Captain Richard Martin Woodman LVO MNM (10 March 1944 – 2 October 2024) was an English merchant navy officer, novelist and naval historian. Woodman served at sea mainly working for Trinity House and retired in 1997 from a 37-year nautical career, to write full-time. He published a series of fictional stories, as well as researching and writing several non-fictional historical books on maritime topics. to Douglas and Rosalie Woodman.
Woodman would go on to work for the Ocean Weather Service before working at sea for Trinity House, looked after buoys, lights and other navigational marks. In 1969, he married Christine Hite and spent most of his life living in Harwich near the main marine facility of Trinity House. Woodman also wrote shorter series about James Dunbar and William Kite, but he also has written a range of factual books about 18th century and WW2 history. These include a trilogy of studies of convoys in the Second World War and a five volume history of the British Merchant Navy. Unlike many other modern naval historical novelists, such as C.S. Forester or Patrick O'Brian, he has served afloat, as he went to sea at the age of sixteen as an indentured midshipman and had spent eleven years in command.
His most significant non-fiction works were a five-volume A History of the British Merchant Navy and a three-volume account of major Second World War Arctic, Mediterranean and North Atlantic convoys. He was a recipient of the Merchant Navy Medal.
- An Eye of the Fleet (1981)
- A King's Cutter (1982)
- A Brig of War (1983)
- The Bomb Vessel (1984)
- The Corvette (1985)
- 1805 (1985)
- Baltic Mission (1986)
- In Distant Waters (1988)
- The Battle of the River Plate
- A History of the British Merchant Navy
- Neptune's Trident: Spices and Slaves 1500–1807 (2008)
- Britannia's Realm: In Support of the State 1763–1815 (2009)
- Masters Under God: Makers of Empire 1817–1884 (2009)
- More Days, More Dollars: The Universal Bucket Chain 1885–1920 (2010)
- Fiddler's Green: The Great Squandering 1921–2012 (2010)