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ANNALS
OF LLOYD'S REGISTER
Centenary Edition, 1934.
Lloyd's register of Shipping.
Hardcover, no dustjacket,
251 pages plus lists of committees, index. The red cloth cover is gold
embossed with the title of the book and a design motif with the name and
address of the company. The endpapers are marbled; the pages gold edged.
Just the one images, a sepia photograph of the Head Office of Lloyd's in
London.
A wonderful essay on the
company, and on shipping with specific reference to rules and regulations,
machinery surveys, load line and the like - a great read. Divided into
four ‘books' - The Origin of Lloyd's Register; The Days of Wood and Iron
Ships; Introduction of Steel Ships; Post-war Activities.
The book is well presented,
as would be expected of a good corporate book, with heavy boards, quality
paper, and fine design. [ps] |
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IRONCLADS
AND DREADNOUGHTS
Ernest Protheroe
Collins' Clear-Type Press,
London and Glasgow. No date, but mentions the Great War 1914-18, so I wouls
suggest 1920s. Hardcover, embossed and titled boards, 43 pages, one coloured
print and five mono plates: the vessels Agamemnon, Royal Sovereign, and
Dreadnought. Just the two chapters: A New Navy; Our Twentieth Century Fleet
- ‘our' being the British of course. Has an interesting discourse on armaments.
[ps] |
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LAST
OF THE WIND SHIPS
Alan J. Villiers
First American Edition:
William Morrow, New York, 1934.
Hardcover, dustjacket, 59
pages of text, plus 208 pages of black and white plates along with a double
page map and profile of sailing ship at front. Printed from the same plates
as the United Kingdom edition. I have a feeling that this book has only
recently been reprinted in large 'cofee-table' format.
The last voyage of the Parma
was in 1933.
From the fly blurb: "Here,
in a story of modern adventure, is the swan song of Sail. It is a magnificent
record of the proud windships of yesterday - caught in this pictorial account
of the two last voyages of the four-masted barque, Parma. In over
two hundred remarkable photographs, with captions and a full introductory
text, we are made witness to the closing of a chapter in maritime history.
Alive with action and achievement as well as romance from the past, these
pictures, taken under all sorts of conditions and from every possible angle
and position, express the beauty and motion, the hazard and force of a
thrilling era in man's endeavor.
The author has made many
voyages in these sailing ships and knows their ways and their crews as
well as any man living. As a photographer of ships and their rigging, of
the sea in calm and storm, of all the events of long days under sail, Mr.
Villiers is without a rival. It is unlikely that any man will again have
the experiences ,which he has had, and so this record of the glamorous
grain trade from Australia to England around Cape Horn will remain final
and forever. [ps] |
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LLOYD'S
REGISTER OF BRITISH AND FOREIGN SHIPPING - 1842.
(Specifically) From 1st
July 1842 to 30th June 1843.
Printed for Lloyds by J.L.Cox
& Sons, London.
Hardcover, beautifully gold
embossed on black on thick cover boards, with the Lloyds emblem.
These books were produced
for subscribers (about 850 of them) all listed in the book; my copy number
413 issued to James Ewing & Co, of Glasgow, the number and subscribers
name and location also gold embossed on the cover. The spine is ribbed,
with the only text being the ‘1842' date. Marble endpapers, the pages are
not numbers, but amount to about 600. The ‘supplement' at the back is simpy
a set of ruled columns to manually write new ship losses. This is of course
a listing of shipping registrations and deregistrations through loss. Each
ship is documented with its name, its master, tons, when and where built,
owners, ‘port belonging to', number of years in service, classification
(the coveted AE1 being the highest). I just love holding this book, for
its solid physical attribute as well as its wonderful hisroy. Its not a
book to read from cover to cover of course; more to delve into for research.
The thirty-nine pages of Rules and Regulations are of great interest as
they govern, in greater part, the construction of vessels. [ps] |
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SHIPPING
WONDERS OF THE WORLD
Subtitle: Romance of the
Seven Seas in Story and Picture
Edited by Clarence Winchester
Published by: The Amalgamated
Press Limited in 1936/1937.
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Hard covers; 1764
printed pages in 2 volumes. Dimensions: 28 cms tall by 21 cms wide.
This two volume set didn't
start out life as books, it was purchased weekly from 1936 at 7 pence (old
money) a week - originally planned in 40 weeks but eventually in 55 parts.
Then when the owner had their 55 copies it was bound into two books with
index (which I think was in issue 55?). I do think the publication
was inspired by the building of the Queen Mary.
The set covers so many interesting
aspects of the sea, too many to mention but I will tell you some of the
diving articles: salvaging the gold from the Egypt, the salvage of the
"Leonard Di Vinci", the salvage of the "Onward" in Folkstone, Diving for
Pearls, salvage of the gold from the Laurentic, submarine salvage/escape,
diving adventures and mans conquest of the depths - there are more.
Contributors include David Masters and Sir Robert Davis of Siebe Gorman.
Both volumes are extremely well illustrated with thousands of prints and
diagrams - many in colour. This is a really interesting, two volume
set that is really worth owning, the only draw back for postal buyers is
the weight as it is so heavy. The binding covers are interesting
as both are different. Volume 1 which covers printed pages 1 to 836
has an embossed sailing clipper on the front as well as the title, the
spine has the same ship shown but in gold outline. Volume 2 covers
pages 837 to 1764 and shows an embossed stem ship on the front and the
same ship on the spine but again, gold outlined. I have seen other
bindings, presumably done at the time by the purchaser but with plain covers
so if thinking of purchasing, be careful and check the binding. The
binding cases as shown in the photo were advertisedOne thing that is sad
is the weekly magazine had wonderful coloured covers. They were removed
and discarded when the books were bound which is a shame. I have
several individual magazines as well as the two bound volumes so I have
scanned one cover as an example. [pt] |
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THE
ATLANTIC BLUE RIBAND: EVOLUTION OF THE EXPRESS LINER.
C. Mackenzie-Kennedy.
Williams Sessions Ltd, York,
England, 1993. ISBN Number: 1850721335 / 9781850721338
Soft Cover, landscape format,
with illustrated glossy card covers; mono photos, 212pp. |
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THE
CLIPPER SHIP ERA
An Epitome of Famous American
and British Clipper Ships, Their Owners, Builders, Commanders, and Crews,
1843-1869.
Arthur H. Clark.
G.P. Putnam's Sons, New
York and London. The Knickerbocker Press. First published November 1910.
This copy reprint March 1911.
Hardcover, embossed title
and author on green cloth boards, 404 pages, index, 39 mono photographs
or paintings. Dedication: To the Moemopry of a Friend of my Boyhood Donald
McKay Builder of Ships. This is a well-respected volume on the development
of shipping and the construction of the great sailing ships, and the men
who sailed them. Chapters include American Shipping to the Close of the
War of 1812; British Shipping After 1815, the East India Company; the North
Atlantic Packet Ships 1815-1850; Opium Clippers and Early Clipper Ships
1838-1848; the Repeal of the British Navigation Laws and the vessel oriental;
the Rush for California; Clipper Ship Crews; California Clippers. Australian
Voyages and Australian Clipper 1851-1856 (the gold rush years); Last Years
of the American Clipper, the Latter British Tea Clippers, the Fate of the
Old Clipper Ships. [ps] |
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THE
ROMANCE OF THE SHIP
Subtitle: The story of her
origin and evolution
E Keble Chatterton
Published by Seeley, Service
& Co Ltd, Great Russell Street, London in 1921.
Illustrated hard cover no
dust jacket with 291 printed pages. Dimensions 20 cms by 14 cms. Contains
21 plates and 12 line drawings
Published in “The Romance
of” series in 1921, this book covers (as best it can in one 291 page volume)
the evolution of the ship from the first boats on the River Nile to the
modern steamships of 1920’s. As with the rest of the books in this
series, the cover is illustrated with a splendid coloured drawing of a
galleon and the spine has a Viking ship with a native dugout canoe below.
The book has 18 chapters starting in early times and ending with such subjects
as “Perfecting the Steam Man-Of-War”, “the Fishing Fleets”, “Lifeboats
and Lightships” and “The Modern Liner”. The book is extremely well
illustrated with monochrome plates and line drawings.
Sadly, there is no diving
content but it does continue the maritime theme of “The Romance” books,
namely “The Romance of Submarine Engineering”, “The Romance of the Works
Fisheries” and “The Romance of Modern Mechanism” which do have various
diving content. [pt] |
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THE
SHAPE OF SHIPS
Being the Story of the Development
of Ships from the Earliest Times to the Present Day.
William McDowell.
Hutchinson & Co., London
1950.
Hardcover, dustjacket, 232
pages, glossary, no index, illustrations (by author), some colour plates.
This is a pretty useful
book and easy to read. From the fly: "Here is an extensive, authoritative,
yet lightly written history of ships from the earliest-known form, the
floating tree trunk, to the mighty andmagnificent Queens of the Atlantic.
It covers the whole world of ships from the largest to the smallest, from
pre-historic coracles, Greek and Roman galleys and Elizabethan galleons
to clippers, battleships arid submarines.Mr. McDowell has spent most of
his life studying this subject. He left school before he was fifteen and
served his time in Vickers' Barrow shipyard. There he learned naval architecture
and shipbuilding the hard way. After twenty-five years in different departments
he left to devote himself to painting pictures of ships and working and
lecturing on ships and other aspects of the marine." [ps] |
