The Haddock Family of English Seafarers: Merchant Mariners and Naval Officers 1327–1941
New book details the Lives of Courageous Seamen and Their Voyages to Ports Around the Globe
18 Nov. 2025—Adventurous members of an English family survived shipwreck, capture by pirates in the Mediterranean Sea, enemy fire during numerous naval battles, and arduous trading voyages to India and China. Now for the first time the stories of their careers and family lives have been collected in a richly illustrated, full-color book, The Haddock Family of English Seafarers: Merchant Mariners and Naval Officers 1327–1941.
From their origin in 1327 as farmers in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, the Haddocks rose to become commanders and owners of merchant ships and officers in the English (later British) navy. From the 15th to the 20th centuries, 38 men in the extended family were seafarers. The Haddocks were political and religious radicals during the English Civil wars. After the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy, they served as respected officers in the Royal Navy and advisors to kings and queens.
Over a 300-year span (1641 to 1941), 24 family members served in the navy, including four admirals, nine captains or commanders, and two lieutenants. One naval captain later became a commander of ships for the English East India Company.
The Haddocks voyaged to distant ports around the globe—from present-day Panama to the eastern coast of Australia, and from the northern coast of Russia to the tip of South Africa—often before technology was available to determine longitude accurately.
The Haddock Family of English Seafarers: Merchant Mariners and Naval Officers 1327–1941 includes complete and well documented biographies of the Haddock seafarers and their Holworthy and Thruston descendants. Their stories draw on an unusual combination of hundreds of personal, naval, historical, and genealogical records. The book was written by Judy S. Purcell, a former award-winning journalist, who became interested in maritime history and spent nine years researching the Haddock seafarers.
The 8 ½ x 11” full-color book includes 15 maps, 47 illustrations, a timeline, a detailed family chart, a glossary of maritime terms, an index, and an appendix listing nearly 20 wars and naval actions in which Haddock family members served their country. This 328-page history is a valuable reference for maritime and naval historians, enthusiasts, descendants, and anyone interested in the Age of Sail, the Royal Navy, World War II, or ships and the sea.
The Haddock Family of English Seafarers: Merchant Mariners and Naval Officers 1327–1941, published by Coracle Group LLC, is available in hardcover and paperback. See the “Order Now” button at https://coraclegroup.com for detail and links to both options.
What Experts Are Saying About The Haddock Family of English Seafarers: Merchant Mariners and Naval Officers 1327–1941
“A tour de force. Judy Purcell brilliantly brings to life a remarkable dynasty of seafarers and naval officers at the heart of British maritime history for four centuries, setting their stories in the political, naval, and commercial contexts of their time. Deeply researched and richly illustrated, this is family history at its very best.”
—Bernard Capp, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Warwick, and author, Cromwell’s Navy and British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs
[This is] “a remarkable book considered just as a genealogy, but it incorporates a whole scholarly library of related studies which taken together compose a rich and eloquent story spread over a remarkably long and diverse period. I have very much enjoyed reading it, and I am sure many other people … will be equally impressed.”
—N.A.M. Rodger, Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, and prize-winning author of The Price of Victory, The Command of the Ocean, and other books
“I am impressed, especially by the accomplished way in which you’ve mastered the intricacies of British naval history in several different time periods and even some of the more obscure byways of English and Welsh law! Terrific mastery of the sources, too … ”
—J.D. Davies, Chair, The Society for Nautical Research, and prize-winning author, Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Royal Navy
“This closely researched and well written study follows a very memorable family across 600 years of sea-going history, at the same time showing the linkages between genealogy, social history, and Great Britain’s rise as a global maritime power.”
—Margaret R. Hunt, Professor Emerita, Uppsala University, Sweden, and co-author, The English East India Company at the Height of Mughal Expansion: A Soldier’s Diary of the 1689 Siege of Bombay