David Syrett was Distinguished Professor of History at Queens College, City University of New York

Queens College, City University of New York

Queens College, located in Flushing, Queens, New York City, is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York. It is also the fifth oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning. The college's seventy seven acre campus is located in the heart of the...

 in Flushing, New York and a widely respected researcher and documentary editor on eighteenth-century British naval history and the Battle of the Atlantic during World War Two.

Early life and education

The son of the well-known historian of the early American republic and editor of the Papers of Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...

, Harold Syrett (d. 1984), David Syrett was graduated from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1961. After completing his M.A. at Columbia in 1964, he went on the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1966 with a thesis on “Shipping and the American War.

Published works

• Shipping and the American war, 1775-83 : a study of British transport organization (1970)
• The siege and capture of Havana, 1762 (1970)
• The Lost war: letters from British officers during the American Revolution edited and annotated by Marion Balderston and David Syrett; introduction by Henry Steele Commager
  Henry Steele Commager
  Henry Steele Commager was an American historian who helped define Modern liberalism in the United States for two generations through his forty books and 700 essays and reviews...
  
  (1975)
• The Royal Navy in American waters 1775-1783 (1989)
• The commissioned sea officers of the Royal Navy, 1660-1815, edited by David Syrett and R.L. DiNardo (1994)
• The defeat of the German U-boats: the battle of the Atlantic (1994)
• The battle of the Atlantic and signals intelligence : U-boat situations and trends, 1941-1945 (1998)
• The Royal Navy in European waters during the American Revolutionary War (1998)
• "The Raising of American Troops for Service in the West Indies during the War of Austrian Succession, 1740-1", Historical Research Vol. 73, No. 180 (February 2000), pp. 20-32.
• The Battle of the Atlantic and signals intelligence : U-boat tracking papers, 1941-1947 (2002)
• The Rodney papers: selections from the correspondence of Admiral Lord Rodney (2005, 2007)
• Admiral Lord Howe: A Biography (2006)
• Shipping and Military Power in the Seven Years War: The Sails of Victory (2007)

Sources and references

• Obituary, The Independent (London), 19 January 2005, p. 35
• Obituary, New York Times, 23 October 2004, p. A18