Master and Madman: The Surprising Rise and Disastrous Fall of the Hon Anthony Lockwood RN

by Peter Thomas, Nicholas Tracy

Overview

Shortlisted, Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing

Despite the coming social reforms undertaken at home, the world of the Georgian British Empire was nothing if not class-conscious and leery of outsiders. But Anthony Lockwood, with no known certain record of his parentage and whose first appearance in history is his signing onto the USS Iphigenia in Jamaica in 1795, certainly broke through this mould. His naval record almost exactly spanned the French wars and the War of 1812, and he was commended for bravery in action against the French, was present at the Spithead Mutiny, shipwrecked and imprisoned in France, appointed master attendant of the naval yard in Bridgetown Barbados, and served as an hydrographer in the English Channel and the West Indies before beginning a three-year marine survey of Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy. All of this certainly seems eventful enough, but he was just getting started.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780864927477
Publisher:	Goose Lane Editions
Publication date:	03/30/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	274
File size:	986 KB

About the Author

Peter Thomas, a devoted fly fisherman, was also the author of three books of poetry. Among his prose works are The Welsher, a novel, and Strangers from a Secret Land, about Welsh settlement in Canada, which won the Welsh Arts Council's annual award for a work of non-fiction.
A naval historian and experienced yachtsman, Nicholas Tracy holds a PhD from the University of Southampton and is the author of several books including Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail. Although he was born on the Canadian prairies, Tracy has been an active yachtsman on two continents for many years.

Read an Excerpt

Despite being an “outsider”, Lockwood was able, due to his experience in the Navy, to acquire an appointment as the Surveyor General of New Brunswick and become the right-hand man to Governor George Stracey Smyth. Also appointed as Receiver General, his rise to the top of society seemed all but assured — despite the “handicap” of his low birth. But was he accepted or only tolerated by the aristocratic high New Brunswick society? On June 1, 1823, after several days of confronting authorities, picking fist fights, and riding from one side of the province to another, Lockwood took to his horse, brandished two pistols, and declared that he was taking over the government. This one-man coup d’etat failed, and he was declared mad. Jailed and later placed under house arrest, it would be November 1825 before he was officially removed from office and went home to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life in and out of asylums. With his own destruction of many of his records as well as the loss of more to a shipwreck and a fire, the story of Anthony Lockwood was a difficult one to research. With an exhaustive bibliography and notes, here, for the first time, is the bizarre, true story of Lockwood’s almost unprecedented rise and disastrous fall.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

List of illustrations ix

Introduction xiii

Part 1 Lockwood, Master RN 1

1 Dead Man's Cloaths 3

2 A Saucy Young Puppy 18

3 Equal to the Task 39

4 An Emissary of Light 58

5 To London 78

Part 2 The Honourable Anthony Lockwood 93

6 King's Councillor 95

7 Surveyor General 111

8 A New Broom 126

9 A Man of Respectable Appearance 148

10 Noises Off - Loyal Dancing 156

Part 3 The Fall 175

11 A House of Brick 177

12 The Perfect Storm 190

13 Never to Hope Again 206

Reflections: The Theatre of Life 217

References 221

Bibliography 245

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

"The authors . . . convincingly argue, in this intriguing look at a little-known corner of Canadian history, that Lockwood's grand gesture on that spring day in 1823 was "both mad and meaningful."" — Macleans

"Master and Madman, nominated for the 2013 Atlantic Book Awards for historical writing, is not a novel, but it contains some of the essential emements of an engrossing fiction: social ambition, suspence, disappointment, and the perverse workings of fate." — Susan Haley, The Fiddlehead

From the Publisher

"The authors... convincingly argue, in this intriguing look at a little-known corner of Canadian history, that Lockwood's grand gesture on that spring day in 1823 was 'both mad and meaningful.'"

Maclean's

"Master and Madman, nominated for the 2013 Atlantic Book Awards for historical writing, is not a novel, but it contains some of the essential elements of an engrossing fiction: social ambition, suspense, disappointment, and the perverse workings of fate."

The Fiddlehead - Susan Haley