‘Poor England has lost so many men'

On 22 October 2007 an unlikely group of people were to be seen casting wreaths upon the sea off the Scilly Isles. They comprised a Chief Executive, a Naval Commander, a Science journalist and the Fourteenth Astronomer Royal (this writer). A clue which leads to the wider context of this event comes from the journalist and author, Dava Sobel; it was she who wrote the best-selling book Longitude, the sub-title of which well describes its contents - ‘The True Story of a Lone Genius Who solved the Greatest Scientific problem of his Time'. The occasion was the tercentenary of the maritime disaster in which Vice- Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell led a British Fleet on to the rocks on a dark and stormy night just 300 years before. His flagship, HMS Association, together with the Firebrand, the Eagle and the Romney were lost with approaching 2000 men. Shovell himself perished but at least his...