Edward Keble Chatterton

Edward Keble Chatterton (10 September 1878 – 31 December 1944) was a prolific writer who published around a hundred books, pamphlets and magazine series, mainly on maritime and naval themes. In the First World War he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR).

Biography He was born at 76, Rock Street, Sheffield, England; attended Sheffield Royal Grammar School; and then St Paul's School, in Hammersmith, London. He took a BA at St Stephen's House, Oxford, and then began to write theatre and art reviews for various magazines. He edited The Lady's Realm from 1904 until 1906.

He made a number of small-boat voyages through the English Channel and the Netherlands. He recorded these voyages in magazine articles and books, and wrote several books on the maritime art collections of the Low Countries.

When World War I began, Chatterton joined the RNVR, ultimately commanding a motor launch flotilla at Queenstown, now Cobh, in Ireland. He describes these years in Q-Ships and their Story (1923), The Auxiliary Patrol (1924) and Danger Zone: The Story of the Queenstown Command (1934). He left the service in 1919 with the rank of Llieutenant Commander.

In the interbellum, his writing was continuous, and included a series of monographs on model ships, many histories of naval events, and a number of juvenile novels. Most of his books were republished in the United States, and several were translated into French and German.

He was a member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club for many years, and made a multi-season voyage to the Mediterranean through French canals. He described these in a further series of books. His journeys on the Nantes–Brest canal are outlined in Through Brittany in "Charmina": From Torbay to the Bay of Biscay in a 6-Tonner (1933), journeys on the Canal du Midi are described in To the Mediterranean in "Charmina" (1934), and journeys along the French Riviera are described in "Charmina" on the Riviera (1937).

After 1939, his writing focused on the war with Germany. Hutchinson published a series by Chatterton documenting the Royal Navy at war. He died at the end of 1944, after which Kenneth Edwards completed the series.

Published works