National Museums Liverpool Blog - maritime archives and library

Lorna Hyland, Assistant Librarian at the Merseyside Maritime Museum Archives shares this update:

Liverpool’s Literary Festival, “In Other Words” is now drawing to a close and as the festival celebrated the city’s reputation for producing much loved story-tellers, poets, authors and playwrights, I thought I’d mention the library at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

We have a wide selection of stories of seafaring life, some written about well known seamen and others published by the seafarers themselves.  Sailors have traditionally been viewed as great ‘spinners of yarns’.  They lived interesting lives, travelling to exotic (and not so exotic) places often being caught up in extraordinary events. 

Our library collection of seafarers’ memoirs includes gems such as the memoirs of Violet Jessop.  Published under the title, Titanic Survivor, the book provides an insight into the everyday working life of a stewardess on a large liner, as well as Violet’s personal experience of the sinkings of Titanic and Britannic.  In Life is a four letter word, Nicholas Monsarratt tells the real story of his Battle of the Atlantic experiences in the Royal Navy, whilst in the book, Tramp Steamers at War, the slightly less well known George Gunn recalls his experiences as a young man on the tramp ships of the North Atlantic convoys of World War II.  From sail to steam, Commodores to apprentices, we have memoirs covering a huge spectrum of seafaring life.

So if you want to read a good ‘yarn’ about life at sea, come down to the Maritime Archives & Library.  I’m sure we’ll have something to suit your tastes.  The library is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 10.30 am till 4.30 pm and can be found on the second floor of the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

 

Everyone at the Merseyside Maritime Museum welcomes the arrival of a very impressive and grand visitor to Liverpool. Cunard’s Queen Mary II docked at the pier head landing stage in the early hours of this morning. It’s the first time in forty five years that passengers can sail on a Cunard liner from the Pier head waterfront.

Pulling up at the lights during my commute into the office, the QM2 dwarves the neighbouring buildings and certainly has the wow factor with her classic red funnel.

The museum has a very fine collection of china and tableware which relates to the first Queen Mary (1936-1967) which was at the time the largest and fastest ship in Cunard’s fleet. She was certainly remembered as the grandest belle of the sea.
On display in the Life at Sea gallery we have tableware which was supplied to Cunard by Stoniers Ltd. of Liverpool. Stoniers supplied fine china to major British shipping companies for over a century. Life at Sea also exhibits other objects from Cunard’s long association with Liverpool.

Follow the below link for the museum’s maritime archives ‘Cunard Queens’ online exhibition.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/archive/displays/cunard-queens/

Palaeography, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the science or art of deciphering and interpreting historical manuscripts.  It normally refers to ancient manuscripts in long dead languages, but I will make a case for applying it on the many handwritten letters within our collections.  The technique is more or less the same.  You need to know a bit about the context (in this case the American Civil War) and a bit about word and letter forms (for example, initial lower case 'p's that go both above and below the line) and the right balance between thinking what is likely to be being said and putting your own words in the mouth of the author.  Then the squiggles turn into prose before your eyes. 

This page of a letter from Major Caleb Huse, arms procurement agent for the Confederate States Army, to Charles K. Prioleau of Fraser, Trenholm & Company, Liverpool merchants and bankers who acted for the Confederacy reads as follows-
 
'six months armistice and meantime those life preservers at Birkenhead can be finished - so far as getting supplies in or cotton out is concerned, we shall be quite independent of the three great powers.

Col. Maine is I understand, in town, but I have not yet seen him. Wither he is to return'

More information on the letter can be found here and the original, along with some others from our fantastic American Civil War archive collections are on display outside the Maritime Archives & Library at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. I'm not convinced I've got the Colonel's name right, any better suggestions?

The recent posting about the St George's festival in Liverpool this weekend made me think about dragons.  These spectacular dragons are on the back of a pack of playing cards made for the Blue Funnel Line (Ocean Steam Ship Company) in the early 1960s.  Shipping companies, especially those that carried passengers, put a lot of effort into corporate branding, producing items such as ashtrays, crockery, menus and calendars. 

The Ocean Steam Ship Company, commonly known as Blue Funnel for reasons I'll leave you to work out on your own, were a large Liverpool shipping firm who sailed predominately, but not exclusively, to the Far East and China.  The Maritime Archives & Library holds a large collection of records from the company, including examples of their marketing material.  These playing cards would have been a useful distraction during long hours at sea.

Anne Gleave, Curator of Photographic Archives, has found this photo in the Stewart Bale collection which shows a very different Easter display to the ones in shops today:

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There are 195,445 photographs in the Stewart Bale collection and this is one of them; a window display for Easter 1945 in the former department store Owen Owen on Clayton Square, Liverpool, which was commissioned by Owen Owen Ltd, April 1945.

I’m guessing that the passer-by’s attention was supposed to be grabbed by the words ‘Easter Harvest’ in large rustic letters in each of the three windows, hopefully to draw them closer to investigate and read the explanatory text panels about this strange phenomenon (how could harvest be at  Easter! But wait a minute...) 

The text reads "A Harvest in Easter? Yes... Seeds that were sown in the Fashion Market last summer have now born fruit"; a rather complex advertising hook which stages the new fashions amongst objects associated with farming: cartwheels, large forks, rakes, wheel barrows and a scattering of straw for good measure; the harvest fruit is the clothes on the manikins, who although they are in a farm setting are there not to labour but to loll in what is new and smart in the world of fashion.  

There is a jacket at 56 shillings (approximately £2.80) and a blouse at 15 shillings and sixpence (approximately 77 pence). The blouse, which is in the central window, strewn across the top of the wheel, carries a war-time utility label at the top of the neck; clothing was rationed from 1st June 1941; other basic commodities were also rationed and the utility label would have been a familiar sight. 

According to the text in the window these clothes have been more than 6 months in the planning; quite typical of WWII designs and not obviously showing anything very new. An Easter display without a hint of an egg or chocolate (rationing was in place and continued until 1954). 

The building still stands and is now occupied by different shops including Tesco Metro; it is still recognizable and was designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas and built in the 1920s, originally for use as a hotel.  The building was altered in 1925 to house a department store and Owen Owen who occupied it remained in the building until 1995.

Easter Sunday in 1945 was on 1st April (only one day later than this year).  So think of what Easter would have been like at this time, austerity and loss but also hope and change; this was just a month prior to German unconditional surrender 8th May 1945.

The Stewart Bale collection is full of gems like this; a collection that takes you back in time, a time traveller’s paradise. 

For more details about the Stewart Bale collection which also contains a large proportion of maritime related subject matter see the online information sheet. You can see further images from the collection on the website.

This handsome young man is Willie Dailey of Stafford who decided he wanted a life at sea and persuaded his parents to apprentice him on a voyage of the ship Benares, from Dundee to Chile and San Francisco, USA.  It was 1886 and he was 16 years old.  The Maritime Archives and Library hold some letters by Willie and his family and the ones from his mother would be achingly familiar even today.  His worried mother, Jane, tells Willie to mind his manners, wash his clothes and eat well.  She hopes his Captain is kind, his crewmates friendly and that he is warm enough, dry enough and not sea sick.  She tells him off when he fails to write.  The forms of communication may be different to today, but the emotions are just the same.  Jane mentions at least 4 other children, so she certainly had her hands full, but seafaring was, and still is, a dangerous life, so she must have been deeply concerned for his safety and wellbeing.  Two of Jane's letters are from 1906 and by this time Willie has a wife and child.  His mother is less worried about him and writes instead about the wet summer weather, another topic that is familiar today.  But as we approach Mothering Sunday, spare a thought for worried mothers, waiting for their children to get in touch.

Anne Gleave, our curator of photographic archives, has chosen this photograph from the fantastic Stewart Bale collection to highlight Valentine’s Day:

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The photograph was taken early to mid February 1934 so we are not sure whether it shows a Valentine’s celebration or not but it would be nice to think so. Reece’s was a well known Liverpool company popular in the early to mid twentieth century; they ran a dairy and bakery plus a number of cafés in and around Liverpool which were popular places for people to meet. At Parker Street Reece’s occupied a number of floors which included a café, restaurant and ballroom. Parker Street is central to Liverpool City Centre and is just off Church Street, one of the main thorough fares, so a prime location.

The commercial photographic firm of Stewart Bale Ltd were commissioned to take this photograph by Reece & Sons Ltd, from their principal offices in Hawke Street, off Brownlow Hill, Liverpool. Stewart Bale was an important firm of Liverpool based photographers who could command significant commissions, which says something about the status of Reece’s. 

If you would like to find out more about our Stewart Bale collection you can view our online information sheet and see a selection of images on the website.

Do you remember Reece's? If anyone has any information about the above image please do get in touch using this contact form.

Anniversaries are very helpful when writing for a blog and what better one to celebrate than 100 years since the invention of Formica, everyone's favourite kitchen worktop surface, and still going strong today.  Our photograph doesn't really do this item justice but, trust me, it is lovely. Especially if you have an interest in interior design and the wonders of plastic - and who doesn't?  I've not been able to find a photograph of the bar in the Caronia so I don't know if this suggestion by White Allom Ltd was accepted. 

This sample board, and other items held at the Maritime Archives & Library, demonstrate the effort that went into every element of interior design in passenger liners. This Caronia was the second Cunard vessel with this name, launched on the Clyde in 1947 and broken up in 1974.

At first families back home in Liverpool were oblivious to the horror that had befallen their loved ones.

On November 23 1942 my grandmother watched from Crosby beach as Liverpool liner SS Ceramic left the River Mersey. Her husband Fred was aboard working as a steward. Clutching her three-month-old baby, Annie Felton waved the ship off, unaware that this would be the very final farewell.
 
The 18,400 ton Ceramic was launched in 1912 by Harland and Wolff in Belfast. She was the first ship built by White Star Line after Titanic and spent her years sailing the Liverpool to Australia route.

She was nicknamed “the relief of Bootle” because she’d offered work to jobless Liverpool seamen taking them off the dole queues.

On this day 70-years-ago (December 6 1942), Ceramic was en-route to Sydney. But she never made the Harbour Bridge. The merchant ship would be torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic off The Azores.

In deep of night U-515 aimed its torpedoes and unleashed hell. Passengers and crew scrambled into lifeboats, but this only prolonged the agony. As lifeboats capsized there was no escape from chaos of storm and sea.

Of the 656 men, women and children aboard, just one survived. U-515 emerged to pluck just one person from the carnage - sapper Eric Munday. It would be 10 months before the fate of Ceramic would be known back in Liverpool.

The sinking remains one of the worst shipping disasters of all time. The definitive story of Ceramic and account of sole survivor Eric Munday is available in a book by Clare Hardy called: “SS Ceramic – the untold story”: www.ssceramic.co.uk

SS Ceramic photograph is from the collections of Merseyside Maritime Museum. Our Maritime Archives and Library holds an extensive collection of maritime books and archives spanning three centuries, including one of the finest collections of merchant shipping records in the UK. www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/archive/

By Dickie Felton

 

Now I could use this image to draw some metaphor with the American Republican party as their symbol is an elephant, but I've heard quite enough about that election, so I'll just tell you a little bit about the photograph.  This lovely image is from an album held by the Maritime Archives & Library of photographs taken and collected by Captain H J Chubb who worked for the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company in Burma.  The company ran a fleet of vessels along the difficult waters of the Irrawaddy River until 1950 when its assets were transferred to the newly independent Burmese Government.  Amongst the many images of ships on the river, which of course we are very fond of, there are wonderful shots like this.  I have no idea why an elephant was being moved from one vessel to another, but this seems like a better way of doing it than trying to use the narrow gangplank.  I wonder if the second elephant was easy to catch?