Samuel Whitchurch Sadler, R.N.
BiographyUnfortunately, we have little information about this author (circa 1830–circa 1900) beyond the fact that he is listed in the Navy List as “Secretary to Marine Society.” The Marine Society, which is featured in Adventures of Marshall Vavasour, Midshipman, was a Christian charitable organization that trained disadvantaged and orphaned boys in seamanship, with the dual goal of getting (or keeping) them off the streets and giving them an occupation with which to support themselves. Since all of Mr. Sadler’s books seem to have been published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, we can assume he was a religious man.
We do have a pretty good list of work in his bibliography, which shows him to have been a fairly prolific writer with his preferred genre being Age of Sail naval stories set in the post-Napoleonic Wars time period.
It’s a shame when people who created something worthwhile, something that will last essentially forever to be enjoyed by other people, are themselves forgotten and fade into anonymity. If anyone has more information about this author, please contact us and share that information so we can, in turn, share it with the world.
Bibliography
The African Cruiser (1873)
Adventures of Marshall Vavasour, Midshipman (1873)
The Slave Dealer of the Coanza (1874)
The Ship of Ice (1875)
Perilous Seas and How Oriana Sailed Them (1876)
The Flag Lieutenant (1877)
The Last Cruise of the Ariadne, and What Befell Her Passenger (1877)
Slavers and Cruisers: A Tale of the West Coast (1881)
The Good Ship Barbara (1882)
Pirates’ Creek (1883)