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‘Navy victuallers and the rise of Cheshire cheese’ was published in March 2022 in the International Journal of Maritime History 34, 196–209, https://doi-org.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/10.1177/08438714221080256

Nearly thirty years ago Charles Foster claimed that a commercial Cheshire cheese trade began in 1650, the year when the first coastwise cargo from Chester was recorded in the London Port Books. One purpose of the present paper is to embellish Foster’s claim by suggesting that an even greater influence upon this trade was the adoption from the early 1840s by England’s state-appointed victuallers of Cheshire cheese as one of their standard commodities. They then supplied it in bulk to the navy and also to army garrisons in theatres of war such as Ireland and Scotland. The victualler who played the principal role in this provisioning from the 1640s to the 1670s was Denis Gauden. We will follow his career and final downfall, which was caused by inadequate and chaotic government financial systems.