The Writers of Wales Database

DAVIES, J.D.

Contact: via Old Street Publishing: 020 7837 1600
Website: http://jddavies.com/ 

J.D. Davies was born in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, and educated at Jesus College, Oxford. He has taught history and politics in schools in Newquay, Horsham and Bedford, and recently retired from his post as deputy headmaster at Bedford Modern to concentrate on his writing.

David is one of the foremost authorities on the seventeenth-century navy and has written widely on the subject, from books to historical journals and other academic publications. His book Pepys's Navy (Seaforth Publishing, 2008) won the Samuel Pepys prize for 2009. He is a Vice-President of the Navy Records Society, Chairman of the Naval Dockyards Society and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. David is currently working on a book about the Stepney family of Llanelli, linked to the public opening of Llanelly House in 2012. He is now a full-time writer and lives in Bedfordshire. Gentleman Captain (Old Street Publishing, 2009) is his first novel and the start of a historical series. David is a Member of Academi.

Selected Publications:
Non-fiction
Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy (Oxford University Press, 1991)
Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare, 1649-1689 (Seaforth Publishing, 2008)
Blood of Kings: The Stuarts, the Ruthvens and the 'Gowrie Conspiracy (Ian Allan, 2010)

Fiction
Gentleman Captain (Old Street Publishing, 2009)
The Mountain of Gold (Old Street Publishing, 2011)

Contributed to:
The Oxford History of the Royal Navy (contributor) (Oxford University Press, 1995)
The Reign of Charles II and James VII & II (contributor) (Macmillan, 1997)
The Encyclopaedia of Naval History (contributor) (ABC-Clio, Denver, Colorado; 2002)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (contributor) (Oxford University Press, 2004)
British Admirals of the Napoleonic Wars: Contemporaries of Nelson (contributor) (Chatham, 2005)
Oxford Encyclopaedia of Maritime History (contributor) (Oxford University Press, 2007)



Gentleman Captain (Old Street Publishing, August 2009)

Gentleman Captain is the first in a series of naval adventure books set in the seventeenth century. Charles II has been restored to the English throne for one year. He presides over a court swirling with intrigue, where friends and enemies mingle and conspire. 

Our hero, 22-year-old Matthew Quinton, is from a family loyal to their monarch. Pressed for time and facing evidence of yet another plot against his person, the king gives Quinton command of a ship and tasks him with a delicate mission: to sail to the western isles of Scotland, intercept a cargo of weapons destined for the king's sworn enemies and blow the conspiracy apart.

Matthew is not an experienced seaman - his last ship was lost with all hands. Dreading another failure, he is determined to master the sea and overcome his own fear and ignorance. But he has other difficulties to face on the voyage north: a resentful crew, a suspicion of murder, and the growing conviction that betrayal and treason lie closer to home than he thought. 

To purchase this title from Old Street Publishing, please click on its front cover