"I have been familiar for many years with Dr Miller's work on the history of the Church and the merchant seafarer. Dr Ashley's Pleasure Yacht uncovers the life of a nineteenth-century clergyman, John Ashley, a man with private means deriving from family sugar estates in Jamaica, makes some surprising discoveries. As Ashley is often claimed as the founder of the Mission to Seafarers, the story of his work visiting wind-bound ships in the Bristol Channel has been told often. Less well known is a major disagreement with his committee and what followed." - Professor Sean McGrail, Emeritus, Professor of Maritime Archaeology, Oxford University "Miller offers an insight into the role of a number of societies operating missions at this time. Though much of Dr John Ashley's life remains unknown, Dr Ashley's Pleasure Yacht takes a crucial step in unravelling the story of a character whose efforts played a pivotal role in early British Seafaring Mission history." - Suzi Higton, The Expository Times, Volume 129, Number 2, November 2017 "Robert Miller's biography of Rev. John Ashley is a much more detailed portrait than anything else now available of a man who was central to the early period of maritime ministry.... Miller's book helps understand the early years of maritime mission in a way that can still instruct those currently involved.... This [book] should continue to inspire seafarers' welfare in the twenty-first century." - The MARE Report, Volume 3, 2017 "This is a well-written book - funny in places because the subject is so dreadful - demonstrating effectively that not all 'heroes' of the nineteenth-century church were necessarily very attractive characters." - Alan Wakely, The Reader, Winter 2017 "The Revd. Mr. Miller's biography of Dr. John Ashley supplies a long-standing need for an authoritative account of the man who is officially... described as the founder of the Missions to Seamen.... This is a well-written and highly readable account of a deeply flawed man who had undoubted gifts and performed valuable work in the early years of his life.... This book is warmly commended, particularly to those with an interest in the history of maritime Bristol, the Bristol Channel, and ecclesiastical history in the nineteenth century." - Martin Crossley Evans, Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Transactions 135, 2017 "[The author] recounts a fascinating piece of historical detective work about John Ashley, who claimed to be the initiator of evangelistic and pastoral work among merchant seamen .... For anyone interested in a previous century's fresh expressions of church and evangelistic initiatives, as well as missions to seafarers, or just an example of how to research a clergyman who seems to have been keen to cover his tracks, this is a good read." - Dr William Jacob, Church Times, 23 February 2018
