In his Presidential Address at the 45th Annual General Meeting in October 1991, Norman Dahl gave a thought-provoking discussion of the future of the navigator. He suggested that the navigator's trade is not just a changing trade, but a vanishing one. He proposed then, and subsequently in his 1993 Anderson Memorial Lecture (reproduced as the previous paper in this issue of the Journal), that consideration should be given to the future of navigation, the future of the navigator and the future of the Institute.
In this contribution, papers and addresses over the history of the Institute are examined critically to extract insights into navigation applicable to the present era. These are used to discuss and develop the meanings of the terms ‘navigator’ and ‘navigation’.
