Beachy Head 1690: The Grand Alliance at Bay

Beachy Head 1690: The Grand Alliance at Bay, the final book from the late Shoreham-based lawyer Quintin Barry, has been published posthumously.

Quintin died in January 2025, aged 88, and was a man of many parts – political candidate, employment tribunal judge, chairman of an NHS Trust and founding chairman of Southern Sound.

Born in Worthing and educated at Eastbourne College, qualifying as a solicitor in 1958, in 1970 he led the merger of three Brighton based firms, creating Donne Mileham & Haddock (now DMH Stallard), becoming one of the largest provincial English firms, serving as managing partner until 1988. He led the establishment of Law South, an association of the major law firms in the south and south-east, and Law Europe (now LE International), a network of European and latterly firms from across the world.

In his retirement, Quintin turned his hand to writing, publishing 20 books, mainly military history.

His friend and former colleague Martin Allen, who is also chairman of Shoreham’s Ropetackle, said: “With a life-long interest in military history, towards the end of his distinguished career as one of the country’s top employment lawyers, Quintin Barry resolved to realise his long-held ambition of writing an account of the Franco-Prussian war, it taking him some ten years to complete Volume 1 of the acclaimed and authoritative The Franco-Prussian War 1870-71, published in 2007.

“It proved to be the beginning of a remarkable and prolific period of his life, publishing nineteen further works of military history, as well as Lord Derby and His Horses reflecting his passion for horse racing.

“Concentrating largely on the 18th and 19th centuries (From Solebay to the Texel going back to the Third Anglo-Dutch war of the 1670s, The War in the North Sea and Command of the Sea featuring naval conflicts of the first part of the 20th century) his subjects included most of the European conflicts of the era, turning further afield to the American War of Independence (The Royal Navy and the Struggle for America 1775-1783) and the Boer War (Black Week: The British Army and the Defeat in the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1900).

The fact that seven of his books deal with naval warfare points to this particular interest, also being the subject of this, his final book, The Battle of Beachy Head, published after his sad death in January 2025.

“The quality of Quintin’s research, and of his writing, is evident to anyone reading his books. Indeed, the fact that over many years he had acquired an extraordinary collection of books – some eight thousand – the majority being works of history, provided him with a ready source of material. What was also remarkable was that he read every book he acquired.

Having had the privilege of reading a couple of his manuscripts, Quintin asking me to contribute critical comment, such was the fluency of his writing that the best I could do was to highlight a few typos.

“Talking to Quintin about the Battle of Beachy Head a few months before he died, he told me that one reason for his wanting to write about it was that, in this country, it is rarely mentioned. ‘Because we lost!’ he suggested with a wry laugh. He was also fascinated by the fact that the battle had been fought just off the coast of Eastbourne where he had been at school, his ability to visualise the battle, as with so many of the conflicts he featured, adding a vividness to his writing.”

More details on https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/beachy-head-1690-the-grand-alliance-at-bay.php