 53/38068 22 Nov 1914-31 May 1915

ADM 53/38069 1 June 1915-31 July 1916

ADM 53/38070 1 Aug 1916-30 Sep 1917

ADM 53/38071 1 Oct 1917-31 Oct 1917

ADM 53/38072 1 Nov 1917-30 Nov 1917

ADM 53/38073 1 Dec 1917-31 Dec 1917

ADM 53/38074 1 Jan 1918-31 Jan 1918

ADM 53/38075 1 Feb 1918-28 Feb 1918

ADM 53/38076 1 Mch 1918-31 Mch 1918

ADM 53/38077 1 Apr 1918-30 Apr 1918

ADM 53/38078 1 May 1918-31 May 1918

ADM 53/38079 1 June 1918-30 June 1918

ADM 53/38080 1 July 1918-31 July 1918

ADM 53/38081 1 Aug 1918-27 Aug 1918

ADM 53/38082 1 Mch 1919-31 Mch 1919

ADM 53/38083 1 Apr 1919-30 Apr 1919

ADM 53/38084 1 May 1919-31 May 1919

ADM 53/38085 1 June 1919-30 June 1919

ADM 53/38086 1 July 1919-31 July 1919

ADM 53/38087 1 Aug 1919-29 Aug 1919

ADM 53/69604 4 Nov 1919-31 Dec 1919

ADM 53/38088 1 Jan 1920-31 Jan 1920

ADM 53/38089 1 Feb 1920-29 Feb 1920

ADM 53/38090 1 Mch 1920-31 Mch 1920

ADM 53/38091 1 Apr 1920-30 Apr 1920

ADM 53/38092 1 May 1920-31 May 1920