History
John Frederick Thomas Jane, known to all as Fred T., was born in 1865 in Surrey, England, the son of a vicar and descendent of several prominent naval figures and world explorers.
As a youngster, Fred T. fought sea battles on the village pond using a complex system of signals he devised that was later adopted by the Royal Navy. He had a keen interest in chemistry, if only for its explosive potential. "He can be expected to go a long way, " observed one of his masters at Exeter, drily, "in one direction or another."
As a teenager, Fred T. started a sketchbook of warships, which he called "Ironclads of the World." Then, in 1889, he was commissioned by a magazine to cover the inspection of the combined fleets at Spithead by Kaiser Wilhelm II and the ensuing war games. He sketched nearly 100 ships, paying his mess bills by painting murals on the bulkheads of his host ships wardroom. His sketches and tireless interest in naval combat were to become the seeds of an enduring enterprise.
In 1898, the first edition of Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships (later shortened to Jane's Fighting Ships) was released and almost immediately became an authoritative guide to ship recognition and naval intelligence.
In 1909, only five years after the Wright Brothers' first flight, the forward-thinking Fred T. published All the World's Airships (Aeroplanes and Dirigibles). Now, Jane's All the World's Aircraft is considered the "bible" of the aviation industry.
The singular mind of Fred T. was never at rest. A well-known hoaxer and self-publicist, he had a reputation for "kidnapping" people. Among his detainees was a waiter suspected to be a German spy. But even that episode turned to Fred T.'s advantage. The resulting publicity produced a flood of mail naming other "spies". Fred T. handed this information over to the War Office, and the informants were passed on when the famous British security service, MI5, was founded shortly afterwards.
Fred T. was a prolific writer as well as artist. Many of his works fell in the realm of science fiction, foreshadowing aircraft, television and laser holograms. One, The Violet Flame, even featured a devastating device with the characteristics we would recognise as those of a nuclear weapon.
Fred T. died at the age of 51. However, his legacy of vision, accuracy and impartiality still lies in the products and services of Jane's Information Group.
More on Fred T. is available in the biography by Richard Brooks, Fred T. Jane - An Eccentric Visionary.
Fred T. started what today is widely regarded as the ultimate source for defence, aerospace and transportation information. Widely recognised as the publishers of Jane's Defence Weekly, Jane's Fighting Ships and Jane's All the World's Aircraft, the Jane's product line includes weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual information products with almost 200 releases in varied frequency and media in any given year.
Every second of every day, the editors of Jane's magazines, yearbooks and special reports are preparing information vital to the understanding of global defence, aerospace and transportation.