The 1871 Nautical Magazine shows the new editor's ambition to modernise, by including political analysis, general science, and light reading.

The 1873 Nautical Magazine includes shipbuilding statistics, information on ports, fisheries and steam liners, and criticism of proposed seaworthiness legislation.

The 1872 Nautical Magazine combines reports on science and technology, popular literature, and comment on political, legal and commercial matters.

The 1874 Nautical Magazine includes legal reports, shipbuilding statistics and strong criticism of proposals for government safety regulations on shipping.

The 1876 Nautical Magazine focuses on merchant shipping legislation and proposed cargo safety regulations, steam liners and the fishing industry.

The 1870 Nautical Magazine, the last volume edited by Rear-Admiral Becher, focuses on the Suez Canal, Australia and Canada.

The Nautical Magazine first appeared in 1832, and was published monthly well into the twenty-first century. It covers a wide range of subjects, including navigation, meteorology, technology and safety. An important resource for maritime historians, it also includes reports on military and scientific expeditions and on current affairs. The 1875 volume is again dominated by reports on the Merchant Shipping Bill and debates on seaworthiness, with the editor continuing to prefer 'personal responsibility' to 'Plimsolecisms' and 'grandmotherly supervision' by the government. Serials focus on the economies of the British colonies, Atlantic shipping lines and emigration to South America, but fiction no longer features. Other topics include the opening of the Royal Naval Museum at Greenwich, innovations such as steel hawsers and desalination apparatus for producing drinking water, a proposal for generating power from wave action, and suggestions for using rats as a tasty and economical food source.