Biography
W.E. May was educated at the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth. He went to sea in 1915 as a Midshipman on HMS Temeraire and saw action at the Battle of Jutland. He worked as a surveyor in HMS Merlin and HMS Flinders, and qualified in navigation in 1923. In 1924, he married Mary Elspeth Margaret James. In 1927 he took a position as gyrocompass inspector with the instrument maker S G Brown Ltd.[1]
In 1929, May was appointed to the Admiralty Compass Observatory, being Superintendent of Gyro-compasses at Devonport from 1933 to 1936, Malta from 1936 to 1939, and Portsmouth from 1939 to 1942. From 1942 he was responsible for organising installation and services for gyro-compasses as well as for training.[1]
May was a founder member of the Institute of Navigation in 1947. He became increasingly interested in the history of compasses and of navigation more generally. He collected compasses from many countries, and this collection was transferred to the National Maritime Museum. In 1951, May became deputy director of the Museum, and supervised the restoration of the Octagon Room and Flamsteed House in the 17th-century buildings which housed the museum.[1] He wrote many articles and a number of books on compasses and navigation.[1] At the museum, May had special responsibility for swords, and in 1970 published a two-volume work, Swords for Sea Service with P.G.W. Annis, based on the museum's collections.[2] Many of May's papers are in the archive of the Royal Museums, Greenwich.[3]
