The Maritime history of the United Kingdom involves events including shipping, ports, navigation, and seamen, as well as marine sciences, exploration, trade, and maritime themes in the arts from the creation of the kingdom of Great Britain as a unified sovereign state on 1 May 1707 in accordance with the Treaty of Union, signed on 22 July 1706. Until the advent of air transport and the creation of the Channel Tunnel, marine transport was the only way of reaching the British Isles. For this reason, maritime trade and naval power have always had great importance.
Prior to the Acts of Union, 1707, the maritime history of the British Isles was largely dominated by that of England. (See Maritime history of England for more details.)
Read more about Maritime History Of The United Kingdom: Shipbuilding, Ports and Harbours, Ferries and Cruise Boats, Customs Men and Smugglers, Fishing and Whaling, Coast, Law of The Sea, Maritime Museums
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“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 9:62.