Thursday 10th July 2025: 7.30 pm at the Newcastle upon Tyne Trinity House
Speaker: Philip K. Allan
The Peninsular War (1808 – 1814) was the most protracted campaign of the whole Napoleonic period, and played a decisive role in the downfall of Napoleon. The Iberian Peninsula was occupied by a French force that never numbered less than quarter of a million soldiers, which was ultimately defeated by a combination of furious Spanish and Portuguese resistance and the exploits of Wellington and the British Army. Most serious military historians agree that Britain’s command of the sea following Trafalgar played a vital role in the conflict, but none of them satisfactorily explains why.
Yet the war would have been difficult to fight and impossible to win without the thousands of sailors and hundreds of ships the Royal Navy allocated to the conflict. We welcome Philip K. Allan to the North-East and look forward to hearing him explain the vital role that ‘Wellington’s Navy’ played in the Peninsula War.
Free admission to Society members, £4 admission to visitors. Light refreshments available.
Philip K Allan comes from Hertfordshire where he still lives with his wife and two daughters. He has an extensive knowledge of the 18th century navy, having studied it as part of his history degree at London University, which awoke a lifelong passion for the period. A longstanding member of the Society for Nautical Research, he is also a keen sailor and writes for the US Naval Institute’s magazine Naval History, as well as giving talks about ships and the sea.
He is the author of the eleven book ‘Alexander Clay’ series of naval fiction set in the age of sail.
In a world torn apart by revolution and war, Alexander Clay, a young, self-made officer in the Regency Royal Navy, needs all his wits to navigate through the dangers that surround him and his men. The story begins in 1795 with The Captain’s Nephew, the first of eleven books and counting that follows his career through adventures stretching from the bleak Baltic to the tropical waters of the East Indies. When published in January 2018, The Captain’s Nephew immediately went into the Amazon top 100 bestseller list for Sea Adventures.
The ‘Alexander Clay’ books are meticulously researched. They are full of the battles and excitement expected of the genre, but also include many of the characters and events that make this such a fascinating era. Each book concludes with a section of author notes that explain where the line between truth and fiction lies in the story. Unlike traditional Age of Sail literature, ‘Alexander Clay’ books also include properly developed sailor characters as well as officers. This ensures the stories have a proper lower deck perspective on events, turning the wooden world of the ship into a sort of Downton Abbey afloat.
Philip has recently turned his attention to the Second World War with a series of three books set in the Battle of the Atlantic, the first of which is called ‘Sea of Wolves’.
