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Andy Gill

@andyfromwithin.bsky.social

85 followers 59 following 140 posts

Author, musician, actor and father currently doing MA Naval History. Love to talk about the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail and Exploration, and who was the best Mr. Darcy...Matthew Macfadyen, if you were wondering! 😉

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Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · 18h

It would be if I wasn't starring in the play "Jekyll & Hyde" this week! I'm standing in the wings of the theatre waiting to go on & I'm thinking, "How do I define Darwin's relationship with his diary? Essentially the physical artefact is transformed into a friend & confidante, so Transfigurative?" 🤔

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · 18h

You're still an absolute star. I really struggled to get my head around this MA as the switch from doing history to doing "History" is quite disorientating. But there are many types of history & I don't think a degree is necessary to be a historian, just passion, which you have in spades ❤️

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · 19h

Think I might have become a little obsessed with my dissertation, tentatively titled, "Stress, Anxiety and Created Communities: the Voyages of Darwin, Huxley and Hooker." It's not even due till September but I'm itching to start writing it. It's all I can think about!

#navalhistory

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you, I'm seeing a specialist but it's another month away. I don't want to discard hundreds of hours of research & a topic that fascinates me, but I do wonder if it will affect my objectivity. He looms large over many of the surveying voyages so can't be avoided, unfortunately.

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · 10d

Seeking advice. For my dissertation I'm researching the surveying expeditions of the 1820s-50s, but I have cPTSD caused by a direct descendant of one of the key figures. They even share the same name & every time I see it in the sources, I feel sick. Don't know how to make this work.

#navalhistory

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · 13d

Walked into my bedroom to discover the sun, trees and my HMS Victory model painting a pretty picture on the wall 😍

#navalhistory

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Aug 10

I'm writing a no-holds-barred book about what it's like to be a male survivor of domestic abuse. It takes the form of questions and answers so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask & I'll try to include/answer them. Thanks 😊 🫂

#domesticabuse #domesticviolence

Reposted by Andy Gill

Dreadnought Holiday @dreadships.bsky.social · Jul 20

This account is unashamedly francophilic, and has no truck with the Anglo prejudice that the French are obsessed with sex.

The official museum of the French army, on the other hand...

The sexiest little cannon you will ever see pouts at the camera. For reasons known best to the inventor, the bore and body of the cannon is elliptical and they've gone the extra mile to add a sexy little cupid's bow to the muzzle.

It's only a brass model and I've no idea if the full size version was ever allowed to seal anything with a loving kiss.

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jul 7

According to staff, this is a popular place for proposals. Have they even seen the movie!? "I love you most ardently." "You are the last man I could ever be prevailed upon to marry!"

#prideandprejudice
#janeausten
#stourhead

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

It also changes how we should view Stokes and the effect of isolation on mental health. He was not a capable officer affected by the strain. He was more like Donald Crowhurst, out of his depth, lying and afraid of exposure. This is a far darker and more complex story than the one we've been told 9/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

Taking command, Fitzroy would have known this about his predecessor. He would have known it was Stokes' inadequacy and fear of discovery that drove him mad, not just the stress of the task. But Fitzroy was an exceptional commander, so this changes how we should view his invitation to Darwin. 8/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

Flinn, the Master, sick of his treatment, requested a transfer to Adventure. King agreed, and dispatched a master's mate to the Beagle instead. According to King, this was why it happened. Knowing he could no longer hide his deficiencies, and terrified of being found out, Stokes shot himself. 7/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

They record a man loitering for two weeks just outside the rendezvous, in the process running out of most food and all the antiscorbutics, in the hope that King in the Adventure would have already left and thus would not find out the truth. But as he sailed into Port Famine, the ship was there. 6/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

They show a man that copied the charts, measurements and calculations of his assistant surveyor, Lt Skyring, and passed them off as his own. Who on the storm-tossed deck of the Beagle demanded an oath of loyalty from his officers that they would not tell anyone what had transpired. 5/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

They depict a man who repeatedly ignored the advice of his officers, sailed his ship into hazards that endangered them all, relied upon the Master and luck to extricate them, and then punished the crew for his own mistakes. A man whose surveying ability was substandard and woefully inadequate. 4/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

I have since discovered King's letter to the Admiralty reporting Stokes' death, and a diary by the Beagle's purser, which cast this simplistic interpretation into doubt. They paint Stokes not as a lonely soul burdened with responsibility but as a tyrant who abused his officers and men. 3/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

I claimed, in line with the epitaph on his gravestone, the official voyage narrative by PP King, and the opinion of various historians, that Stokes was driven by the stress and isolation of command to take his own life, and as a result, Fitzroy (potentially) invited Darwin as a friend/companion. 2/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 30

As historians, it is incumbent upon us to alter our arguments in light of new discoveries, even when it adds unwanted complexity to a topic we thought we understood. In that vein, I wish to amend my last thread about the death of Pringle Stokes, first commander of HMS Beagle. #navalhistory 1/9

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 24

Asked my kids if they'd ever heard of Charles Darwin.

"Yes," they said. "He's the bad guy in Star Wars." 🤔

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 21

That's going to be the subject of my MA dissertation 😉

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 21

Yes, he was described as being in "great pain" the entire time. The surgeon knew immediately that it was mortal. At times, Stokes was aware his end was near; at others, he spoke of resuming the surveying work as soon as he recovered. A very sad case. Fitzroy also took his own life many years later.

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 21

Thank you, it was my pleasure 😊

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 20

Scholars can't agree why he brought Darwin. Was it purely for science? Or was it because, knowing what the isolation and anxiety had done to his predecessor, he wanted a companion to stave off the loneliness? Whatever the case, the history of Beagle is incomplete without including Pringle Stokes 5/5

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 20

Lt. Skyring sailed the Beagle back to Montevideo, where Admiral Otway placed his Flag Lieutenant, Robert Fitzroy, in command. After completing the voyage, Fitzroy was commissioned to take the Beagle back to Patagonia to finish the survey. He wanted to bring a naturalist with him. He chose Darwin 4/5

Andy Gill @andyfromwithin.bsky.social · Jun 20

dreary, it had been shunned by the very birds. The weather was the type where "the soul of Man dies in him." This was from a poem by Thomson: "The soul of man dies in him, loathing life/And black with more than melancholy views." On 1 August 1828, he shot himself in the head, dying 12 days later 3/5