Fred T. Jane

Today, the 8th March 2016, marks the centenary of the death of Fred T. Jane, the founder of Jane’s Fighting Ships and all the off-shoots of products that now exist under his name. He was 50 years old.

Fred was discovered on the morning of the 8th March 1916 “dead in bed at his residence in Clarence Parade [Portsmouth]” and “had been attended during the past week or so by Dr Cole-Baker on account of an attack of influenza, and had also complained of heart trouble, but his sudden death came as a great shock”.

He lived quite an amazing life during those 50 years, too much for me to cover here, but luckily a book was written about him by Richard Brooks, published in 1997. The book is still available today, easily found on Amazon for instance, and is titled Fred T. Jane – An eccentric Visionary (From Ironclad Ships To 21st Century Information Solutions) – and it is a great read.

Not only did Fred invent Fighting Ships and All the Worlds Aircraft, he was one of the first people to have a motor car in the UK (including racing them), he was one of the first private pilots (though not very good going by all the crashes he had), he was a member of Parliament, he was a writer of Science Fiction (at the same time as H.G. Wells was writing on the very same subjects) and a very successful artist. It was the artistry and writing that got him into creating Fighting Ships, even though there were other successful books in existence at that time covering the same subject matter. It was his line drawings and silhouettes that made Fighting Ships stand out from the rest, and it is why the books are still in existence to this day whilst the others have dwindled into the past.

As well as writing and illustrating his own Science Fiction, he created artwork for other writers, including this for the book Olga Romanoff by George Griffith in 1893.

Taken from the 1932 edition of Fighting Ships, the earliest in my collection.

The early Fighting Ships books, the first of which was printed in 1898, went into extraordinary detail. These included the same details as is found in todays editions – weapons, crew numbers, engine types, speed etc., but also down to such details of the thickness of hulls in the various areas of each ship. The details on guns and armoured hulls were given comparative identifiers to show that a certain type of gun was capable of piercing a certain type of armoured hull. It was from this that the use of the books became manuals in “WarGames”.

Four metres of Fighting Ships. Nearly every edition from 1946 to 1995, plus the earliest I have from 1932

Now, these WarGamers weren’t just “nerds” sitting around at home, these were Naval Officers who used the information for training and strategy building, although the game was available to the public too. Prices at the time ranged from 4 guineas to £40 (around £4,400 in todays money), though the top end product “contained practically all the warships in the world” and was used primarily by various navies, including the Japanese Navy. The “games” came with model ships as part of the boxed set.

The early editions were in Landscape format, with different “standards” available – the “top end” versions were leather bound.

Though the Royal Navy was very slow in taking up the game, the Russian Navy were extremely interested in it and invited Fred to St. Petersburg in 1899 where he met Tsar Nicholas II. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich even wrote the preface to the 1899 edition of Fighting Ships, the Duke being the Tsars brother-in-law. Fighting Ships isn’t even officially sold to anyone in Russia anymore.

The British Battle Fleet first edition from 1912

Thanks to this trip, Fred was able to publish an off-shoot book titled The Imperial Russian Navy which led further to The British Battle Fleet – a book I have in my possession in its first edition format. It is thought that to this day, no one else outside of Russia has had such access to their fleets. Fred became good friends with members of both the Russian and Japanese Navies, something that caused him grief later on during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 where he lost friends on both sides.

Fred died on his own, though he had an estranged wife and a daughter, but his legacy still lives on today. Ironically, the house he died in was bombed by the Germans in the Second World War, but flats that were built there in its place has a plaque commemorating his name.

I’m very proud to have had my photographs printed in recent editions of Fighting Ships and I enjoy very much the research I do on the Russian Navy that I then forward on to the yearbooks current editor, Commodore Stephen Saunders RN. He is just the eighth editor in the 118 years of publication.

For more information on Fred T. Jane, please look up the previously mentioned book by Richard Brooks – you won’t be disappointed.