National Museums Liverpool Blog - merseyside maritime museum

I'm not sure if it's something in the air, the exciting news of the great liners due to visit Liverpool next year, or just all the time we've been spending on the ferry lately, but we've  gone for a seafaring theme for this month's caption competition.

If you can think of an amusing (and clean, don't forget) caption for this photo from the fantastic Stewart Bale collection then post it as a comment by the end of the day on Wednesday 31 March 2010. The funniest and most original caption will win a copy of the fantastic hardback book 'The Liner: retrospective and renaissance' (2005) by Philip Dawson.

Why not take a closer look at the photo using zoomify.

After a couple of entries bustling with activity, for this week's highlight from the Liverpool's Chinatown: Through the lens Flickr competition I've chosen an image almost completely devoid of people: this 2009 photo of Liverpool's iconic Chinese arch, added to the pool by Mark McGowan.

Taken just before the Chinese New Year celebrations, there is a sense of expectation and mystery to the image, the sunlight just glinting off the brilliant gold of the arch and the viewer imagining the crowds that will be filling the ghostly streets.

The different architectural styles contrast but compliment each other; there are no absolutely horizontal or vertical lines, but various angular perspectives which draw the eye in different directions. At once the viewer is invited in through the arch by the receding buildings and flags of Nelson Street, but at the same time to the top of the image: neither the square pillars of the arch nor the round pillars of the Black-E Centre to the left are straightforwardly vertical, both tapering up towards the shrouded sun and pulling the viewer's gaze with them. The result is a constant shifting of perspectives, never settling, like an MC Escher print. See the photo in a large size.

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To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

I was surprised to discover that tugs sailed with convoys of merchant ships bringing vital supplies to Britain during the Second World War.

The role of the tugs was to assist stricken vessels after they were damaged by enemy attacks. Their vital work boosted the war effort by saving hundreds of warships and their crews,

The Royal Navy’s Rescue Tug Section was set up at the beginning of the war to provide suitable ocean-going tugs to save torpedoed ships. This was dangerous work requiring the greatest skills to ensure that ships were brought to safe havens despite bad weather, the presence of U-boat submarines and enemy aircraft.

At the start there were only four Royal Navy tugs and eight civilian requisitions available for deep-sea work. However, these inadequacies were remedied by concerted action. By the end of the war, due to newly-built additions from British and US shipyards, this number had grown to more than 80.

The rescue tugs were largely manned by Merchant Navy crews serving under Royal Navy orders. From 1941 they were based at Campbeltown, Scotland, and from 1943 a rescue tug was attached to every transatlantic convoy.

By the end of the war the 'Campbeltown Navy' had helped to save more than three million tons of Allied shipping, over 250 warships and hundreds of Allied seamen, mostly in the North Atlantic. Twenty rescue tugs were lost on active service.

A photograph in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery shows HM Rescue Tug Storm King in March 1943 (pictured).

When the war started, the Royal Navy with the help of Canadian, French and other Allied navies took on the job of defending British and Allied merchant ships from German attacks.

As in the later stages of the First World War (the years 1917 – 18) the main method of defence against such attacks was the convoy system. This involved groups of merchant ships sailing in close formation under the protection of one or more escort warships.

On display is a silver salver presented to Pay Lieutenant Commander Richard Rankin RNR by the commodores of the North Atlantic convoys about 1942. The square salver is engraved with about 50 facsimile signatures. Rankin, an officer of the Naval Control Service, was based throughout the war in Liverpool’s Royal Liver Building. His main job was liaising with convoy commodores – a key role which he fulfilled with great success.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

For this week's highlight from our Liverpool's Chinatown: Through the lens Flickr competition I've chosen this intriguing image by Alan Cookson, which captures Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral in amongst the vibrant colours of the flags of the Chinese New Year celebrations.

I think this photograph is really interesting both in terms of its themes and its composition. The solid, classical beauty of the Cathedral and the surrounding impressionistic greys and browns in the background contrast strikingly against the vivid, swirling Chinese flags in the foreground, neatly capturing two of the various different cultures which exist side-by-side in Liverpool.

The Cathedral and gold dragon's head are neatly framed in the centre of the image, drawing the eye over and past the crowds, but they are also an integral part of the photo as a whole: though it is a landscape photo the image is made up of a series of vertical elements - a row of flags, the Cathedral tower (331 feet, 1.5 inches tall!) and an onlooker at the right side, these different elements combining seamlessly to give a natural flow to the picture. See the photo in a large size.

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To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

It is quite frequent now to see large crowds at Liverpool’s Pier Head when liners and cruise ships come in but at one time it was a very common sight indeed.

I can remember many people shouting and cheering when the Empress liners departed on scheduled Atlantic crossings. It was a memorable spectacle – just like this occasion more than 50 years earlier.

The Lusitania, from her maiden voyage to New York to her sinking by a German U-boat submarine eight years later, was Liverpool’s favourite liner among the many using the port.

The 31,550-ton Cunarder was a popular berth for many of the city’s seafarers who took pride in being members of the crew of this beautiful ship.

It was 7 September 1907 when Lusitania left Liverpool on her maiden voyage under the command of Commodore James Watt. She steamed into New York on 13 September after a trouble-free voyage – one she was to repeat many times before her terrible end.

At the time she was the largest ocean liner in the world and held that distinction until her equally lovely sister Mauretania entered service in November 1907. Both ships were also the world’s fastest liners when they held the Blue Riband for crossing the Atlantic.

Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress (of Ireland) gallery has many items linked to all three doomed ships.

Both Lusitania and Mauretania were ordered by Cunard to restore Britain’s superiority over German ships in the Atlantic passenger trade. The year they entered service was particularly significant because Liverpool was celebrating the 700th anniversary of King John’s charter.

More than 200,000 people lined the banks of the River Mersey to watch Lusitania leaving on her maiden voyage. When Mauretania came into service they worked together providing an express service between Liverpool and New York.

The museum displays include a letter written by Mr C R Minnitt on the Lusitania’s first trip. He told his friend Ethel Poole: “You should have heard the people cheer.”

A card featuring an engraving of the Lusitania invites VIPs to view the liner in the Mersey three days before her maiden voyage. A contemporary colour brochure shows Third Class accommodation including Ladies’ Room, Smoking Room and a four-berth room.

A photograph of the First Class Dining Saloon features its splendid upholstered chairs with crystal glass on sumptuous tablecloths.  

All this was sent to the bottom of the Irish Sea on 7 May 1915 with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives including many Liverpool crew members.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

Our photo competition pool 'Liverpool's Chinatown: Through the lens' has had over 100 photos submitted so far and I'm really excited by the variety and imagination shown in people's photos of the Chinatown area and Chinese culture.

In this first weekly blog highlight from the competition entries I've chosen this view of Nelson Street by Ian Hughes (ihughes22). It's a bustling and eye-catching image, the colours of the flags and the dragon looming powerfully over the massed crowds adding to the sense of drama and excitement of the occasion - especially since the dragon almost looks like he's staring straight out at us!

The photographer had to choose a specific vantage point back from the crowd and shoot quickly because of the movement of the dragon, but I think the result is a great composition which really captured the energy of the occasion. The photo is displayed at a smaller size for this blog post - it looks even better in a large size.

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To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

A fascinating article in the New Scientist, Women and children first? How long have you got? compares the sinking of two famous ships, the Titanic and Lusitania.

The Lusitania was torpedoed and sank within minutes, meaning that only the strongest and fittest had a chance of survival.

The sinking of the Titanic on the other hand took 2 hours and 40 minutes. This made a huge difference in the survivor profiles, as in a less panic-stricken evacuation the women and children were given priority in the lifeboats.

The report shows that "women of all ages on the Titanic had a probability of survival 53 per cent higher than for men, compared with an 11 per cent higher chance of dying on the Lusitania".

The incredible story of one of the women to survive the Titanic, Laura Mabel Francatelli, is told in the Titanic, Lusitania and the forgotten Empress gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum, where her apron is on display. Laura was the personal maid and secretary to the famous couturier 'Lucillle', or Lady Lucy Duff Gordon, the wife of wealthy landowner Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. Her survival supports the theory in the New Scientist article that first class passengers had a definite survival advantage in the sinking of the Titanic.

I know of no other situation which unites seafarers more than when a ship is in distress and calling for help.

This is an inspiring story when a ship came to the rescue just in time and saved a crew from almost certain death.

As the ship battled through mountainous seas something happened that all seafarers dread – the cargo shifted, threatening to capsize the vessel. The Italian cargo ship Monte Grappa had left Montreal for Venice loaded with grain in November 1922. At first everything went to routine for the crew of the new vessel.

Things turned sour when the southerly gale blew up in the mid-Atlantic sending the ship plunging and lurching. For two days she struggled onward until the shifting boards (portable bulkheads) gave way and the grain moved.

The ship immediately took a heavy list until her rail was under water. It seemed she was about to turn turtle and sink. Frantic efforts were made to right the vessel by filling the ballast tanks and pumping out the boilers – to no effect.

Crew members then worked feverishly to jettison the cargo but water cascaded into the stokeholds until the firemen were working up to their waists. Both port lifeboats were swept away and the starboard boats could not be lowered.

The Monte Grappa’s SOS call was picked up by the White Star liner Pittsburgh commanded by Captain Thomas Jones (pictured) who was 185 miles away. He immediately responded and raced through the storm to the stricken vessel.

A distress rocket flared and the Monte Grappa loomed into sight. Two boats were lowered by the Pittsburgh and fought their way through the churning waves to reach the sinking ship.

While passengers watched from the liner, every member of the Monte Grappa’s crew was brought to safety and their ship left to her fate.

This was just one incident in the long career of Captain Jones, whose cabin has been recreated in Merseyside Maritime Museum. Among the exhibits is a Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society medal awarded for his involvement in the Monte Grappa rescue.

Thomas Jones (1869 – 1957), from Cardigan in Wales, became a steamship master at the young age of 24. His distinguished career spanned the age of sail and steam. As well as the Pittsburgh, he captained the White Star liners Haverford and Canada.

Many of his personal items are on display including his dressing gown, chair and concertina – one of his numerous hobbies while on voyages.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).
 

You may remember that last year the Australian government apologised for its role in Britain's child migration programme. Today the UK government has also made an official apology to former child migrants from Britain. You can watch a video of Prime Minister Gordon Brown making the apology on the BBC News website.

More than 100,000 British children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds were sent to live in Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries from the late 19th century onwards. Some were orphans but many were separated from their families and sent halfway across the world. It was believed that they would have a better life working in the clean expanses of the British Empire, where they were a source of much-needed labour.  

While some did find happiness with new families, for others it was a disastrous move. They were made to work long hard hours on farms. Some were abused. Many ended up in institutions. Some were told their parents had died, only to discover years later that this wasn't the case. The repercussions are still being felt. Many former child migrants and their families are still coming to terms with their dislocation. Their lives were obviously shattered by their experiences.

The largely unknown story of Britain's child migrants will finally be told in a new exhibition 'On their own: Britain's child migrants' currently being prepared by National Museums Liverpool and the Australian National Maritime Museum. Opening in Sydney in November 2010, the exhibition comes to Merseyside Maritime Museum in summer 2011 before being toured to other museums around the country. It will focus primarily on the 1860s to 1960s and the children who travelled to Canada and Australia. Along with Glasgow, London and Southampton, Liverpool was one of the main embarkation ports for children so it's fitting that the exhibition's UK tour will open here.

We'll be launching the exhibition website later this year and will be looking for the reminiscences of people affected by the programme. If you were involved we'd be keen to hear from you.

Rachel Mulhearn, the director of Merseyside Maritime Museum, said;

"The exhibition 'On their own: Britain's child migrants' will present a really important history about child welfare, emigration and Britain's empire-building. While this history is well known in Canada and Australia, within the UK it isn't. This touring exhibition aims to correct this through telling the personal stories of those involved."

To me, a marine painting has to combine at least three key elements for success – skilful portrayal of the ship, a fine setting and great atmosphere.

The sea must be realistic- whether rough, choppy or calm - and the wind or breeze should almost come out of the canvas. I think this depiction of the Ariadne fits all these criteria – but most of all in its setting, the Menai Straits.

This is where I spent many childhood holidays near Beaumaris, a charming historic place I return to regularly.

Schooners are the elegant ladies of the sea, said to have first been built by the Dutch around 1600, and reaching their zenith in the late 19th century when they were most popular in the United States.

Legend says that the first ship to be called a schooner was launched in Massachusetts in 1713. A spectator declared: “How she scoons!” – scoon is a Scots word meaning to skim over water and the name stuck.

Yachting enthusiasts adopted schooner designs and this painting is a prime example, on display in Merseyside Maritime Museum.

The schooner yacht Ariadne (pictured) was painted by top marine artist Samuel Walters (1811 – 1882). She is shown in the eastern end of the Straits with the Nanfrancon Pass and Bangor in the background.

Ariadne flies the blue ensign of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, one of the oldest yacht clubs in the country founded in 1844.

She was built in 1861 by Harveys of Wivenhoe, Essex – a leading builder of the time. Ariadne was sold to George Petty, a wealthy Preston banker with Liverpool connections, in 1865 and was used in races in the Irish Sea, the Clyde and Cowes, Isle of Wight.

This fine painting shows the beautiful yacht with two masts under full sail with crew members and smartly-dressed gentlemen on the decks with breath-taking scenery behind.

Schooners were operated in the USA more than anywhere else with two-masters being the most common. They carried cargoes in many different stretches of water from oceans to inland waters such as the Great Lakes.

They were most popular in work that required speed and manoeuvrability – privateering, slaving, blockade-running and offshore fishing. Another role was as pilot boats in US ports and northern Europe.

A schooner does not have a set number of masts – they have between two and six. The only seven-masted schooner was the Thomas W Lawson built in 1902.  

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

I think people have railed against rules and regulations since the dawn of civilisation when somebody originally came up with the concept.

However, when things go horribly wrong there is always a clamour for the rules to be tightened up. If ever a tragedy highlighted the inadequacies of Victorian seafaring, it was the wreck of the Tayleur.

This elegant sailing ship was the largest merchant vessel of her day but she was wrecked on her maiden voyage with the loss of 372 lives.

Built at Warrington for owners Charles Moore & Co, she seemed destined for years of profitable service in the booming emigrant trade.

She set sail from Liverpool in January 1854 heading for Melbourne carrying 652 passengers and crew. Most of those on board the brand spanking-new vessel were families heading for new lives in Australia.

Two days later the 1,750-ton Tayleur (pictured) struck a reef off Lambay Island, five miles east of the Irish mainland. She sank within 30 minutes and many of the emigrants were among the victims although most of the 71 crew survived.

An inquiry revealed a chronicle of faults – the compasses didn’t work because of the iron hull, the rudder was too small, rigging was faulty and there were only 37 trained seamen among the crew. They thought they were travelling south across the Irish Sea when in fact the Tayleur was heading west to disaster.

There are four small items on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum that were recovered from the wreck many years later.  They are a wine bottle encrusted in barnacles, a Chinese-style bowl, a tea cup made from flow blue china and – poignantly – a small metal dog collar.

The wreck of the Tayleur was just one of several emigrant ship losses during this period. On display is a cross-section plan of the Liverpool assisted emigrant ship Bourneuf of 1852, unusual for its day because the sexes were separated.

It was usual for emigrants to hire berths consisting of large wooden pallets below decks which could be curtained off for privacy. Until the 1870s most people emigrated to Australia and New Zealand by sailing ship – a journey taking between 10 and 16 weeks. There is a fascinating life-sized recreation of such an emigrant ship steerage area in the museum, complete with tables and benches and storage space for trunks containing belongings.

Conditions gradually improved through a series of Passenger Acts between 1842 and 1855.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

The pioneering photojournalist John Thomson travelled for years through China with a lot of heavy, cumbersome equipment to take the incredible photos that are now featured in the China through the lens of John Thomson 1868-1872 exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

We don't expect you to go to such lengths for our latest competition. Instead we'd like you to take your nice light modern cameras or camera phones on a journey to explore Liverpool's Chinatown and Chinese culture.

Enter your photos into our Liverpool's Chinatown through the lens group on Flickr to take part in the competition. On 24 May 2010 we'll choose our favorite photo and the person who took it will win a banquet meal for two with wine at Liverpool’s longest-established Chinese restaurant, Yuet Ben. Two runners-up will each receive a copy of the China through the lens of John Thomson 1868-1872 exhibition catalogue.

During the course of the competition we will feature some of our favourite photos from the group here on the blog and the winning photo will be featured on the blog and exhibition website.

For example you can submit photos of Liverpool's Chinese arch, the Chinese New Year celebrations, buildings, people, or even a local restaurant which has a special place in your life!

If you need inspiration you might like to check out some of our free Chinese New Year events which are taking place at Merseyside Maritime Museum, the Lady Lever Art Gallery and World Museum over the next couple of weeks.

The Year of the Tiger starts on 14 February but there are so many events taking place to celebrate the Chinese New Year here at National Museums Liverpool that we've had to spread them over several weekends.

The first major event was the opening of the blockbuster exhibition China through the lens of John Thomson 1868-1872 at Merseyside Maritime Museum, which is the first time that this incredible pioneering collection of photographs has been shown in England after touring China last year. It's a stunning exhibition but don't take my word for it - here's a review from The Times last week - just one of many great write ups that the exhibition has had so far.

To celebrate the opening of the exhibition the Liverpool Hung Gar Kung Fu friendship Association performed lion dances in Merseyside Maritime Museum last weekend. You can see more photos of their performance, which more than 800 visitors came to see, in our Chinese New Year 2010 set on Flickr.

There are lots more free events planned in Merseyside Maritime Museum, the Lady Lever Art Gallery and World Museum, including creative workshops, another oportunity to see the lion dances and a new talk about the 'Blue Flu' - or Blue Funnel Line. Full details are on our Chinese New Year events page.

I think the best film about the Titanic disaster is 'A Night to Remember' which I first saw in a Liverpool cinema shortly after its release in 1958.

It depicts the ship’s baker, Charles Joughin, who drinks a lot of whisky to help him survive in the icy sea. My aunt revealed that he had lived near her in Grasmere Street, Liverpool, but left his family and went to live in America after the disaster.

When the film was made survivors were still around and some advised the film makers including the Titanic’s fourth officer Joseph Boxhall.

The original 20 ft builder’s model of the Titanic, now on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum, was used by the film’s researchers.

This stunning unique model (pictured) originally depicted both Titanic and her sister Olympic and was used to advertise the great White Star ships. It was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast where the liners were also constructed.

After the loss of Titanic on 15 April 1912 the model was altered to represent Britannic, the third ship of the class, which became a hospital ship and was sunk during the First World War. The rearrangement of the windows on the upper decks was the most important change. In the 1920s the model was altered again to represent the refitted Olympic.

It was later put on display in Blackpool before being given to Liverpool museums in 1951 and in the early 1980s was restored and displayed in the Merseyside Maritime Museum as Titanic.

Second Officer Charles Lightoller (played by Kenneth More), the most senior officer to survive, gives an interesting description of Titanic’s Captain Edward Smith in his 1935 autobiography Titanic and Other Ships.

Lightoller served with him on different ships over many years. Smith was known affectionately as EJ and was quite a character in the shipping world. The tall bearded captain, despite his appearance, had a pleasant quiet voice.

"A voice he rarely raised above a conversational tone – not to say he couldn't", recalled Lightoller.

"In fact, I have often heard him bark an order that made a man come to himself with a bump. He was a great favourite, and a man any officer would give his ears to sail under."

A new exhibit in the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery is a builder’s half-model of the Mount Temple, one of the ships that rushed to the aid of Titanic but arrived too late.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

What better way to celebrate Valentine's Day with your beloved than a romantic meal at the Michelin Guide 2010 listed Maritime Dining Rooms?

Enjoy a delicious Valentine's Day Afternoon Tea for two with a bottle of Astoria Lounge Prosecco for only £25. This special offer is only available on Sunday 14 February - see the afternoon tea page for the full menu.

The full Sunday lunch menu and children's menu will still be available alongside the fresh new Spring menu. Booking is advisable: to book or for enquiries please call the Maritime Dining Rooms on 0151 478 4056. 

Located on the fourth floor of the Grade I-listed Merseyside Maritime Museum, the Maritime Dining Rooms offers stunning views over the city. Executive chef Nigel Paul Smith's menu celebrates British and local produce, combining classic flavours with modern presentation.

I don’t hold with the saying that you have to be a comedian to live in Liverpool, although there are probably more here than anywhere else.

I’m convinced much of this is down to our seafaring tradition – mariners tend to have a strong sense of humour to help deal with the many challenges faced on the briny.

Ships’ crews carried out bizarre rituals at sea such as the Crossing the Line ceremony for passengers and crew going over the equator for the first time. Initiates appear before King Neptune and his court and are plunged into water and subjected to other indignities.

Two lesser-known rituals are examined in the Life at Sea gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum. Life on sailing ships left crews with little time for recreation. Despite this, sailors developed various customs that reflected their way of life.

The ceremony of Dropping the Dead Horse originated in the 19th century when seafarers were allowed their first month’s wages in advance to pay for gear and clothing. During this month they felt they were working for nothing or 'flogging a dead horse'.

The end of the month was marked by dragging a canvas horse stuffed with wood shavings and stones along the deck before hoisting it up the main mast and dropping it into the sea to cheers and raucous laughter.

On display is a picture of the Dead Horse being prepared for dropping overboard. It was on the John O’Gaunt while sailing to Melbourne, Australia, in 1889.

Music has always been popular at sea and crews often formed small Foo-Foo bands as a way of relaxing. These enabled musicians to disturb everyone else by making an appalling din while dressed up in ridiculous clothes.

A photograph shows a Foo-Foo band (pictured) on a British sailing ship in 1900 with members dressed in funny hats and playing an assortment of instruments including mouth organs and a squeeze box.

Once ashore fun could turn to fear for sailors on a spree. Sea ports around the world have a reputation for being violent and dangerous places. Mariners often took steps to protect themselves.

Crews paid at the end of voyages could get several months of back pay. There were many people in port ready to separate seafarers from their cash once they got ashore.

Another display features a switchback knife and leather cosh carried by sailor Robert Bruce when he was in the Merchant Navy in the early 1940s.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

I find the subject of slavery deeply disturbing and the more we find out about its workings, the greater the sense of disbelief.

It is astonishing that misery, disease and death could be imposed upon other human beings on such a vast scale. There are many important lessons to be learnt from the slave trade.  

The native peoples of the Americas and Caribbean were profoundly affected or exterminated and their cultures largely destroyed following the arrival of Europeans.

As colonies were set up and plantations established, there was a chronic shortage of labour because the local people had died in vast numbers.

The transatlantic slave trade happened because Europeans needed workers for their colonial enterprises. This resulted in the largest forced migration in human history as Africans were enslaved in their millions and transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

When European explorers arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries, they exploited the riches of the new lands. Initially Spain and Portugal took the lead and were followed by England, France and the Netherlands.

These were the countries that developed the transatlantic slave trade. The Portuguese began growing sugar in Brazil in the 1540s. As Europeans acquired a taste for sweetened food and drink, the demand grew and plantations were established in Caribbean colonies.

Other profitable commodities also entered the plantation system including coffee, tobacco and particularly cotton which was later to play a big part in the growth of Liverpool, Manchester and other Lancashire towns.

On display in the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, are two stone implements from the Taino culture  - rare survivals of the original inhabitants of the Caribbean.

Europeans looked to Africa for a new supply of labour. Liverpool was not involved in early English slaving but came to dominate the transatlantic slave trade by the closing decades of the 18th century.

On display is an oil painting by Henry F James showing Liverpool in 1811 (pictured) just four years after the abolition of the slave trade. During this latter period of the trade, dealings with the West Indies generated about 40 per cent of Liverpool’s wealth.

A Wedgwood creamware bowl of 1786 features a hand-painted view of a sailing ship called the Lord Stanley. It was almost certainly made for presentation to John Smale, the ship’s captain, prior to his departure to West Africa on a slaving voyage.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

Like most boys of my generation, spotting trains, boats, planes and buses was my hobby. It started with car number plates before graduating to ships when I was in my mid teens.

This was the early 1960s and Liverpool was still a great port to look at vessels before tight security and containerisation swept away the old scenes.

I would cycle along the dock road or take the ferry to Birkenhead and Wallasey Docks. Among the many ships I recorded were those of the famous Harrison Line whose vessels were once common on the River Mersey and in ports throughout the world.

T & J Harrison Ltd was founded in Liverpool in 1853 as the port steadily grew in capacity and importance. The company, headed by Thomas and James Harrison, had small beginnings focusing on the wine and brandy trades.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum's Art and the Sea gallery there is a fascinating oil painting of one of the earliest Harrison ships – the West Derby, named after an historic village in Liverpool where I live.

West Derby off Egremont was painted by Thomas Dove (1811 – 1886) and shows the sailing ship making sternway – drifting slowly backwards so that the anchor takes hold in the riverbed.

In the foreground is an early Liverpool steam tug which has helped the West Derby into the Mersey. The painting shows five crew members furling (rolling up) a sail. Four stand precariously on the yard hauling up the sail while the fifth stands below manoeuvring the sail upwards.

A Harrison tradition started in 1857 with the naming of Philosopher, a full-rigged ship. From then on most of the company’s ships were named after trades and professions.
Harrison’s first two steamers were the Gladiator and the Cognac, both built in 1860 The last sailing ship was sold in 1889 and the company began to develop its routes which from 1902 included South Africa.

The most famous Harrison ship was the Politician, wrecked in 1941, which inspired the classic 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore. She foundered off the Isle of Eriskay with 50,000 cases of scotch on board.

The Harrison Line (now Charente Ltd) sold its shipping interests to P&O Nedlloyd in 2000.

Shortly afterwards the huge Harrison archive was donated to the Merseyside Maritime Museum archives for use by researchers. A total of 134 boxes of records covering the period 1860 to 1980 give a remarkable insight into the expansion and day-to-day operation of the line.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

I like to use spices when cooking but only sparingly. To my mind there's nothing worse than making things so hot or spicy you can't taste the food.

Many years ago a friend took me around old spice warehouses on the River Thames when they were empty, awaiting redevelopment. I was overwhelmed by the wonderful smells that still permeated everywhere – this was part of the East transported to London.

British trade with India and China was controlled by the East India Company from the closing years of the Tudor era until the 19th century.

The company was granted a royal charter by Elizabeth I in 1600 and went on to generate huge wealth for many investors. The charter granted a monopoly of trade with all countries to the east of the Cape of Good Hope and to the west of the Straights of Magellan in South America.

In its early days the company fought Dutch and Portuguese rivals in sea battles on the Indian Ocean. These operations were costly so the company decided to set up bases in mainland India, initially with the agreement of Indian rulers.

These footholds grew over the years until the East India Company was largely responsible for the British conquest of India and was used by the government to rule that vast country.

The company's ships were among the finest and largest of their time. Among the cargoes they brought back were tea, silks, spices, porcelain, sugar and rice.  They also carried passengers – mainly military and government officials – between London and India.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is an oil painting called 'An East Indiaman taking a pilot off Dover', attributed to Robert Dodd (1748 – 1815).

This finely-observed work shows the ship with ensigns flying alongside other vessels off the White Cliffs of Dover as the pilot prepares to board.

The company’s century-long rule of all of India effectively began following the Battle of Plassey in 1757 when Robert Clive defeated Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent ruler of Bengal.

The East India Company's monopolies were scrapped in the 19th century following a campaign in which Liverpool merchants played a leading part.

Liverpool’s Asia trade involving the export of cotton goods and import of tea, East Indian sugar and Asian produce underlined its importance as a world-class port.

The East India Company's monopoly of trade with India was abolished in 1813. The company was dissolved in 1858.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.00 p&p UK).

The idea of taking a slow boat to China is very appealing to me but the company would have to be good and the surroundings congenial.

Travel should be enjoyed as a part of a wider experience rather than just as a means of getting somewhere. Between the ages of 16 and 24 I went on many walking holidays, savouring the people and places I encountered.

Sea travel offers similar experiences as events unfold gradually so we are able to adjust better to our surroundings. It is also much more comfortable and relaxing than air or road travel, for example.

More than 70 years ago people could take a cruise from Liverpool to London, stopping at a number of ports on the way.This was still a comparatively leisurely age with large numbers of people being carried across the seas and oceans. Air travel was in its infancy as passenger aircraft were only capable of carrying small numbers of passengers.

Aerodromes were the provinces of the very rich – everyone else going abroad took to the waves. Likewise road travel was still a big adventure. Before the Second World War, lorries were only permitted to travel at slow speeds.

They would frequently break down and had great difficulties going up hills. Roads crawled through every town and village on tortuous routes across the country before the age of the bypass. It is not surprising, therefore, that some people still preferred to travel by sea between British ports – as they had for centuries – if they had the time and money.

Coast Lines grew into the largest coaster company in the world after being formed in 1913 from the merger of three Liverpool coastal shipping companies. Business declined in the 1950s largely due to the growth of road transport.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum’s World Gateway gallery there is a builder’s model of the Coast Lines’ motor vessel Ocean Coast of 1935 (pictured). She ran a regular cargo service between Liverpool and London.

The 1,700-ton Ocean Coast carried general cargo and up to 10 passengers. The round trip took about 10 days and made an unusual cruising holiday.

Ocean Coast was withdrawn from service in 1964 and she was sold to a Greek company. A smaller half model in the Life at Sea gallery shows how mixed cargo was stowed on the Ocean Coast.

Most cargo vessels carried a wide range of goods. The Merseyside Maritime Museum holds the Coast Lines archives (see our Archives section on our main site).

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I recently appeared on the Liverpool KVFM community radio station hosted by local children and was asked why Liverpool suffered so many German air raids.

The answer was that the city was the main port for the convoys of merchant ships that brought vital supplies to Britain. Liverpool played a key part in the Battle of the Atlantic by serving as a base for escort ships defending the Second World War convoys.

Until mid-1941 only a small force of naval escort ships was based in Liverpool. A fleet of Fleetwood trawlers was established at Wallasey Dock, Birkenhead, for minesweeping and convoy escort work.

A group of destroyers was based in Gladstone Dock, Bootle. A few auxiliary merchant cruisers – fast, well-armed former liners taken over by the Navy – also sailed out of Liverpool on North Atlantic patrol duties.

From the summer of 1941, however, as more escort ships became available, the naval presence in port grew rapidly. Liverpool became one of the Royal Navy’s main escort bases for Atlantic convoys.

Eventually nearly 60 naval escort ships, excluding trawlers and other auxiliaries, sailed regularly from Liverpool. They ranged from destroyers and sloops to frigates and corvettes.

While Gladstone Dock supported by other docks provided berths for larger ships, many corvettes were based at Albert Dock. This is now the home of Merseyside Maritime Museum with its many convoy-linked displays in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery.

This 1945 photograph shows officers and men from HM Trawler Northern Wave at Wallasey Dock. Another image shows the armed merchant cruiser HMS Patroclus, formerly of the Blue Funnel Line, leaving the Mersey for escort duties in 1940.

Just five days later Patroclus was torpedoed and sunk by the notorious U99 submarine which sank 40 British and Allied merchant ships before being sunk by a British destroyer.

There is a photo of 19-year-old Nigerian seaman Douglas Memberre who was engaged as a steward’s boy on the Mattawin at Lagos in December 1941. Douglas survived after his ship was sunk by a U-boat in the North Atlantic in June 1942. He later returned to sea and eventually settled in Liverpool.

Merseyside became the main home of the Merchant Navy in wartime Britain. In 1939 Liverpool-owned and registered ships formed at least one-fifth of Britain’s entire ocean-going merchant fleet.

Many were taken over by the Government as armed merchant cruisers, troopships, hospital ships, assault vessels and other auxiliaries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Just a quick message to say "Merry Christmas, one and all" - hope you get what you deserve - and to remind you that all of our venues are open over the Christmas period (excluding Boxing Day and New Year's Day and closing at 2pm on Christmas Eve).

When the weather is filthy, the kids suffering from cabin fever, and your wallet a little on the skinny side there's always a day at your free, friendly, neighbourhood museum or gallery to get you out of the house. Check out our Christmas section to find out what's on over the holiday.

There's also a preview page describing some of the excellent exhibitions we've lined up for 2010. I'm especially looking forward to Toulouse-Lautrec at the Walker and China Through the lens of John Thomson at the Maritime.

Have a good one.

The winner of this month's caption competition, and the new owner of a signed copy of Alan Scarth's 'Titanic and Liverpool' book, is Rob Pendragon with his entry, "Going out with an albatross? Get your hearing tested! I said I was going down to Albert Dock". Well done to Rob. 

You can see all of the other entries on the original post.

I enjoy cooking and this weekend helped prepare a traditional Christmas meal for six at Lowlands, the Victorian mansion in Liverpool where I am a trustee.

You do not need a great deal of space to cook a good meal – I once went on a French submarine for breakfast and was amazed at the tiny galley. They dished up their own Gallic version of black puddings.

Good food is very important at sea both to seafarers and passengers and this is even more so over Christmas for those who find themselves away from traditional family gatherings.

In the past, sailing ship crews were unlikely to get much change from their everyday diet of water, bread, ship’s biscuits, salted meat, dried peas, rice, tea, coffee and sugar. The best they might expect at Christmas was a double ration of salt pork followed by plum duff (thick flour pudding).

It was not possible to have fresh food on board ocean-going ships before the advent of steam and refrigeration.

However, some innovative cooks might use the bounty of the sea or land they were passing at Christmas. There are reports of crews being dished up such delights as penguins, turtles and even porpoises.

Robert Louis Stevenson captured the atmosphere in his poem Christmas at Sea:

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.

The advent of large liners transformed catering at sea for passengers. British companies manufactured top-of-the-range equipment so that ships’ kitchens could produce top class meals.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum is eerie film footage taken on the wreck of the Empress of Ireland which sank off Quebec, Canada, in 1914 with the loss of more than 1,000 lives.

A huge cooking range looms out of the gloom, clearly embossed with the words Henry Wilson Co Ltd, Cornhill Works, Liverpool. This company supplied and fitted most of the kitchen, pantry and bakery equipment for such ships as the Titanic, Lusitania and Empress of Ireland and many other passenger liners. Its cooking ranges for Titanic and her sister Olympic were at the time possibly the largest ever made.

This contemporary advertisement from the summer 1911 issue of Shipbuilder shows one of the huge ranges.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

The more I learn about travel in the past, the more I am convinced that our ancestors were a much tougher lot than us. They may have had to put up with more disease and hunger but they certainly had great reserves of strength and stamina – just look how they spread across the globe.

Emigrating in the 19th century was a hard and demanding process with lots of hurdles to jump before you even went to sea.

People seeking new lives had to raise the money for the fares, plan the journey, pack up all their worldly possessions then set off into the unknown.

Once they arrived in Liverpool – probably the greatest emigrant port in world history with nine million people passing through between 1830 and 1930 – they were beset with a number of hazards.

Just arriving in the port could be a bewildering as well as exciting experience for emigrants, who came from all over northern Europe as well as Britain and Ireland. Many had never left their homes before and found the place both frightening and dangerous.

Tired and hungry from long journeys, many of the emigrants were accosted by rogues known as runners who worked for dishonest ticket sellers and lodging house owners.

Not everyone was bad and Liverpool’s economy benefitted hugely from the emigration trade. It generated business for many including shipowners, brokers’ agents, shopkeepers and lodging houses.

Emigrants could spend up to 10 days waiting to set off on a sailing ship because journeys were at the mercy of the weather. Most of them spent the time in squalid, overcrowded lodging houses. Even respectable establishments offered only boards to sleep on – and no blankets.

Insanitary accommodation was an ideal breeding ground for diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Conditions eventually improved in line with improvements to ships fuelled by competition between shipowners. By the late 19th century emigrants could stay in lodging houses owned or supervised by shipping companies.

Displays in the new emigrant gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum include this print depicting a government inspector’s office in 1850. Here passengers were checked for diseases prior to departure.

However, these were hardly rigorous examinations - as many as 3,000 people could be seen daily by just three doctors.

In the exhibition’s life-size Waterloo Road display there is a sign saying “Maurice Dalton. Emigrant Lodging House. Good Beds. 4d per night”. A weary emigrant enters the lodging house, confronted by a fierce-looking dog.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

It is unlikely that we will ever see the likes of this ship again because she was very much a product of the age which inspired her.

I find it difficult to imagine what it would have been like travelling on such a vessel. The reactions of the passengers and crew can only be guessed when they first saw her amazing interiors.

The beautiful Cunard liner Lucania offered the most luxurious First Class facilities  available to Victorian travellers.

She and her sister Campania were the embodiments of late 19th century opulence. The high quality and attention to detail were sea-going reflections of the confident and prosperous late Victorian era and would never really be matched on any other ships.

Although the predominant style was Art Nouveau, the top-paying passengers could relax in surroundings reflecting other golden ages of the past. For example, the forward First Class entrance hall was in the French Renaissance style.

The Lucania’s top public rooms and en-suite upper deck staterooms were mostly heavily panelled in the finest woods with thick carpets and velvet curtains muffling intrusive sounds. The finest room was probably the Italian-style First Class dining saloon with a coffered ceiling rising three decks to a skylight.

There was a novelty in the Elizabethan First Class smoking room – the first open fireplace ever fitted on a passenger liner. This was truly a home-from-home on the ocean wave.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum there is brief and tantalising film footage from 1901 showing Lucania at Liverpool’s landing stage. Crowds in Victorian finery wave enthusiastically to friends and loved ones.

There is no foreboding of the sad end that would befall this popular vessel just eight years later in a nearby dock.

Both the Lucania and Campania had the largest triple-expansion engines fitted on Cunard ships.The two ships were partially financed by the British Admiralty, no doubt because of justifiable fears of impending war. Cunard also had to agree that the ships go on the naval reserve list to serve as armed merchant cruisers if necessary.

Lucania thankfully never went to war. Following the arrival of the super liners Lusitania and Mauretania, Cunard decided she was no longer needed. Laid up in Huskisson Dock, she partially sank after being badly damaged by fire on 14 August 1909.

Lucania was sold for scrap and the beautiful interiors that had escaped the flames were sold to the highest bidder.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I am particularly moved by this story which graphically demonstrates the caring nature of people placed in extreme danger. We cannot comprehend what the victims of this disaster went through - many died but the surviving children were tenderly cared for as they awaited rescue.

The sinking of the passenger liner City of Benares with the loss of 81 of 100 children on board brought home the ruthlessness of German U-boat submarines to newspaper readers and radio listeners all over the world.

The 11,081-ton Ellerman Line ship left Liverpool on 13 September 1940 as leading vessel on the19-strong convoy OB213. Ninety of the child passengers were part of a government scheme to evacuate them from heavily-bombed British cities to the safety of North America.

On 17 September the convoy’s naval escort ships had left to accompany another convoy. Some hours later the City of Benares was spotted and torpedoed by the German U48 submarine.
 
There were more than 400 people on board and 250, including the children, were lost. As a result, the evacuation of children by sea was scrapped.

The attack came during a period of the Second World War known to the U-boat commanders as the Happy Time. This came after the fall of France in June 1940 when the Germans were able to use the French Atlantic ports as bases.

This allowed U-boats to reach far out into the Atlantic and the Mediterranean for the first time. Germany soon began to wage unrestrained U-boat warfare around Britain’s coast.
 
Despite the continuing shortage of submarines and air support, the U-boat fleet commanded by Rear Admiral Karl Dönitz became increasingly successful. For the first time, small U-boat pack attacks were used with devastating effect against still largely unprotected British convoys.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery is a contemporary newspaper report of the City of Benares disaster under the headline “Hitler’s Worst Crime”.

A photograph (pictured) shows five of six boy survivors who were rescued after spending eight days in a crowded open lifeboat. They are pictured being given piggy-back rides by rescuing sailors.

Another shows a heroine of the disaster, accomplished classical pianist and music teacher Mary Cornish who had volunteered as a children’s escort. She was awarded the MBE for looking after the six small boys during their horrific lifeboat journey.

Miss Cornish, from London, calmed the terrified children by telling them: “It’s all right, it’s only a torpedo.”

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Emma Walmsley from the Maritime Museum's Education team has just introduced a new character to her repertoire of historical figures. Here she describes how she researched and prepared the performance in order to make it as true to life as possible:

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"November saw the first performances of 'Never at sea' at the Maritime Museum - a new piece set in Liverpool during World War Two focusing on the city's involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic. 

I play a fictional Wren, May Hatton, based in the secret underground HQ at Derby House which was responsible for co-ordinating the convoys bringing our supplies into the port and for training escort commanders in tactics for contending with the U-Boat threat.

I began researching the subject and the character in the spring, including asking on the blog for contact details of anyone who actually was in the Wrens at this time. After this request went out, I received a response from a lovely lady who was a Wren in the Isle of Man who came into the museum and gave me some wonderful stories and advice. Then came the script writing and finally the piece was finished off and rehearsed with a freelance director.

The next performances now are scheduled for 3, 17 and 24 January - with British Sign Language interpretation at the 2.30pm performance on 17 January - so feel free to pop along and have a look! You can see full details on the Maritime Museum's events and activities page."

I like this story because I have kept diaries and holiday logs like the boy who wrote about the Wanderer.

Personal accounts are of great importance as they help future generations understand earlier eras. I believe not many personal narratives will survive from today because few people record their experiences in any depth.

The 19th century left a rich legacy because so much was recorded in minute detail, from records of meetings and speeches to long business and private letters on every subject. Newspapers and magazines were crammed with articles skilfully crafted to answer every query.

A 14-year-old apprentice left a remarkable account of the maiden voyage of the Wanderer, one of the last sailing ships built in Liverpool – a beautiful vessel that brought bad luck in her wake.

The captain died in a raging storm on that first voyage in 1891 and just 16 years later – following numerous unsettling incidents - the Wanderer sank after being rammed by a German liner.

The boy’s name was H Watson and a section of his detailed log is on display alongside a fine 1: 100 scale model of the Wanderer in Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Watson gives details of the death of Captain George Currie and several other incidents which blighted the initial voyage.

Captain Currie died less than two days out of Liverpool heading for San Francisco:

“It was near midnight and the captain was on the poop (the raised stern deck) firing rockets as signals of distress. While thus engaged he was struck by the skysail yard (a wooden spar used to suspend a sail) and knocked down on deck insensible.

“The second mate was first to see him and he, along with the third mate and steward, got him into his room. He lay insensible until 4 o’clock on Monday morning and then expired.”

The Wanderer was a four-masted barque built by W H Potter & Sons at Queens Dock, Liverpool, At 309 ft long and displacing nearly 3,000 tons, Wanderer was said at that time to be the biggest sailing ship ever built.

John Masefield, a former seafarer who trained on HMS Conway in Liverpool, was fascinated by the ship. His first book after being appointed Poet Laureate in 1930 was called The Wanderer of Liverpool. Wanderer’s end came in1907 while she was at anchor in the River Elbe. She was sunk by the Gertrud Woermann in 24 ft of water but thankfully this time no-one died.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My appearance on the popular BBC 2 afternoon auction show Flog It! was broadcast on Wednesday – recorded on the Albert Dock with presenter Paul Martin.

It was shot back in April when the crew spent the day at three separate locations. My main role was setting up and supervising the BBC’s visit. The six minutes of screen time took almost three hours, including setting up the camera and getting the angles right.

Our picture shows Paul and I with the Merseyside Maritime Museum in the background - the chap in the front holds an enormous collapsible reflector which aims to literally put us in the best possible light.

You can watch the full show on the BBC iplayer. It's available until 4.29pm this Wednesday (18 November).

There was a script of sorts but the director stressed this was only meant as a guide – obviously with takes from different angles there had to be continuity. Some wasn’t used, including a close-up of my hand affectionately patting one of the huge cast iron columns.

In between takes, Paul told me that he started out as a professional musician and became involved in Flog It! through his interest in antiques. I shared some memories of the TV shows I watched as a child. They were always live and anything could – and did – go wrong.

I vividly remember two major stars on separate occasions suffering the indignity of their false teeth slipping,  watched by millions of viewers.

I’m a big fan of the Flog It!, when I can see it, and also The Antiques Roadshow on which I appeared recently talking about some 1960s films discovered at Lowlands community centre, West Derby, Liverpool.

I last appeared on Flog It! about five years ago doing a three-minute tour of the Lady Lever Art Gallery with one of the programme’ specialists, Kate Bliss. We did it in our stocking feet because of the echoes from the polished floors.

Flog It! is an in-house BBC production and takes a lot of careful preparation to bring to the screen.

The rest of the National Museums Liverpool footage is scheduled to be screened at 3.45 pm on Monday 30 November, focusing on the stunning new Museum of Liverpool on the city’s waterfront.

The show visits our workshops where some of the museum’s fabulous exhibits are being conserved. Paul interviews land transport curator Sharon Brown in a carriage from the legendary Overhead Railway.

Also featured are the Lion steam locomotive, star of the Ealing comedy classic The Titfield Thunderbolt, and the first Ford Anglia off the assembly line at Ford’s new Halewood factory in 1963.

The feature ends at the Museum of Liverpool where operations manager Martin Hemmings takes Paul on a hard-hat tour of the magnificent building.

Over the past few days you will have seen news reports on the Australian government's apology for its role in the British child migration programme (you can see the PM's apology on the BBC website). The British government is expected to follow suit shortly.

From the late 19th century Britain operated schemes which sent more than 100,000 children to Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries. These children did not travel with mothers or fathers but alone, in groups. Taken from poverty and disadvantage it was believed that they would have a better life working in the clean expanses of the British Empire, where they were a source of much-needed labour.

The children's experiences varied. While some were orphaned, many left families behind, and separation from their homeland often led to a lonely, brutal childhood. Some found happiness with new families, while for others it was a disastrous move. They were made to work long hard hours on farms. Some were abused. Many ended up in institutions. Some were told their parents had died, only to discover years later that this wasn't the case.

The repercussions are still being felt. Many former child migrants and their families are still coming to terms with their dislocation. It's been difficult to watch some of the displaced people on news reports; their sorrow and anger is so clear. Their lives were obviously shattered by their experiences.

It's now recognised that the forced removal of children from their homeland was a bad idea, and one which caused more harm than good, hence the Australian government's apology.

Coincidentally we are currently planning an exhibition on this very subject. 'On their own - Britain's child migrants' is being organised in collaboration with the Australian National Maritime Museum. It opens in Sydney in November 2010 then comes to Liverpool in summer 2011 before being toured to other museums around the country. It will focus primarily on the 1860s to 1960s and the children who travelled to Canada and Australia. Along with Glasgow, London and Southampton, Liverpool was one of the main embarkation ports for children so it's fitting that the Maritime Museum will be hosting the exhibition.

We'll be launching a website in spring next year and will be looking for the reminiscences of people affected by the programme. If you were involved we'd be keen to hear from you.

Sometimes you have to leave a place to find it again, if you know what I mean.

Liverpool once had many small shipping offices which did good business supplying goods and passengers to the many vessels using the port. Gradually they largely disappeared and are now a fading memory.

Some years ago I went to Las Palmas, the busy capital of Gran Canaria and a shopping mecca. I wandered off to the dock area one sunny day and stumbled across busy little shipping offices. They were like those I remembered in Liverpool with wide wooden counters and ornate metal grills.

In keeping with much of modern business, most ships today are owned by large multi-national companies. These enterprises are often involved in other ventures such as property development, finance or leisure facilities. They operate on a global scale whether by raising money, buying ships or engaging crews.

Many ships are registered in countries like Liberia or Panama where regulations are less stringent than in Britain. Until the 1950s, most ships using British ports were owned by British shipping companies with familiar names such as Blue Funnel.

Most of these concerns were founded in the mid-1800s and were often controlled by families with long maritime traditions. However, only a few independent shipping companies survive today.

On display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery is a colourful spread from Liverpool’s Journal of Commerce of 1882 (pictured) showing flags and funnels of shipping companies that figured in the boom years of the port.

Britain, as an island nation, will continue to rely on merchant ships and seafarers long into the future. Most goods still go by sea and sea travel is growing in popularity.

A new exhibit in the gallery illustrates the impact of container ships in modern sea transport and trading. It is a 10 ft long model of the Liverpool Bay, built in 1971. The ship was built in Kiel, Germany, for the Ocean Steamship Group founded by renowned Liverpool shipowner Alfred Holt in 1865.

The 58,000 tonne Liverpool Bay was one of the new generation of ships designed to handle containers. She could carry more than 2,300 containers and was one of five sisters built at the same time, originally sailing to East Asia.

Huge ships are now a familiar sight on the Mersey but I remember vividly the impact of vessels like the Liverpool Bay arriving for the first time in the early 1970s.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

Homesickness is like seasickness – you only feel better once you’ve stopped travelling. I have suffered from both and hope I never experience them again.

Longing for home gnaws away at the soul and is almost impossible to eradicate. I found that it was just as much the loss of my cultural roots as the absence of family and friends.

The logistics of moving huge numbers of emigrants through Liverpool involved everything from supplying cabins to the plates they ate off – it was very big business indeed.

Around nine million people moved abroad through Liverpool between 1830 and 1930 making it probably the greatest emigration port in world history. It was often very emotional for the passengers as they left their old familiar homes behind for new lives in unknown countries.

Many descendants of those emigrants still have strong emotional attachments to Liverpool because it was the last place their families saw before taking the leap into the dark.

However, some did not like their new lives and returned home. There were a number of reasons for this including work and financial issues but often it was simply homesickness.

The new emigration gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum focuses on many different aspects of this mass migration.

From the tail end of the era there is a fascinating model of the Blaco portable cabin from around 1920-30. They were made by F C Blackwell & Co of Crosby, Liverpool.

Portable cabins were used by shipping companies involved in emigration from the 19th century onwards. The detailed wood and metal demonstration model was used when shipping companies such as Cunard and Canadian Pacific employed Blaco cabins. They could be quickly installed to cater for individual needs of emigrants.

A wooden trunk was used by the Parsons family when they emigrated from Liverpool to the United States in 1906. Oliver Charles Parsons and his wife Sarah Jane were originally from Wakefield, Yorkshire.

After arriving in the USA they lived with their young family in Tennessee, Kentucky and Wyoming before returning to England in 1914.

Oliver died during the flu pandemic of 1918 and Sarah had to raise here five children alone. She kept the wood and metal trunk with its many memories until her death in 1965.

Photographs show Sarah at Bridlington in 1950 (pictured) and her daughter Minnie Chesters in 1954. Minnie was the couple’s eldest child and had emigrated with her parents.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Those of you who live locally might already have heard about the imminent arrival of over 100 penguins to the streets and venues of Liverpool. Go Penguins! launches on 22 November, and National Museums Liverpool is providing homes for 13 of the happy but slightly homesick birds. They include 'Moon Waddler', aka Neil Flipstrong, at World Museum, while the Maritime is hosting 'Under the Sea' penguin. This photograph was taken at the secret penguin storage facility and shows another of our arrivals, 'Look at Me' (front left) along with some of his feathered friends.

Each of the birds has been created by either local artists, schools or community groups and adopted by a local organisation. Together they form A Winter's Trail which you'll be able to follow around the city centre, making Liverpool a proper Capital of Christmas.

As well as our usual programme of festive activities and events we'll be hosting a series of special penguin events that are guaranteed to keep the kids amused over the Christmas holidays. We're even creating a dedicated penguin shop at World Museum. There'll be more on our penguins and our other Christmas activities on our main site shortly. In the meantime there's more penguin information on the official Go Penguins! website.  

Update: Should have mentioned that some of the penguins have already been sighted in an Antony Gormley-esque arrangement on New Brighton beach (more on the Art in Liverpool website). Local comedian, Paul O'Grady, has also created his own, 'Owl Ma Penguin', and the BBC website has a slide show of some of the other designs you'll soon be seeing round and about.

Soldiers often send things to their loved ones at home. During the First World War they often sent embroidered postcards, some of which are now in National Museums Liverpool's collection. The postcards, known as 'World War One Silks', were mostly produced by French and Belgian women refugees and became extremely popular with British and American servicemen on duty in France. Further information about them is on this web page about Silks.

This Saturday you are invited to make your own postcard in remembrance of those that gave their lives during the First and Second World Wars in a free drop-in workshop, 1-4pm in the Learning base in the basement of Merseyside Maritime Museum. If you leave your postcard with us we will include it in a banner which we hope to display in the The Liverpool Pals and the First World War exhibition in the Museum of Liverpool when it opens in 2011. At the workshop this weekend you will also have the chance to find out about life in the trenches and how to trace your family’s history through military records.

The Liverpool Pals and the First World War exhibition will tell the story of the First World War as experienced by the ordinary people of Liverpool, either through participation in the fighting - focussing on the story of the Liverpool Pals – or through involvement on the Home Front. The main emphasis of the exhibition will be the particular Liverpool aspects of the story, set in a national and international context.

Lord Derby recruited one of the first Pals battalions in England from Liverpool in August 1914 when he suggested that men would volunteer if they could remain with work colleagues, family or neighbours. In effect the social structure of Liverpool was transferred to the front line. This exhibition will confront the realities of the loss of 16,700 Liverpool men, how it happened, and how it impacted on – and in some cases devastated - Liverpool communities.

Details of all events this weekend are on the Merseyside Maritime Museum's events and activities page, including this workshop and a new roleplayer performance on Sunday, 'Never at sea - the Wren's story'.

The nearest I’ve got to emigrating is briefly wanting to flee to the Isle of Man - in the summer it matches any other exotic island in the sun. It was a bright sunny day and I was taking a lunchtime stroll while covering a heavy-going criminal trial at Liverpool Crown Court. Balmy breezes drifted off the sea. Down at the Pier Head the Manx ferry was waiting with last boarders being called.

I was sorely tempted to dash up the gangplank but then common sense kicked in.

Emigration is a drastic step into the unknown and there are usually very good reasons for people wanting to make new lives in different countries

People emigrate for three main reasons – poverty, persecution and ambition. In the great movements of people around the globe in the 19th century, many were fleeing from hardship and poverty.

Emigration was also a way of fleeing political and religious persecution. Many Jewish people left east Europe for this reason.

However, a lot of people were simply attracted by the opportunities offered by life in such places as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The Gold Rush years in North America and Australia triggered mass emigration from Europe as prospectors sought wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

The new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum looks at many different aspects of the trade that helped generate wealth in Liverpool for shipping companies, hotels and many other businesses.

A fascinating colour print shows the emigration of Russian Jews in 1891 (pictured). They are seen crowded on the deck of the Guion liner Wisconsin as she prepares to leave Liverpool.

Other exhibits are linked to the Gold Rush. A 19th century board game called A Race to the Gold Diggings has a box emblazoned with a colourful scene, tiny model sailing ships and a set of rules.

A contemporary poster advertises the Royal Charter emigrant steamer run by the Liverpool and Australian Navigation Company. Saloon passengers paid top prices of between 60 guineas (£63) and 75 guineas (£78.75) – around £4,500 in today’s money – for the voyage while Third Class paid between 16 and 20 guineas.

The Royal Charter met her cruel end in October 1859 when, heading for Liverpool, she was wrecked on the Anglesey coast with the loss of 498 lives. Exhibits include items from the wreck including a section of ornately-carved wood believed to be from the ship’s stern. There's more on the Royal Charter on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

It's widely accepted by my friends and family that I am not a morning person. The most my brain can cope with before 9.30am is managing to remember my sandwich for lunch, and until this morning I was quite happy with my brain capacity.

However this was before I met the most energetic early-morning people ever. Russell Sargeant and Claude Martin Currie are members of dance company The Jiving Lindy Hoppers who will be performing at the Strictly Come Dancing with the Jiving Lindy Hoppers event on Friday 30 October from 7-11pm at the Maritime Dining Rooms (4th floor of the Merseyside Maritime Museum).

I had asked Russell and Claude to have their picture taken this morning by a photographer from the Daily Post & Echo to go into the paper. They were such good sports, getting changed into costume and dancing infront of the anchor all before I’m sure their breakfast had even digested!

Judging from the effort they put into having their picture taken I can be sure that this Friday is sure to be just as exhilarating and fun! What better way to spend a Friday evening than listening to live music, enjoying the wonderful dance of the Lindy Hop, and all in a restaurant with amazing views of the Albert Dock.

To book your tickets for this free event please e-mail bookingsmmm@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or call 0151 478 4441

Throughout our lives chance can play a decisive part – perhaps I am tempting fate but I believe you can change the course of events. I do not subscribe to the theory that events follow a predestined path.

The following story, though, tests my credulity. It really looks as if this was all pre-ordained, not simply a German U-boat captain seeing his chance and ruthlessly taking it.

They were both hugely popular in Liverpool but one of the beautiful sisters was to have a tragic end while the other carried on until the close of her natural life.

The Lusitania and Mauretania were both built in 1907, the pride of the Cunard fleet. They were bigger, faster and more luxurious than any liners before them – but were soon eclipsed by other giants of the seas as the race to capture lucrative business became ever faster.

The two ships were the first express transatlantic liners fitted with steam turbines. Although more renowned for their luxurious elegance, they also carried many Third Class passengers emigrating to the USA on the Liverpool – New York route.

The 31,550-ton Lusitania had a successful career until she was torpedoed by a submarine in May 1915 while heading for Liverpool, with the loss of 1,201 lives.

There were plenty of famous people on board, many of whom died. The artistic world lost such talents as the playwright Charles Klein and the founder of Dublin Art Gallery Sir Hugh Lane.

The business world was devastated by the loss of leading moguls such as multi-millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt and Paul Crompton, a director of the Booth Steamship Co, who died along with his wife and six children.

Lusitania sank in just 18 minutes and there was a terrifying scramble for the boats, and many people were trapped below decks because of the speed of the sinking.

An etching by W L Wyllie in the new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum shows the Lusitania in the River Mersey shortly before the First World War.

A 1:6000 scale model depicts the Mauretania at the Princes Landing Stage in 1911 (pictured). Among other ships on the river are tugs, a paddle steamer, ferry boats and fishing craft.

Mauretania captured the coveted Blue Riband (westerly) in September 1909 when she crossed the Atlantic at an average speed of 26.06 knots – a record which lasted 20 years.

She served as both a troopship and hospital ship during the First World War before resuming passenger services. Mauretania was scrapped in 1935.

There's more on the Lusitania, including items recovered from the ship, on our main site.

Maritime Archvies has also put together an information sheet on the Lusitania. There are also sheets on the great transatlantic liners and the Cunard Line. 

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My great aunt married as a very young teenager in Malta (this was 100 years ago).

The child bride later settled in Knotty Ash after giving birth to three children in quick succession nicknamed Boy, Girl and Baby.

Girl became a GI bride in the Second World War and emigrated to the US with her new husband, leaving Boy and Baby behind. Years passed and Girl wrote to say she was coming home to Liverpool for a visit.

Boy and Baby and their families went to meet her at the Princes Landing Stage but when she came down the gangplank no-one recognised her. Girl had totally changed her appearance – and spoke with a strong American accent.

It is many people’s dream in the crowded cities of Europe to escape to the wide-open spaces of North America and enjoy a much-improved standard of living.

By the early 19th century Liverpool was well-placed to cater for the huge growth of the emigration trade to the United States and Canada.

As a result, Liverpool became Britain’s most important international passenger port for more than a century. During the period 1830 -1930 Liverpool was probably the greatest emigration port in world history, handling a stunning nine million passengers from as far away as Russia.

It was not until 1927, when transatlantic emigration was in decline, that Southampton finally surpassed Liverpool for international passenger traffic.

Liverpool-based shipping companies ran regular passenger services to every continent until the 1960s.

There are many displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum focusing on Liverpool’s passenger ships. An Illustrated London News image (pictured) depicts a Cunard ship leaving Liverpool in 1881. A photograph shows either the Cunard liner Carmania (or her sister Caronia) at the Princes Landing Stage on 2 June 1923.

Between 1800 and the1920s the busiest ocean travel route in the world was between the British Isles and North America.

From 1850 many emigrants also headed for Australia and other British colonies around the world. From 1900 more and more people became tourists and travelled the seas for pleasure rather than necessity.

In recent years, business and holidaymaking have been the main reasons for travel. A map shows the sea routes taken by British migrants between 1815 and 1930.

As a child in I remember people queuing up at New Zealand House in Liverpool for their £10 tickets to new lives. My friends, who lived next-door-but-one to me, took this huge step in 1958 and I remember everybody waving them off as the headed for Southampton.

Our Maritime Archives department has produced an information sheet for people wanting to learn more about Emigration to USA and Canada. The sheet gives a brief history of the route, information on searching for people who travelled, details of the shipping companies involved and the records we hold on those firms.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I sometimes go to postcard fairs and join the throngs of people leafing through piles of illustrated epistles mailed long ago with every sort of message and greeting. Each stall has cards sorted into themes and one of my favourites is ships and shipping. Recently I bought this card showing the Republic. I added it to my collection simply because I liked it, only later discovering the unique role this vessel once played.

One hundred years ago radio technology pioneered by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi and others became reality in saving lives at sea.

Two significant centenaries are being celebrated in 2009 – the first radio sea rescue and the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.

In the early hours of 23 January 1909 the 15,378-ton passenger liner Republic, owned by the Liverpool-based White Star Line, was steaming from New York to the Mediterranean with 742 passengers and crew. She entered thick fog off Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, and sounded her whistle 

Suddenly another whistle was heard directly in front of the ship. Republic’s engines were quickly thrown into reverse and her helm swung hard-a-port but then a ship’s bow loomed out of the fog and sliced into the Republic amidships.

As water poured into the disabled Republic’s engine and boiler rooms, radio operator Jack Binns wired his new Marconi set with backup batteries and sent out a distress signal using Morse Code – CQD, later replaced in popularity by SOS.

CQD is understood by wireless operators to mean All Stations: Distress (not Come Quick, Danger as is often thought).

The call was relayed to all ships in the area but the first ship on the scene was the Lloyd Italiano liner Florida – the ship that had crashed into the Republic. Passengers were transferred to the Florida, which was in no danger of sinking. Attempts by the captain and some crew members to save the Republic failed and she sank the day after the collision.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery there are many Titanic-linked exhibits including the 20 ft long original builder’s model used to publicise the ship.

Both CQD and SOS were used by wireless operator Jack Phillips as the ship went down but it is a popular myth that this was the first time SOS was used. Phillips, who did not survive, and junior operator Harold Bride, who did, were employed by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

When I started work in 1966 on the Crosby Herald as a junior journalist the big local story was the container terminal planned for the north end of Liverpool docks.

There were protests from local residents who feared the area would be ruined by this new dock – now the Liverpool Freeport. Most of the opposition was on environmental grounds – little did people know how radically the port would be transformed by this project.

Models of the Inventor (shown) and Atlantic Causeway stand next to each other in the new Liverpool: World Gateway gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum. The two ships were only built five years apart but they symbolised a seismic change in the way cargo was carried as container ships took over.

The Inventor, built in 1964, was one of four heavy-lift cargo liners built for the Harrison Line. With their 180-ton lifting capacity derricks, these ships were built to carry machinery to developing countries.

The sudden rise of Roll On, Roll Off (RORO) ships and containerisation, plus changing trade patterns, shortened the lives of many ships like Inventor. In 1981 she was sold to Singaporean owners, renamed Penta World and scrapped in 1985.

Cargo containers had their origins in the 1780s carrying coal on canals and the first standardised container was introduced in the 1920s. The first purpose-built container ships started operating in Denmark in 1951. Over the following decades more and more operators adopted the system until by 1970 it was unstoppable.

The 15,000-ton Atlantic Causeway was a RORO container ship built in 1969 by Swan Hunter at Wallsend-on-Tyne.

In 1966 five major European shipping companies, including Cunard, joined together to form ACL. Their aim was to share the huge costs involved in building and operating a fleet of RORO container ships trading between Europe and North America.

For more than 30 years ACL, now based in Norway but with offices in Liverpool, has been a giant in the North Atlantic trade. Its ships still visit Liverpool every week and continue to dominate ports vital to the North Atlantic trade.

Atlantic Causeway and her younger sister Atlantic Conveyor were owned by Cunard, managed by Cunard Brocklebank and hired by ACL. In 1982 both ships were converted to carry aircraft and serve in the Falklands War. Conveyor was sunk after being hit by two Argentine Exocet missiles with the loss of 12 lives. Causeway returned home safely having played an important part in supporting the British Task Force.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I met the late Lord Sefton (1898 – 1972) several times walking around his country estate with his dogs in West Derby when I was a child out with my father. The 7th Earl was the last of the mighty Molyneux family who dominated Liverpool for centuries until merchants successfully challenged their power. After that they more or less retreated to their estates. I am involved in preserving their memory on the committee of the Friends of Croxteth Hall and Country Park supporting Liverpool’s own stately home.

Liverpool remained virtually the same size for hundreds of years – seven streets dominated by its medieval castle. For the first time the town started to grow quickly – and it was all down to ships bringing trade and prosperity in their wake. After the Civil War, when Charles I lost his crown and his head, big changes started happening in the growing port. The townspeople rebuilt their homes and their livelihoods while incoming entrepreneurs encouraged the expansion of trade.

A small group of wealthy merchants became the most important citizens and started to dominate the borough, setting a pattern that would continue into modern times. They believed Liverpool’s future success depended on its political freedom. The merchants resisted the influence of the nobility and landed gentry with few interests in trade. They refused to elect the local landowner Sir Edward Moore as either Mayor or the town’s MP in 1660. In 1668 they challenged Viscount Molyneux’s rights to land close to Liverpool. Their victory over him in 1672 gave the borough a large rental income.

The Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum charts the exciting early growth of Liverpool and beyond. Confidence increased with success. Many wanted a more open style of local government and in 1695 they secured from William III a charter establishing Liverpool Corporation. This new civic authority confirmed the merchant elite’s power. The first imports of American tobacco arrived in Liverpool in 1648 and the first sugar from Barbados in 1666.

In order to raise the £12,000 (£1.4 million today) needed to build the first dock in 1715, the merchants who controlled Liverpool Corporation mortgaged the whole town.

In 1799 alone Liverpool ships transported more than 45,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. Between 1801 and 1901 Liverpool’s population mushroomed from 77,693 to 685,000 – an increase of almost 800%. An 1847 print (pictured) shows St George’s and Albert Docks on the busy waterfront as Liverpool boomed.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Yesterday at the Liverpool Food and Drink Festival we ran a prize draw to win a three course lunch for four people and afternoon tea for two to celebrate the recent launch of the Maritime Dining Rooms. The winners were Mr C Ragan (first prize) and Ms B Lemp (second prize). Well done - we'll be contacting you in writing.

Some years ago I took my father to the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland where we stayed in a remote hotel with superb views over the Irish Sea. Underneath the choppy, sunlit waters lay the twisted wreck of the Lusitania. Dad felt particularly sad because one of his earliest memories was seeing a mob attack a German baker’s shop in Liverpool after the sinking.

The destruction of the Cunard luxury liner by a German U-boat submarine sent shock waves around the world.

The disaster was one of the most horrific incidents at sea during the First World War (1914 – 18) and came as the ship was heading for Liverpool, a port where she was much-loved.

She was sent to the bottom on a bright sunny day. Early that year the German government declared that all Allied ships would be in danger of attack in British waters. Lusitania sailed from New York on 1 May 1915 with 1,962 people of board.

At 2.10 pm on 7 May the liner was struck by a torpedo fired by U-20. It blew a massive hole in Lusitania’s side and she sank in less than 20 minutes with the loss of 1,201 lives.

The sinking of this unarmed passenger ship caused international outrage and there were riots in Liverpool, London and other cities around the world.

The German government claimed that Lusitania was carrying military supplies and there is some evidence to support this. However, British and American inquiries later declared the sinking to be unlawful.

This event devastated the tightly-knit dockland communities in north Liverpool where most of Lusitania’s crew lived. A total of 404 crew members died, including many Liverpool Irish seamen.

A photo on display (pictured) shows Staff Captain James Clarke Anderson, the most senior Lusitania officer to die in the sinking. His body was returned to Liverpool and buried in Longmoor Lane Cemetery, Fazakerley.

The fascinating exhibition Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress at Merseyside Maritime Museum looks at the tragedy. There are a number of items from the ship with stories behind them

There is a lifebuoy from the Lusitania – a rare survivor of the sinking.

Captain William Turner, from Crosby, survived after struggling for three hours in the sea. The British government tried to blame him for loss of his ship but he was cleared of any wrong-doing by the official inquiry. A picture on display shows him on deck.

The Maritime Archives and Library also hold a lot of relevant material about the Lusitania. You can read more online with information sheet number 42: RMS Lusitania.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I admit to being wary of catching infections and take the precaution of washing my hands whenever possible. Other useful safeguards are adding disinfectant to the bath water and gargling with mouthwash. It was impressed on me at a very early age the awful things you can catch – especially when travelling. I caught TB as a child but threw it off – a natural immunity, I was told later.

Passengers and crews of ships have always feared outbreaks of contagious diseases that could sweep through vessels like wildfire, affecting everybody’s safety and wellbeing. The words typhus, cholera, yellow fever, smallpox and plague were enough to chill the bones of the most seasoned traveller.

It was the same on shore when epidemics swept through crowded poorly-housed communities, killing old and young alike. But on land you could at least get away to somewhere healthy – not an option on a crowded ship where there was no escape.

There is still the ever-present threat of contagions being brought into Britain. Cargoes which might carry disease are handed over to Government officials. They may be placed in isolation or quarantine for further investigation.

Historically, Customs officers played a vital role in preventing the spread of contagious diseases. This is illustrated in a display in the exciting new exhibition, Seized: Revenue and Customs Uncovered at Merseyside Maritime Museum. A photo shows a ship’s crew members being inspected by Liverpool’s medical officer around 1925 (pictured).

A painting called A Revenue Cutter on the Clyde by Robert Salmon (1826) depicts the cutter approaching a newly-arrived vessel to check for diseases. The cutter flies a signal flag from the mast which asks: “Are you healthy?”

In the 19th century the arrival of migrants in the UK brought the danger of contagious diseases. A ship’s master was required by Customs officers to swear on the Bible as to the condition of his ship. If it was healthy, he would be issued with a certificate and cleared to enter port.

A photo shows a young smallpox sufferer covered with pustules, particularly on her face, hands and arms. Smallpox was a scourge which killed and disfigured countless people over the ages - in the 20th century alone up to 500 million died from it.

There have been more than 100 disease outbreaks associated with ships since 1970, according to the World Health Organisation. Today the main infections associated with ships are gastrointestinal and Legionnaires’ diseases.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

If the answer is 'yes' and you enjoyed your visit then you might want to vote for the restaurant in the Liverpool Food and Drink Awards. The awards are part of the official Food and Drink Festival 2009 which runs 13 – 21 September at venues across Liverpool. The festival launches on Sunday 13 September at Sefton Park with a free event where you can sample food and produce from dozens of bars, restaurants and stall holders, listen to live music and watch live cooking demos.

I always relish the anticipation of travelling – it is enjoyable to plan your journey and visualise what you will see and do. It is wonderful that many people can now travel relatively cheaply for pleasure. Once people stayed put and only journeyed out of absolute necessity.

In the early days of mass emigration many travellers probably thought of their approaching voyages with dread. It was often an exhausting ordeal just getting to your embarkation port and successfully boarding a ship.

Emigration was boosted by steamship development and by the 1870s most emigrants travelled this way rather than by sail. Steam power at sea – like the railways on land – made journeys quicker and also led to regular reliable timetable services. No longer did passengers have to cope with many delays mostly caused by bad weather.

In the second half of the 19th century, shipping companies such as White Star, Cunard, Allan, Inman, Guion and National ran regular services out of Liverpool. They took trade from the American sailing packet services, bringing money and business to the port. Importantly for the benefit of emigrants, they brought competition. Fares and charges were driven down as the shipping companies fought to attract business.

Publicity was often focused on First Class as the liners developed and became more luxurious. However, emigrant passengers provided the bread-and-butter profits for the shipping companies.

In the winter some rooms were now heated, unheard of in the days of wooden sailing ships where accommodation was invariably cold and wet.

On shore, appalling conditions experienced by emigrants gave cause for concern and moves were made to relieve their plight.

In the new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a contemporary print of a Government-funded emigration depot (pictured). It was opened in Birkenhead in 1852 for British emigrants heading for Australia. The depot provided meals, warm shelter and safety until its closure in 1868 when general conditions for emigrants had improved.

The accommodation which the depot offered helped to increase sailings from Liverpool and shipowners competed for lucrative Government contracts. In the depot you had to behave and follow the rules.

Liverpool-based Thomas Ismay’s White Star Line (Oceanic Steam Navigation Company) become one of the major transatlantic emigration operators which later built the Titanic.

On display are several items which saw daily use on emigrant ships. There are large coffee and tea pots embossed with the famous White Star flag. A soup ladle was made for the Guion Line in 1871.

Our Maritime Archives and Library have information on firms involved in emigration. There's more on the experiences of emigrants in our 'Leaving from Liverpool' feature.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Here's a special report on this year's Slavery Remembrance Day Festival from our 'woman on the ground', Claire Benjamin:

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"Over 5000 visitors enjoyed a weekend-long programme of events during the Slavery Remembrance Day Festival 2009. Held from 21-23 August, it got off to a powerful start with the annual lecture delivered by civil rights activist Diane Nash at Liverpool's Town Hall. Vikki Evans-Hubbard in role as the young Diane performed a section of 'Keep Your Eyes On The Prize', a dramatic retelling of her struggle as a student, before introducing the real Diane Nash to the audience. 'Keep Your Eyes On The Prize' is staged regularly at the International Slavery Museum, check the Events and activities page to find out when you can see it next.

Diane spoke about the influence Mahatma Ghandi’s teachings on non-violent protest had on her when she was a student in Nashville, USA, during the late 1950s and 60s. It was inspirational the way she described how it helped to transcend the horrors of racism and eventually effect a positive change. As a key figure in the birth and development of America's Civil Rights Movement, her efforts to fight against injustice and inequality saw her beaten, fined and, when four months pregnant, sentenced to two years imprisonment for teaching these non-violent protest tactics to children. She was thankfully released on appeal. Her belief in Ghandi's teachings has influenced her own personal philosophy throughout her life and when responding to questions from the audience, she gave us all much to think about.
 
The two-day programme at the International Slavery Museum and Merseyside Maritime Museum saw visitors enjoying exhibitions, dance workshops and demonstrations, face-painting, wood-carving, music, poetry, films and plays. Stalls selling crafts and Afro-Caribbean food proved very popular. In the Maritime Museum organisations including the British Red Cross, Amnesty International, Merseyside Police, Christian Aid and Anti-Slavery International promoted community and human rights issues, reminding visitors of the themes that underpin the Slavery Remembrance Day Festival. The Libation ceremony, which has always been the focal point of the weekend, was held near to the Piermaster's House and was led by Chief Angus Chukuemeka alongside elders and community leaders from Liverpool and London.  The Libation commemorates and remembers the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants and celebrates contemporary Black culture – one of the legacies of the Atlantic slave trade. 
 
The event's return to the Albert Dock proved to be popular and we were helped by the good weather, which despite the clouds, remained mainly dry."

The Beatles’ song 'Being for the benefit of Mr Kite' is particularly evocative for me because of the seaside fairground memories it conjures up. I think the organ sounds create images of garish 1950s roundabouts and hot dog stands. John Lennon’s words were inspired by a 19th century poster but the musical arrangement is pure New Brighton.

John would have visited Liverpool’s own seaside resort on a ferry across the Mersey where his senses would have been bombarded with the sights, sounds and smells of the fairground surrounding the Tower Ballroom.

The Beatles sang about Mr Kite challenging the world with his act featuring acrobats, the Hendersons, leaping through “a hogshead of real fire”.

A tobacco hogshead on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum (pictured) makes you appreciate the bravery of the Hendersons.

This huge round barrel is more than four feet tall and about the same diameter. It was found in the Albert Dock warehouses – now housing the museum – where tobacco was stored on arrival (there's more on the history of the dock and it's warehouses on our main site).

Although today most goods within Britain travel by road and rail, ships carry some cargoes between British ports. In particular, it can be more convenient and profitable to use ships for goods carried in large quantities such as petrol and aviation fuel.

Two hundred years ago, before proper roads and railways, it was often easier and cheaper to carry goods by sea or on rivers and canals.

There are exhibition models of coastal vessels in the museum’s Life at Sea gallery. The three-masted Liberty and Property was built in Whitby in 1752.

One of the largest coastal trades in the 1700s and 1800s was carrying coals from Newcastle and other ports in the north east of England to London. The expression “Carrying coals to Newcastle” means a pointless action. There was a huge demand for coal in London and south east England, mainly as a household fuel.

A modern coastal vessel is the Mersey Fisher which was added to the fleet of James Fisher & Co in 1998. She carries liquid petrochemicals to ports in the UK and north west Europe. The model was commissioned with the generous support of the Sir John Fisher Foundation as a reminder of the firm’s long association with the port of Liverpool.

Among the museum’s ship collection housed on the Historic Quaysides is the De Wadden, an auxiliary schooner based in Arklow, Eire, from 1921 to 1961. She was the last sailing ship to trade in and out of the Mersey.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I prefer the cold to the heat – at least you can usually escape into the warmth when temperatures plunge. It is more difficult to get away from excessive heat. However, those who were on the Arctic convoys in the Second World War endured the dual hardships of battling both the enemy and the cold.

More than 100 Allied merchant ships on Arctic Ocean convoys were sent to the bottom by the Germans during a four-year period. Between June 1941 and May 1945 one in every 20 Allied ships (a total of 104) sailing to and from north Russia was sunk.

These figures are comparable with the worst annual sinking rates for 1942 for the much more numerous North Atlantic convoys during the war. The cost of the Russian convoys to the Royal Navy was also high. Among the 22 ships it lost were the cruisers Edinburgh and Trinidad. The German navy lost four surface warships and 31 U-boat submarines.

On both sides casualty rates among crews were often even higher than in the Atlantic due to the bitterly cold Arctic weather. In mid-September 1942 the strongly-protected convoy PQ18 lost one third of its merchant ships (13 out of 39) to German aircraft and U-boats.

Just two months earlier the disastrous PQ17 had lost two-thirds (24 out of 35). The main damage to both convoys had been caused by aircraft. The switching of many of these aircraft to other theatres of war led to much lower losses on later Arctic convoys.

On display in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum is a picture showing a convoy PQ18 ammunition ship exploding after being attacked by aircraft.

There are wartime mementos of Liverpool-born Captain Henry Saalmans OBE (pictured). He was master of the 3,000-ton Empire Bard which sailed in convoy to Russia in March 1942.

After surviving heavy air attacks, Empire Bard arrived at Murmansk on 6 May. For the next 10 months, in the absence of cargo-handling equipment on shore, she used her own deck cranes to help Allied merchant ships to unload their cargoes.

By the end of her stay in Murmansk, despite being damaged several times by air attacks, she had handled a mammoth 27,000 tons of war supplies for Russia. Captain Saalmans was awarded the Order of the British Empire and the Lloyd’s War medal for his efforts.

Exhibits include these medals along with his sheepskin coat lining worn on Arctic convoys.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

As I've mentioned many times before, there's never a dull moment for the handling and transport team. Since I last reported on their activities they have safely transported a huge variety of objects from our collections, including ship models, paintings, a stained glass window and some Hindu Gods (well, sculptures of them, anyway). Some have been moved from storage to the conservation studios for treatment and back again, other objects have been gone on or off display and a few have ben loaned to other organisations.

Some of the more unusual jobs have involved taking a whole rack of uniforms to the conservation freezer to treat a possible insect infestation and weighing weapons from the collection in order to determine the floor loadings of planned displays in the new Museum of Liverpool.

On a rare break from work a few weeks ago the team had a sneak preview of the new galleries currently under construction at the Museum of Liverpool. They were all impressed by the scale and design of the building. However in the back of their minds I'm sure they were all thinking the same thing - they'll have their work cut out installing all of the many objects in this huge building in time for the opening.

You can see what they've been up to in the Moving stories Flickr set of photos.

When I was at primary school in the 1950s we used to enjoy singing the popular Smugglers’ Song with words by Rudyard Kipling:

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark –
Brandy for the Parson,
Tobacco for the Clerk:
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
And watch the wall my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodpile if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy wine;
Don’t you shout to come and look, nor take them for your play;
Put the brushwood back again – and they’ll be gone next day!

It is a song that races along but embraces a popular myth masking the brutal reality behind smuggling. It is true that gangs of smugglers operated right along the coast with whole communities involved.

However, sickening violence could be used by smugglers driven by greed, poverty and lack of employment. Customs men often assisted by soldiers, used counter-measures which were both brutal and harsh, including the death penalty.

It was not until the 1840s with the introduction of free trade and the reduction of excise duties that smuggling was reduced.

The Hawkhurst Gang of Sussex smugglers was notoriously violent in the era of highwaymen and pirates. In 1748 gang member Daniel Chater was arrested by Customs officer William Galley and turned informer.

When both men were captured by other members of the gang Galley was beaten, tied to his horse and had his nose cut off. Chater was hung down a well and stoned to death.

The stark reality of the lives of smugglers past and present is revealed in the new Merseyside Maritime Museum gallery Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered.

On display in Seized is a contemporary print showing the two men hung upside down while they are whipped by gang members. Another shows Chater being thrust down the well.

In 1785 it was discovered that most of the fishing fleet in Deal, Kent, was involved in smuggling. The fishermen were desperate to earn a living. Every vessel was burnt to ashes on the orders of the Prime Minister William Pitt, who was just 26.

Exhibits include weapons used by smugglers and Customs officers – a blunderbuss, musket, pistols, swords and cutlasses. You can see some of them here.

A smugglers’ lantern has a spout which directed a beam of light to avoid detection. A sinking stone was used to secure smuggled casks to the seabed while a grappling hook was used by smugglers to retrieve their contraband. 

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

One of my older relatives used to joke that you should not bathe too often because hot water removes the skin’s natural oils. I’m all for keeping clean but some people overdo it and this can be very wasteful in a world that needs water.

However, I would not like to go on a long journey without having the opportunity to bathe but this was hardly the situation on most passenger ships in Victorian times, for example.

Competition to capture business during the emigration boom through Liverpool spurred shipping companies to create better facilities for travellers.

The arrival of large steam liners meant that services could keep to publicised timetables and schedules. This was a huge improvement on sailing ships which were at the mercy of wind and weather.

Cunard’s transatlantic passenger liner Gallia of 1879 was a beautiful ship built during the transitory period when steam was still supplemented by sail.

There is a superb builder’s-style model of the Gallia in the new emigrants’ gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum (pictured).

The 430-foot long Gallia was one of the steamships that brought new standards of safety and comfort to the North Atlantic emigrant trade. She spent most of her career on the Liverpool to New York and Boston run.

Gallia could carry 300 first class passengers in luxurious (for the time) two-berth cabins plus 1,200 steerage (third class) passengers along with 2,000 tons of cargo.

She had both engines and sails and her captain used sail whenever possible. Two new features were an improved main saloon which took up the full 42 feet of the ship’s width along with steam-powered steering.

Despite all these luxuries and improvements, Gallia was fitted with only two baths for the entire ship. You can read more on SS Gallia on our main site.

About nine million people emigrated through Liverpool in the period 1830 to 1930 making it probably the biggest emigration port in world history.

Few of these emigrants, who came from many parts of northern Europe including Russia, recorded their experiences in Liverpool.

Dirk van den Bergh and his large family emigrated from Holland, via Liverpool, to Canada in 1906. He wrote a diary about his journey - audio extracts are available for museum visitors to listen to, or you can listen to some here.

• Windows Media Format [48kps, 733Kb]
• MP3 Format [40kps, 592Kb]
• Transcript

Dirk writes: “We went into the centre of Liverpool – what a busy place and what traffic! If you could imagine Liverpool without fog and smoke it would be really impressive city. It streams with many emigrants.”

There is more on the emigrant experience in our Leaving From Liverpool online feature.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Great vanished buildings always hold a certain mystique and the Liverpool Custom House was one I would have loved to explore.

There are many pictures of the exterior of this huge H-shaped structure crowned with a dome but I have yet to see any of the interior. In its prime this was one of the busiest places in the port with people beavering away and rushing hither and thither.

The Custom House was damaged in the May 1941 Blitz and later demolished – although many believe it could have been saved.

On display in the new Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a large contemporary wooden model of the Custom House, built in 1837 from a design by John Foster Junior (circa 1787 - 1846).

Trade brings profits and those who do business through ports have to pay the appropriate duties and taxes on many items that are imported.

From the 1700s Britain’s trade with the rest of the world grew hugely. It fell to Customs officers to control it and protect the revenue so that the Government got its share.

On the quaysides and in the warehouses of Liverpool and every other port, amid the hustle and bustle of unloading ships and moving cargoes, the Customs officers went about their daily business.

Each man had a special job. For example, front line officers known as tide waiters met each incoming vessel and stayed with it until the cargo was unloaded. Some weighed and measured cargoes while others toiled at paper work in the Custom House.

Custom Houses were once the hub of every port. They were run by the comptroller who had immense power. He could prevent ships from unloading their cargoes or leaving port.

The Long Room was the heart of his domain where captains arrived from months at sea to present their paperwork to bench officers who made out a warrant and copied out six extracts. These were then sent to six different colleagues elsewhere in the building.

On display is a fascinating aerial view of the Custom House taken around 1935 (pictured). It shows the Overhead Railway station outside the entrance so that Customs officers on foot had fast and easy access to all the Liverpool docks.

An enamelled notice from about 1909 declares: “The Commissioners of His Majesty’s Customs and Excise hereby give notice that spitting is strictly prohibited in all parts of this building. By order.”

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

This weekend was the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Queensway Tunnel. To celebrate this busy roadway was closed to traffic on Sunday, giving pedestrians the rare opportunity to walk 'Under and Over the Mersey' (well, actually they floated back over on a ferry). There have been some great photographs of the walk through on Flickr, like this one by mobilevirgin.

In contrast here's a picture of the official opening ceremony 75 years ago from the Stewart Bale collection held in the Maritime Archives and Library. The local photographic firm Stewart Bale Ltd documented the construction of the tunnel and produced an official souvenir album of the Queensway Tunnel opening ceremony in 1934.

Purely by chance the opening ceremony pictures also capture the extraordinary lengths that some people will go to for a good view of events like this, with a series of photos of a mystery figure climbing above the crowds in the background. See if you can spot him in the original photos with the zoomify facility.

My ancestor Henry Guy was one of many Liverpool shipwrights in 18th century Liverpool where life was often short and hard. Henry, of Peters Alley, died in 1763 aged 35, just six weeks after his wife Jane. They had been married for 13 years.

I think it is very difficult for us to imagine how hard life could be for people of those days. The poor struggled to survive – the rich may have had more comfortable lives but mortality was high among all sections of the community.

With so much activity on the docks in the 19th century shipbuilding, repair and supply became important local industries.

We have recently seen the resurgence of the former Cammell Laird’s yard in Birkenhead securing big Royal Navy contracts for ship repairs and renovations.

Until the 1860s wooden sailing ships and clippers were built in Liverpool’s Kings and Brunswick Docks. From this time onwards, the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board took measures to concentrate shipbuilding around Birkenhead.

Liverpool concentrated on repairing ships between voyages and this employed up to 20,000 people. Thousands more worked to supply the many items necessary for successful voyages – from ropes, flags and sails to brass fittings, telegraphs, tableware and kitchen equipment.

Laird’s yard in Birkenhead dominated shipbuilding on Merseyside by 1900. It built many great warships and liners including Cunard’s Mauretania II in 1939 (you can zoom into a photo of the launch on our main site) and Union Castle Line’s Windsor Castle (1955).

On display at the Magical History Tour exhibition in Merseyside Maritime Museum is a sailmaker’s tool kit in use with the Alexandra Towing Company until 1984.

It includes:

• Needles of various sizes for different jobs.
• Cord and twine for sewing seams and bolt ropes. (Bolt ropes are the ropes around the edges of awnings and sails.)
• Beeswax to waterproof the twine, making it easier to use when sewing.

The tool kit was stored in its own bag which was custom-made from sail canvas.

A Liverpool Shipbuilding Co brass tally dates from 1855. Nearly all shipbuilding and repair work was casual and workers were taken on only as required. However, some companies would give favoured workers such tallies so they could get work more frequently.

The Liverpool Shipbuilding Co (formerly Jones, Quiggin & Co) was one of dozens of companies in mid-19th century Liverpool building wooden ships.

There is a 1935 advertisement for J W Pickering & Sons, ship repairers. This was one of many small companies operating from graving docks scattered across Liverpool’s dock estate.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I’m a great admirer of beautiful ships but in the tough realm of trading it also helps to be practical and economical.

In the shipping world, like any other commercial enterprise, you have to be competitive – there is no sentiment in business and profits literally keep ships afloat.

The steamship America was a stunningly lovely ship, as a 1:48 scale model in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s new emigrant gallery clearly demonstrates.

This is my favourite ship model in the museum, displaying the graceful lines of the America to perfection. Her two black and white funnels are finely proportioned and tiny detailing such as individual deck planking adds an air of reality. The remarkably-detailed figurehead shows a woman in flowing white robes.

Perhaps the America was too good for the work she had to carry out – a transatlantic passenger liner with the Liverpool shipping company, National Line. The 5,528-ton America was built in 1884 for National by J and G Thomson of Clydebank. Her owners hoped she would be faster than any of her rivals in the highly-competitive north Atlantic passenger trade. The 442 ft long liner was powered by 9,000 hp engines and could travel at 18 knots.

On her first voyage between New York and Liverpool she made a record crossing of six days, 14 hours and 18 minutes. As is so often the case, her moment of glory was soon eclipsed and the record was beaten by other vessels on the route.

America was an elegant ship looking like a very large steam yacht. However, her large coal consumption and high fares made her too expensive for the north Atlantic with its cut-throat competitiveness.

Just three years after being built the America was sold to the Italian Government, renamed Trinacria and was used by the Italian Navy. She was scrapped in 1925. There is more on the SS America on our main website.

Another model of a J and G Thomson ship is on the gallery - the Friesland (more on that ship on our main site). However, she was a profitable ship that saw many years of service on the north Atlantic. Friesland was built in 1889 for the Red Star Line’s Antwerp to New York passenger trade which she served until 1903.

Red Star was eventually absorbed into American financier J Pierpont Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine along with White Star, Dominion, Leyland and Atlantic Transport Co shipping lines.

The International Mercantile Marine was set up in an attempt to monopolise the North Atlantic shipping trades.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Across the National Museums Liverpool website, we have loads of great games, e-cards, online-only exhibitions, videos, interactives and podcasts for you to enjoy. And we've just launched our new VIP Zone as a hub for all these cool features that really bring our collections and exhibitions to life.

You can watch a video of a Pharaoh talking about life in ancient Egypt or download a talk by curator Pauline Rushton and photographer Francesco Mellina about our Sound and Vision exhibition - photographs of Liverpool music and fashion from 1978-82.

This multi-media stuff gives people from around the world the chance to get a better experience of what we have in our venues, even if they can't come along in real life.

You can also find all our social networking sites in the VIP Zone. So if you want to follow the new Museum of Liverpool on Twitter or join the Walker Facebook group then you can find links to our social sites there too.

Here's one of the latest videos we've put online featuring George Holt, the former owner of Sudley House, in the dining room. He talks about dinner parties, his plans for improving the city of Liverpool and describes some of the paintings in the room.

I like to think that the courtesies of life can be observed in even the most challenging situations so this particular story is very appealing to me. A pair of threadbare khaki trousers stand testimony to a compassionate wartime gesture after a German U-boat submarine sank a British ship.

On display in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum, the overall trousers belonged to a crew member on U-41.

They were given to James Kearon, of Arklow, Eire, a crew member of the steamship Darino of Liverpool after she was sunk off Spain in November 1939. He was one of 11 survivors who were taken on board the U-boat for three days before being transferred to an Italian ship bound for England.

Sadly, such acts of humanity by captains were forbidden by U-boat command later in the war.

In the late 1930s Karl Donitz, officer commanding U-boats, had estimated that Germany would need at least 300 U-boats in the event of war with Britain. In September 1939, however, Germany had just 57 subs with less than half having the range to operate in the Atlantic.

Until early 1945 all the German U-boats were based on First World War designs. By this time more than half (704) were of the Type VII (pictured) or its variants, the largest class of warships ever built in numerical terms.

Together with the larger Type IX, the Type VII Atlantic boats spearheaded Germany’s war at sea. The diesel–electric type VII was designed as a submersible, ocean-going torpedo boat.

In its original form it was only some 218 ft long with a displacement of 745 tons. This small size made it manoeuvrable and difficult to locate.

The Type VII had a fast surface speed of 16 – 17 knots, submerging in just 30 seconds. Its average range was more than 4,000 miles making it well-suited to ocean-going operations. Until mid-1943 these subs enjoyed remarkable successes in the Atlantic campaign.

Up to June 1940, U-boat operations in the Atlantic were limited because no more than 10 boats were usually available at any one time. Faulty torpedoes and the withdrawal of some boats to support operations in Norway were other handicaps.

German High Command, fearing American entry into the war, also placed strict limits on U-boat activities. Despite this, U-boats sank more than 200 British, Allied and neutral ships in the Atlantic during this period at the rate of 22 per month.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My perfect cup of tea is made from loose leaves spooned carefully into a warm teapot before being drenched with water just off the boil. I’m interested in all aspects of the quest to make the perfect brew. This is mission impossible because what makes a great cuppa is very subjective. My grandmother hated weak tea, calling it maiden’s water.

Entrepreneur Robert Crawford Johnson discovered how to avoid spilling your tea while on board ship – he invented a square teapot that would not tip over. For years designers had wracked their brains to create the ideal teapot for sea travel. What was needed was one that didn’t drip the golden nectar when poured, would not overturn in rough weather and could be easily stored without chipping the spout. Rather than change the whole design, other designers concentrated on one of these defects in their endeavours.By creating a square teapot with the spout neatly tucked away in a corner, Johnson solved all the problems at once.

He registered his Cube Teapot in 1917 but it was not put into production until 1920. Some other companies decided to muscle in on Johnson’s brainchild by producing similar pots which were not under licence. Johnson hit back by forming Cube Teapots Ltd in 1925 under an Accept No Imitations marketing banner. Sales stunts included a “living window display” featuring a lady pouring the perfect cup of tea from a Cube Teapot.

Square teapots were adopted by major shipping companies such as Cunard. There are several featured in displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum – they were used on the Queen Mary and earlier Cunard ships. Plant’s Bird of Paradise pattern dates from the 1920s. It was mixed freely with the Pink Rose pattern (pictured) on ships such as the Aquitania, Mauretania and Ausonia II.The designs were still in use on the Queen Elizabeth 2 at late as 1968 although the pattern and manufacturers changed over the years.

The Queen Mary was the first British liner to embrace the Art Deco style embodied in ivory-coloured tableware with touches of golden brown, grey and black. Jewish passengers were catered for with a kosher kitchen and separate crockery. A kosher coffee cup and saucer are inscribed “meat” in English and Hebrew.

In the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery can be seen a First Class china coffee cup and saucer of the same design used on Titanic.

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A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

I believe the attraction of sea travel will continue to grow because there is one priceless thing that crossing the waves gives you – time. Once on board ship you are largely cut off from the rest of the world which to me is great news. There are no phones ringing, texts or e-mails demanding responses or friends and relatives calling.

I think it is pointless to answer mobiles or emails when travelling – nothing is so urgent that it can’t wait until the end of the voyage.
 
Shipping companies involved in the emigrant trade, such as Cunard and White Star, made their biggest profits from large numbers of steerage or third class passengers who were packed into dormitories.

The luxury first class side of the business was often seen as a marketing tool – glamorous, wealthy passengers gave ships such as Titanic and Lusitania a glittering aura which persists to this day.

People seeking a new life made up the bulk of passengers on liners 100 years ago. Others were travelling on business – very few people travelled for pleasure, as is the case now. The reason was that the liners, in the days before cheap air travel, were the only way large numbers of people could get overseas.

In the heyday of emigration by sea, in the years up to the First World War, even third class passengers enjoyed a relatively relaxing crossing. They had comfortable bunks, decent washing facilities and excellent wholesome food.

However, travel was a very different experience for wealthy people who were emigrating or moving to British territories overseas either for business reasons or in service of the Crown.

Before boarding ship, their domestic servants packed and organised the luggage, leaving their employers to enjoy the attractions of Liverpool. Once on board, rich people travelled in style.

Exhibits in the new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum include a photo of the first class dining room on the Cunard liner Carmania about 1913 (pictured here).

The opulent surroundings include potted palms, starched white damask napkins neatly arranged in place settings and beautiful display cabinets – all under ornate plaster ceilings supported by fluted columns.

On display is the ultimate luxury accessory – a pair of grape scissors used on Allan Line ships about 1900. Elegant ladies and gentlemen did not pull grapes out of the bunch as the juice might squirt over their gloves, gowns or shirts. Instead, they neatly snipped the stalks then languidly nibbled the fruit.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Next Saturday 27 June, we’re teaming up with the Liverpool Parks Friends Forum to put on a special event at Merseyside Maritime Museum for anyone out there who has a passion for our city’s parks!

With over 70 parks, Liverpool offers plenty of opportunities to enjoy some free green space, and fresh air away from the buzz of the city, so it’s particularly apt this year that we are staging this free event during the Year of the Environment 2009.

The event will take place from 9:30am – 4pm at Merseyside Maritime Museum, and like our parks is completely free! Click here to register and experience all that is on offer on the day.

The event has been created as part of a number of community activities taking place in the run up to the opening of the new Museum of Liverpool in 2010, to give the public opportunities to learn all about different aspects of our city, its history and development.

It will include workshops focusing on themes such as parks and controversies through history with local historian Frank Carlyle and creative nature conservation with Richard Scott from the National Wildflower Centre.

There will also be a site visit to discover the ‘hidden side’ of Chavasse Park and talks from Robert Lee from the University of Liverpool and Chairman of Friends of Birkenhead Park, and Janet Dugdale on the new Museum of Liverpool.

Two of my ancestors, John Guy (1731 – 1792) and his younger brother Peter (1736 – 1791), were Customs officers in Liverpool during a period of great growth in the port.

They were both tide waiters who would meet incoming vessels arriving on the high tide and make sure they tied up at the right place on the quayside. Tide waiters needed to ensure that the cargo was not unloaded out of sight of three other officials – the Customs controller, collector and surveyor. 

The brothers also spent periods as mariners. Peter was Liverpool’s only letter carrier (postman) about 1775 when the people of Liverpool applied to the Post Office for more postmen to be appointed. However, the application was rejected because only one was allowed in any town in England.

Only two years earlier Liverpool street names were marked and the houses numbered, making Peter’s life a lot easier.

Since the days when tobacco and brandy were landed on remote beaches from sailing ships, beating smugglers at their own game has taken ingenuity and daring. Watching what is going on at our ports, airports and other access points is where much of the day-to-day work lies.

Front line officers check containers, vehicles, ships and aircraft – sometimes examining their contents. They are on constant lookout for suspicious-looking passengers and goods, often acting on information received from law-enforcement agencies abroad. Until the 1960s this was a male-dominated world. It’s only recently that female officers have joined the front line.

These days some tasks once undertaken by Revenue & Customs are carried out by the Border and Immigration Agency.

There are fascinating displays in Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered, the gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

There is a tuck stick disguised as a walking stick. Manufactured by the Dring and Fage instrument company of London in the late 19th century, it was used by Customs officers to detect contraband. It would be used to probe bundled products such as tea and cotton.

An oil painting, Smugglers Unloading Barrels in a Rocky Cove Entrance by Thomas Luny (pictured), captures the atmosphere of covert contraband operations.

There are examples of seals used by officials. A waterguard’s button seal was used to stamp red wax seals on taxed goods after inspection after 50 years ago. There is an official reference manual from the same period.

A 1960s Customs officer’s cap shows a portcullis topped by a crown, the symbol of Customs until 2005 when the new Revenue & Customs service was created.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I can see it now – the strange carving of a man’s head on a stout wooden pole half hidden in the shady garden. It was one of the curiosities brought back by the man whose family lived at the house. He was a sea captain who did not return from the Second World War.

The head and pole looked Polynesian, hewn from the wood of a tropical forest before ending up in a Liverpool garden. The face would stare at me as I swung languidly in the hammock slung between the pole and a tree – an indelible childhood memory.

Before 1914, accommodation on British merchant ships was very primitive. Crews usually lived together in cramped quarters with basic washing, eating and toilet facilities. Even the cabins occupied by the captain and other senior officers were usually very small and basic.

Living conditions didn’t greatly improve until the 1950s and 60s when old steam ships were replaced by motor ships. On today’s ships crews have many facilities including comfortably-furnished cabins, excellent food and sporting and leisure amenities.

Displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum include a seaman’s hammock dating from about 1900. Hammocks were used for hundreds of years before bunks and beds became common. Seafarers would sling their hammocks in some convenient place and, when not in use, they could be easily stowed away. If a sailor died, his body was stitched up in his hammock and buried at sea. Hammocks were used on both Merchant and Royal Navy ships until the 1950s

A seaman’s horsehair mattress from the 1920s was used on the steam coaster, Enid. Wooden bunks were fixed to the sides of fo’c’sle (forecastle) below decks in the ship’s bow (front). Mattresses were placed on the bunks. They were known as “donkey’s breakfasts” because they were traditionally filled with straw.

An 1848 drawing (pictured) shows the basic conditions in the fo’c’sle of a sailing ship.  It graphically illustrates the damp, claustrophobic conditions. Two seafarers are seen trying to relax after a makeshift meal as the ship lurches heavily in rough seas.

Crews had to supply their own bedding, towels, soap, a plate, mug, knife and fork.

Photographs include washday on board a modern steamer in the 1930s. On many older ships dhobying or washing clothes was done in a bucket on deck. In contrast is the officers’ saloon on the BP tanker British Duchess in the 1960s. By this time, officers enjoyed particularly good living conditions on board ship.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

In the 1980s I spent several happy holidays in the Canary Islands where you could buy fabulous big Cuban-style cigars very cheaply. The Canaries – although part of Spain - were not in the EU so only a limited amount of duty free tobacco could be brought home. However, the Los Cubanos were so cheap I’d buy lots and declare them at UK Customs. The officer would weight them and work out the duty to be paid. A receipt was handed over as proof of the transaction.
 
Smuggling has been around ever since duties and taxes were levied on goods and commodities. From the days of sailing ships to the present day, Customs officers have relied on the latest technologies to counteract smuggling.

Both in the 18th century and now they have used some of the fastest and most manoeuvrable boats available. These cutters, as they are known, enable officers to chase and board vessels at sea and in remote ports.

In 1779 nearly four million gallons of gin and more than five million pounds weight of tea were smuggled into Britain, landed on beaches up and down the coast. At that time tea was a very expensive luxury which was kept in locked caddies usually in the homes of the rich. More than two-thirds of the tea consumed in Britain during the 18th century was smuggled.

The Commutation Act of 1784 slashed the tax on tea, smuggling it ceased to be profitable and the smuggling trade vanished virtually overnight.

Today tobacco and spirits are still smuggled and have been joined by Class A drugs such as heroine and cocaine. Between 1996 and 1998, the London-based Wright Gang smuggled in at least three tonnes of cocaine on yachts. In April 2007 they were jailed after an 11-year investigation.

Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered at Merseyside Maritime Museum looks at many different aspects of smuggling and related issues.

Two ships models show the development of the Customs cutter. The Sprightly was used by the Revenue service at the end of the 18th century. She was heavily armed, fast and could be moved with dexterity and skill. The other cutter model shows the Vigilant, one of a fleet of five cutters that today patrol the waters around Britain. The 42-metre long vessel was built in Holland in 2003.

An 1840 coloured engraving (pictured) shows the Revenue cutter Harpy chasing a smugglers’ ship. Casks are bobbing in the water after being jettisoned by the smugglers.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I was never caned at school but was threatened with it on one occasion for failing to whiten my pumps for PE. Another time the class bully - a hefty blonde - flicked ink at me. I told the teacher who sent Muriel to the female deputy head for two strokes on each hand. Muriel was as nice as pie to me after that.

Life for the ordinary seaman on sailing ships was hard with poor food, atrocious living conditions and frequently diabolical weather. There was also very harsh discipline to make sure crew members literally “toed the line” – believed by many to be a seafaring expression referring to the lines created by deck planks.

Captains ordered wrongdoers to be flogged. This involved the culprit being whipped on the back, usually with a cat o’ nine tails – a whip with nine thongs or tails. Very young seafarers were flogged with a lighter model with just five tails known as a boy’s cat. It was administered on the bare backside while the culprit was “kissing the gunner’s daughter” (bending over a cannon). The cane was also used but rarely on the hand, as this could hinder the victim when hauling ropes or doing other work.

One of the most feared punishments in the Royal Navy was being flogged around the fleet. The total amount of lashes was divided by the number of ships in port. The offender was rowed between each ship for the crews to witness his punishment. The gravest offences – such as sedition and mutiny – could attract a sentence of hundreds of lashes. However, a surgeon was present and could stop the flogging if it endangered the culprit’s life. A tally was kept of how many lashes were still to be carried out. Once the wounds had healed, the floggings would be resumed. As a result, sentences often took months or years to complete.

The ultimate punishment was execution by being hanged from the yardarm, again witnessed by the crew.

Apart from formal punishments, crew members were often thumped and hit as a matter of course.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery there is a hastener from about 1877. These were applied by bo’suns (boatswains - junior officers) to keep crews in order. This hastener on display was used on the iron ship Eulomene of Liverpool. It is made of cane with the end formed into a Turk’s head knot. It is more than 18 inches long and as thick as a man’s thumb.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I grow my own rhubarb and am a strong believer in its health-giving properties – as was the great Venetian explorer Marco Polo who is credited with introducing the sweet vegetable to Europe from China. Just simmer the chopped stalks for about 10 minutes in water with a spoonful of sugar, put in a bowl with some of the liquid, add dried mixed fruit, let it cool then add some natural yoghurt – delicious.

Liverpool’s initial prosperity was built on the successes of shipping lines with fleets of sailing ships. It took several decades for steam to become the dominant source of power. One of the most successful of all the sailing ship lines was Black Ball with its emigrant packets on the Australia run.

The Black Ball Line was started in 1852 by James Baines of Liverpool. Baines operated a regular service between the port and Australia, principally Melbourne. Black Ball packets were renowned for their fast voyages. The company captured much of the emigrant trade during the Gold Rush years between 1851 and the late 1860s when the Australian state of Victoria dominated world gold output.

The new emigrant gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum features an exhibition model of the renowned Black Ball ship Marco Polo. Built in 1851, she made record-breaking voyages to Australia. The model shows the ship refitted for the emigrant trade.

Two richly-coloured replica stern carvings from the Marco Polo show him wearing 19th century Western and Eastern dress. In reality, he lived between 1254 and 1324.  One of the life-sized figures (pictured) shows clean-shaven Polo in a green frock coat, plumed hat and black boots. In the other he is bearded and sports traditional Eastern headgear and matching blue, pink and gold gown.

There is a picture model of another Black Ball three-master, Indian Queen, depicted with pennants flying.  The model belonged to Capt John McKirdy, of the Isle of Bute, Scotland, master of the ship 1854 – 5.

A fearsome Bowie knife is inscribed with the name of the infamous Black Ball Capt James Nichol Forbes. He was known as “Bully Forbes” because of his harsh treatment of both passengers and crews.

A major competitor of Black Ball was Pilkington and Wilson’s White Star Line (predecessor of the later Titanic line). The White Star was an emigrant sailing ship between Liverpool and Melbourne. A pair of binoculars, dating from about 1860, came from the White Star when Captain T Kerr was in command.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Beautiful gold and silver items are always a joy to the eye but I think they are much more interesting if there is a story behind them. This particular piece of gilded silverware is linked to a very famous story indeed.

The White Star line – which later included the Titanic among its fleet – was founded in Liverpool in 1869 by shipping mogul Thomas Henry Ismay. Known also as the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, White Star eventually led the way in building prestigious luxury liners such as Titanic and her almost identical sisters Olympic and Britannic.

When Ismay died in 1899, White Star was the most successful transatlantic passenger line. In 1902 it was bought by the huge American firm, the International Mercantile Marine Company.

Ismay’s son, Bruce, became the first president and managing director of the new company. He remained in control of White Star and its ships continued to fly the British flag. J Bruce Ismay, as he was known, continued his father’s close partnership with the Belfast shipbuilders Harland & Wolff which led to the construction of Titanic and her sisters.

Thomas Henry Ismay’s original home can still be seen at Beach Lawn, Waterloo. He later built a huge mansion called Dawpool at Thurstaston, Wirral, but this was demolished many years ago. J Bruce Ismay – who survived the Titanic sinking by escaping in one of the last lifeboats - lived at a large house called Sandheys in Mossley Hill, Liverpool.

In the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there are parts of the magnificent Ismay Testimonial silver.  This parcel gilt dinner service was presented to Thomas by the company’s shareholders on board the White Star liner Adriatic in 1884.

The service, made by London silversmiths Hunt & Gaskell, is one of the finest of its kind. It was intended to “illustrate the progress of the art of navigation from the earliest times to the present day”.

The centrepiece (which there's more about on our main site) depicts commerce on top of the world with figures of the legendary navigators Jason (of Argonauts fame), Vasco de Gama (first European to sail to India around the Cape of Good Hope), Christopher Columbus (New World explorer) and British naval explorer Captain James Cook.

There are beautiful models of tiny vessels used for fishing and hunting – a kayak, canoe and coracle. Most of these pieces could be used for condiments such as salt, pepper and mustard. A large sweetmeat dish is flanked by two contemporary (1884) seafarers – a merchant navy officer and a sailor.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

It’s strange to think that bananas were once considered an exotic luxury in Britain.

My grandmother Lillian Potter, who was born in 1885, remembered them being hawked around the streets by a “banana man” - they were not cheap.

As late as 1915 bananas were still rather glamorous and featured in society soirees, as illustrated in the classic music hall song: “I’ve just had a banana with Lady Diana, I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow”.

Sir Alfred Jones (1845 – 1909) is credited with introducing the banana to Britain when he transported the fruit on refrigerated vessels run by his Elder Dempster shipping company.

We now take for granted refrigeration for perishable goods travelling by land, sea and air. This has enabled all manner of meat, fish, fruit and vegetables to arrive in our shops throughout the year.

Little more than 100 years ago this would have been unthinkable and it was pioneers like Sir Alfred who helped transform the way we eat.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum’ s Life at Sea gallery there is a wax plaque of Sir Alfred, who was the dominant figure in the development of the trade with West Africa (pictured).

He looks the epitome of the Victorian businessman with his formal jacket, starched collar and fancy whiskers. Born in Carmarthenshire, Sir Alfred started work at the age of 12 with the African Steamship Company in Liverpool. He made several voyages to West Africa and was manager of the business when he was only 26.

He then started business on his own account with two or three small sailing ships. In 1891 he was headhunted by Liverpool-based Elder Dempster which, through purchasing shares, he later controlled.

Sir Alfred had wide territorial and financial interests in West Africa. He played a key part in opening up the West Indies to trade and tourism. In addition, he was instrumental in setting up Liverpool’s School of Tropical Medicine and left large charitable bequests in his will.

Other exhibits include a visiting card case commemorating the 1902 trials of the Elder Dempster ship Burutu.

A vintage illustrated poster declares: “Travel in comfort, travel in style, travel better - travel Elders”.
 
Elder Dempster operated mainly between its Liverpool base and West Africa. In later years it ran three still fondly-remembered liners – Aureol, Accra and Apapa – to Ghana and Nigeria.

Eventually the Elder Dempster line name came to an end in 1989 when it was bought by a French company. However, the company continued as shipping agents before being wound up in 2000.

There's more on Elder Dempster, and the company records we hold in our archives, on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

Here's some news from press officer Ed Casson, who was down at the Maritime Museum yesterday to see a new acquisition go on display:

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"National Museums Liverpool has acquired another great piece of maritime history - a pennant from the flagship Cunard liner QE2.

The paying off pennant was originally presented to Liverpool City Council during the QE2's farewell visit to the city in October last year. It has now been presented to the Merseyside Maritime Museum, hanging proudly in the Life at Sea gallery.

The red 39 foot long pennant was presented to museum director Tony Tibbles yesterday by Liverpool's Lord Mayor Councillor Steve Rotheram.

Flown immediately prior to the liner leaving service, the QE2 paying off pennant is the longest in Cunard's history - one foot for each year the famous liner was in service. Because it is so big, the pennant has had be folded into sections to fit in one of the museums display cases. But to give you an idea, 39 foot is longer than three Mini Cooper cars put together!

Since her maiden voyage in 1969, the QE2 carried many famous passengers, including film stars, members of the Royal Family and world leaders. She was Cunard's flagship until succeeded by Queen Mary 2 in 2004 and is also the longest serving ship in Cunard's history."

I spent Monday with a film crew from the popular BBC 2 show Flog It! – not at an auction but perusing some of our fabulous collections.

 

We focused on the Liverpool waterfront – looking back at the fascinating history of the Albert Dock and touring the new Museum of Liverpool.

 

First stop was the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the Albert Dock where I was interviewed by presenter Paul Martin walking along the quayside admiring the stunning architecture and remarkable Victorian cranes, winches and pulleys.

 

It’s not easy talking and walking with a camera crew in front of you. Then there was the issue of my face. “We’re getting too much profile,” said the cameraman. It was explained that the viewer likes to see your full face not the side of it.

 

I managed to get the hang of facing forward and occasionally glancing at Paul. We talked about the dock’s builder Jesse Hartley, Prince Albert’s visit in 1846 and why the dock was almost demolished in the 1960s.

 

After lunch featuring the excellent pies at the Maritime Museum café, we headed to our workshops to see some amazing exhibits being conserved for the Museum of Liverpool when it opens late next year.

 

Paul interviewed land transport curator Sharon Brown in the 3^rd class carriage from the legendary Liverpool Overhead Railway (pictured - more information here). It is one of the many stars of the new museum.

 

It may have been the carriage I rode in with my father in 1953 to see the smouldering wreck of the Empress of Canada in Liverpool docks. I was only five but remember vividly the incredible experience of clattering along in the elevated railway and seeing the capsized ship resembling a great whale.

 

The crew also filmed senior conservator David Letsche working on the Lion which once hauled carriages on the Liverpool to Manchester railway in the 1830s. Lion starred in the classic Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt.

 

They were fascinated by the first car off the assembly line at Liverpool’s Halewood plant in 1963 – an immaculate Ford Anglia.

 

We ended the day at the Museum of Liverpool with its breathtaking views of the Liverpool waterfront and River Mersey.

 

National Museums Liverpool’s building operations manager Martin Hemmings took Paul and crew on a tour of the enormous building.

 

Martin pointed out the specially-constructed area where the Overhead Railway carriage will stand, overlooking the Lion.

 

The cameraman cleverly used artist’s impressions of the new galleries to line them up exactly with the real display areas.

 

The day had started with cloud and rain but ended in bright sunshine, enabling the crew to get superb shots of the dazzling stonework and huge shimmering windows.

 

This edition of Flog It! is due for screening in the autumn.

Just looking at this plan of a slave ship hold almost makes me break out into a cold sweat.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have a strong aversion to crowded enclosed spaces. This print of 1789 brings home to us all the hideous nature of the slave trade.

Liverpool’s slave ships carried their human cargoes from West Africa over the Atlantic to the Americas and Caribbean on journeys that took six weeks or more. The Africans were held in atrocious and dehumanising conditions – violence, terror and degradation were everyday occurrences.

They had already suffered terrible hardship before reaching the coast. Sometimes the slaves were forced to march hundreds of miles from the interior of Africa. Sold several times over, they passed from one owner to another, their sense of disorientation and dread increasing with each sale. However, the prisoners took every opportunity to escape. One group of women tracked their husbands for several days before breaking them free.

Some African leaders were actively involved in the trade but others took a stand against slavery. They included Tomba, leader of the Baga in Guineas and Agaja Trudo, king of Dahomey.

The slaves’ final destinations on land were forts and places such as the island of Goree where they were held before boarding ships. The message to potential escapers was clear – skeletons of those who tried to make a run for it were impaled on spikes as gruesome warnings.

The horrors of the Middle Passage, as it was known, were made worse because many of the captives had never seen the sea. They were packed into unbelieveably hot, cramped and suffocating conditions in the holds. The men were kept separated from the women and children. In good weather they were brought on deck.

The men were humiliated and forced to ‘dance’ for the crew. This also have an ulterior motive – to keep the slaves fit and healthy so they would fetch higher prices. Women were abused by crew members and rape was common.

The physical conditions, fear and uncertainty left many of the captives totally traumatised and unable to eat. Some preferred death and took their own lives. Disease and brutality took their tolls. Between one tenth and one quarter of enslaved Africans died on every journey. Mortality among crew members was also high.

At the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, there are displays which explore slave voyages including a model and painting of slave ships.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

People should get along to BBC Radio Merseyside this Friday 24 April between 10am and 5pm, for another opportunity to make their mark on the Liverpool Map.

After the success of last week’s Handwriting Session at Merseyside Maritime Museum, you can still put your handwriting forward for inclusion in the Map, which will go on display in the new Museum of Liverpool when it opens in 2010!

Come along ready to put pen to paper with your memories of favourite places in or associated with Liverpool, or you can copy out extracts of the Liverpool Saga; a poem written by the people of Merseyside to celebrate the city’s 800th birthday in 2007.

For more information on the Liverpool Map, see last week’s blog, or visit the website.

I have always wanted to invent something that cannot be bettered - the best ideas are always the simplest. What could possibly be better than the wheel? Another idea that I think will never be improved is the wash basin plug. You could think of all sorts of weird pumps and other devices to do the same task but not so simply. Traffic lights solved a problem people had agonised over for years before discovering the (now) obvious solution. The anchor is another simple foolproof invention.

Anchors must have been created shortly after the invention of the boat and the earliest ones were hauled up by hand. Ship models found in Ancient Egyptian tombs dating from around 1600 BC have grooved or perforated anchor stones. By 800 BC bronze anchors were being produced in Malta. By about 300 BC anchors, now made of iron, had a more modern appearance. A 16-foot long anchor from a ship of the tyrannical Roman Emperor Caligula – dating from about 40 AD - was salvaged from an Italian lake in 1929.

It is said that the first iron anchors forged in England were made in East Anglia in 573 AD. There is a modern-looking anchor in the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

As ships and anchors got bigger, a device needed to be invented to haul the anchor up – thus the capstan was born, probably more than 2,000 years ago. This is a vertical rotating drum originally operated by sailors using removable levers known as handspikes. Crew members would sing popular songs and sea shanties as they raised the anchor - probably the best known is The Drunken Sailor. These days capstans are powered by petrol motors, electricity, hydraulics or even pneumatics.

A large anchor outside the main entrance to Merseyside Maritime Museum  came from HMS Conway, a 92-gun wooden battleship built in 1839. Surprisingly, it is about the same size as the one from Caligula's Roman ship.

In 1876 HMS Conway became a school ship where thousands of Royal Navy cadets were trained. She was anchored in the Mersey for many years before being moved to North Wales. She was wrecked in the Menai Straights in 1953 and later broken up. The anchor, saved from the wreck with other relics, was later donated to the museum by the Conway Club – a group made up of former cadets.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I remember the widespread introduction of containers on ships in the late 1960s but little realised how it would transform the character of Liverpool.

Seafarers were once highly visible around the city with their distinctive clothing and style. This photograph of Norwegian tanker crew members with a monkey and dog reminds me of similar scenes once common around the dock road. The almost universal use of roll on – roll off ships means that crew members now rarely spend much time ashore. We have lost much of the colour and vitality mariners brought to our streets by their presence.

In both the First and Second World Wars members of Britain’s merchant navy and those of its allies were on the front line in the struggle for survival. Until 1939 most people involved in British shipping used the terms Merchant Service or Mercantile Marine in relation to the merchant fleet and its sailors. It was only in the Second World War that the title Merchant Navy became the accepted usage. This development was greatly influenced by the issuing of a Merchant Navy buttonhole badge to be worn voluntarily by seamen from January 1940. There is one on display in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

In 1938 the British Merchant Service employed more than 190,000 seafarers. Of these, more than 130,000 were British residents while 50,000 were Indian and Chinese mariners. Women seafarers were relatively few and were usually employed either as stewardesses or children’s nurses on passenger liners. When the war began, most of these women lost their jobs as ships were converted to troop carrying and other duties. Some, however, continued to go to sea throughout the war.

The fiercely-independent, multi-racial body of civilians sailing under the Red Ensign had a long history of poor pay and working conditions.

In 1917 Parliament approved a standard uniform for general use by the Mercantile Marine. But during the Second World War most seafarers on British merchant ships wore either the uniforms of their own shipping companies or just ordinary clothes. A display of archive photos of merchant navy uniforms was held recently at the Maritime Archives and Library.

In May 1941 a shortage of manpower prompted the Government to set up the Merchant Navy Reserve Pool. By this, all seamen and some 60,000 former seafarers were obliged to register with the Pool.

Other exhibits include a Ministry of Information poster showing two gunners on an armed merchant ship with the slogan: “To the Merchant Navy – thank you!” and an officers’ Mercantile Marine cap badge from 1917 onwards.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have just finished reading the fascinating 1935 autobiography of seafarer Charles Lightoller whose amazing career stretched from sailing ships to ocean liners. His book kept me spellbound with tales of shipwrecks - most famously when, as second officer, he survived the Titanic disaster. Lightoller saw service on merchant ships commandeered for operations in the Great War and also helped in the Dunkirk evacuations in the Second World War.

British merchant vessels and their crews have often been required to support military operations in a variety of ways. In both world wars, for example, many ships were converted for use as auxiliary warships, troop ships or hospital ships. The Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life At Sea gallery has a section focusing on these roles.

The loss of the troopship Lancastria was one of the worst disasters to hit Britain. On the declaration of war in 1939, this Cunard passenger liner was requisitioned for troop carrying. On 17 June 1940 the Lancastria was anchored off the coast of France taking on board retreating British troops. There were more than 5,000 troops as well as civilians and crew when she was subjected to a heavy enemy air attack. To this day it is not known exactly how many people died but it was many thousands.

On display is a menu for lunch on the day Lancastria went down. A watch was worn by survivor Sidney Dunmall, of the Royal Army Pay Corps, as he leapt into the sea from the stricken ship.

A discharge book belonged to the Lancastria’s assistant butcher, Gerrard Walsh of Liverpool. There are also two miniature Lancastria souvenir trophies owned by Royal Engineers who also survived, Arthur Pownall and Corporal Bray.

A spectacular painting by Burnett Poole (shown here) shows the famous Cunard liner Mauretania in camouflage dazzle paint when she was used as a troopship and hospital ship during the First World War.  More on this work on our main site.

A handbook called War Instructions for British Merchant Ships 1917 contained a safety device. It was weighted so that, in the event of attack, it sank when thrown overboard rather than falling into enemy hands.

Handcuffs came from the troopship Antenor. She was used to repatriate troops at the end of the Second World War. The handcuffs were kept on board to restrain anyone under arrest, especially if troops got carried away during victory celebrations.

A plaque records the role of the Ebani as a troopship between 1914 and 1919 when she carried 50,000 sick and wounded troops.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I’ve always admired the style of Prince Rupert, probably the most famous cavalier of the English Civil War. He lived in an age when a man had to be able to fight and when not using his sword could elegantly trip a dainty measure (dance) with a lady.

However, Liverpool gave Rupert a massive challenge when he marched his Royalist army to the heavily-defended town expecting a walkover. The sea has always provided a means of escape from danger and this was true in this famous siege.

In the war Royalist cavaliers were led by King Charles I and the Parliamentarian roundheads by Oliver Cromwell. Dashing Prince Rupert was Charles’ nephew and besieged Liverpool held for Parliament by the town’s governor John Moore, member of a powerful local merchant family. Moore was also a vice-admiral and commanded a small fleet of six ships which inflicted substantial damage on the Royalist fleet in the Irish Sea.

Rupert camped at Everton, which was then a small village on the hill outside Liverpool. When the siege started, he haughtily dismissed Liverpool as “a mere crow’s nest which a parcel of boys might take”. However, it was a month before Rupert took Liverpool after a constant cannon bombardment and the loss of more than 1,500 of his own troops.

Moore concluded that the town was no longer defensible. He and his men escaped by sea in ships that had been moored in the Pool, the creek which gave Liverpool its name. Moore’s action was taken without consulting the local civic leaders and the town was left defenceless. Many citizens fought on and Rupert’s men had to take Liverpool street-by-street. No mercy was shown and about 400 people – many unarmed – were slaughtered. The troops were then allowed to ransack the town. Liverpool was recaptured by Parliament a few months later in November 1644 after it was cut off by land and sea. Moore became governor again.

There is a fascinating display of Civil War armour and weapons in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

A breast plate carries a small dent indicating that it was proof against pistol shots. A mortuary sword was a common type of cavalry broad sword. It is believed to get its name from the basket hilt resembling a human rib-cage.

Part of a timber beam is believed to have come from the cottage on Everton Brow which served as Prince Rupert’s headquarters.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Great oaks from little acorns grow is a real truism and one that particularly applies to ships.

I like to think of early adventurers taking to the water countless centuries ago, presumably on logs that were later hollowed out to make primitive boats. The technology got better and better and today we are still improving our ships which seem to increase in size as each year passes.

The first steamship on the River Mersey was the paddle steamer Elizabeth which arrived on 28 June 1815 to serve as a ferry boat. This was also the dawn of a new era of comparative peace that was to last a century. The Elizabeth’s arrival came just 10 days after the Battle of Waterloo at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Although regarded by many people as a passing novelty at the time, ships such as the Elizabeth were in the vanguard of change which would see the maritime world transformed.

A 1:48 scale model of the Elizabeth in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Art & The Sea gallery shows how small she was. Models on the same scale appear giants alongside the tiny wooden ship. The Elizabeth was fitted with an eight horse-power engine and inaugurated the ferry service between Liverpool and Runcorn. She made just one trip daily travelling at between nine and ten knots.

The first experimental steamboat was built in 1704. However, it was the brilliant English engineer James Watt (1736 – 1819) who realised the importance of steam and its great potential. His work inspired others to develop the concept of steamships. The first practical steamboat was the Charlotte Dundas which towed barges along the Forth and Clyde Canal to Glasgow in 1802. Her success opened the floodgates to steamship development in Britain and abroad.

The 1:48 scale model of the 13,518-ton Cretic (pictured), in the same case, shows the huge changes in steamships in less than a century since the Elizabeth was built. It is like comparing a whale to a sprat.

Cretic was a passenger and cattle carrier with the famous White Star Line of Liverpool. She was bought by White Star in 1904 and remained with the company until 1923.
Cretic could carry 245 passengers while the Elizabeth could only transport a fraction of this number and had no cabin accommodation.

Steamships continued to be built until recent times. The Queen Elizabeth 2 was the last passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic before being converted to diesel in 1986.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Teamwork is vitally important in human endeavours but teamwork is nothing without leadership – and I think this is especially so in wartime.

Arguably the most important theatre of the Second World War was the convoy system that brought vital supplies to besieged Britain standing alone against Hitler’s legions. There were many examples of great leadership on different levels as the Allies battled with the U-boat submarine menace. I believe leadership at sea can be one of the most testing because of isolation and lack of back-up.

The dominance of Germany’s U-boats was broken in the spring of 1943 with a decisive victory during the Battle of the Atlantic. In late April and early May, the escorts of convoy ONS 5 (UK to Halifax, Nova Scotia) scored conclusive success over the Wolf Packs.

For eight days and nights, the British B7 Escort Group led by Commander Peter Gretton on the destroyer HMS Duncan and assisted by two Brirish Support Groups, beat off attacks by 40 U-boats. They sank five and damaged many others for the loss of 12 merchant ships. Two other U-boats were sunk by the Royal Canadian Air Force and RAF aircraft. Even for the largest U-boat packs the cost of attacking convoys had become too high. This defeat marked the end of the U-boats’ ascendancy in the Atlantic.

Displays in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery include this photo of three heroes of the ONS 5 battles. Commander Gretton is seen between Lt Cdr Raymond Hart (HMS Vidette) (left) and Lt Commander James Plomer, Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (HMS Sunflower). Commander Gretton had a distinguished naval career, later becoming a vice-admiral. Among his many honours was a knighthood in 1963.

A map shows the positions of U-boats in May 1943. A 1944 poster features a painting of a convoy seen from an escort ship.

In 1943 most of the American and Canadian troops and supplies needed for the Allied invasion of Europe were sent across the Atlantic. Victory in the Atlantic was essential if the Allies were to win the war in Europe.

While most of the naval escort work during the Battle of the Atlantic was done by the Royal Navy, the ships of many other navies were also involved.

A photo shows the Free French corvette Aconit on convoy duty in the North Atlantic. In March 1943 she and the British destroyer HMS Harvester sank the U 444.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

At one time I had a yen to be a commercial artist but decided, at the age of 12, to become a reporter instead.

Public artworks that made the biggest impressions on me were the huge posters that screamed at you from Liverpool’s many cinemas. One I particularly remember for its wonderful colourful images advertised the classic double horror feature “The Blob” and “I Married a Monster from Outer Space”. It certainly grabbed everyone’s attention on the bus.

Later I learnt about the big contribution artists made to the war effort by boosting morale and passing on information.

Liverpool was Britain’s most important port in the Second World War, handling at least one third of the country’s imports brought in by convoys running the gauntlet across the Atlantic. Greatly assisted by other west coast ports, she was the main terminus for the convoys. By early 1941 Liverpool had also become a major naval base and the HQ of Britain’s North Atlantic campaign.

Recognising the port’s key role, Germany made her the target for 68 bombing raids – more than any other British port outside London. Liverpool’s ships and merchant seamen played a crucial part in ensuring Britain’s survival, as did her dockers, ship builders and repairers. 

Posters on display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery highlight key areas. There are two showing variations of the Careless Talk Costs Lives campaign, perhaps the most famous in the Second World War. One shows a group of men talking in a pub and a picture of a ship sinking with the slogan: “She sails at midnight. He talked … this happened”.

The second is headed S.O.S and includes the lines:

Idle words – things heard or seen
Help the lurking submarine

A colourful poster shows ships entering harbour and being unloaded. The cargoes are put directly into steam trains similar to the ones that steamed along Liverpool’s dock road until the 1960s. In another, shown here, a cloth-capped dock worker is told by a soldier:

“Go to it chum! That’s war work – we get munitions in return for that lot!”
Our good go out. Food and munitions come in.
"We must have exports", Ernest Bevin

One declares: “Dockers help nail these lies! Back up the seamen – speed the turn-round.” This His Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) poster is illustrated with a German propaganda leaflet dropped over Britain in 1941.

Merseyside’s 30,000 dockers, whose average age was over 50, played a vital role in the unloading of cargoes. Younger men joined the armed forces or went to other industries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

When I was young, slavery was rarely mentioned either at home or in school – it was rather a taboo subject. Grown-ups would point out parts of Liverpool, saying things like “That’s where the slaves were sold”. In reality very few enslaved Africans were sold in the port although merchants, traders and ship owners grew rich on the trade.

Liverpool was the leading European slave trade port in the later decades of the 18th century and people of African descent were living in the town from at least that time. A number of merchants brought slaves from the West Indies to work as servants in their homes.

Some African chiefs sent their sons to be educated in Britain. In the 1790s more than 50 of these children were at school in Liverpool.

With the development of the palm oil business after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, African seafarers were increasingly employed to crew the ships. Many of these seafarers settled on the outskirts of the town in the area now known as Liverpool 8.

There were significant numbers of Black people in Britain in the 18th century. By 1800 London may have had a Black population of around 10,000. Although they had a variety of jobs including serving as soldiers and sailors, most were domestic servants to the rich.

This is illustrated on a coffee pot among the displays at the International Slavery Museum in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building. Other exhibits include a print showing a dock and sailing ships which also features the first known images of Black people in Liverpool – two youngsters near the dock side.

An 1895 photograph, shown here, taken by Charles Frederick Inston, shows a Black street trader at St George’s Dock. An item from a 1756 edition of Williamsons Liverpool Advertiser announces  the sale in a shop of “three negro men, two negro women, two negro boys and one negro girl” along with quantities of raisin wine, cider and flour.

A notice of the sale of “11 negroes” at the town’s Exchange Coffee House appeared in the same newspaper in 1766. For wealthy English families, a servant was an asset to be shown off as evidence of wealth and status. These notices show how enslaved Africans were part of the consumerism of the time. Africans were exotic accessories and would often be exquisitely dressed to reflect the riches of their masters.This hid the reality that Black servants were often brutalised in their daily lives.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have an open mind about psychic happenings and the alleged auras that surround people and things. A simple apron from a distant time has a profound effect on me. Whenever I stand next to it I feel the icy blast of the sea, hear the cries of people in distress and experience a sense of despair.

The starched white apron bears silent witness to the terrible night when the luxury White Star liner Titanic hit an iceberg and sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

It is among exhibits in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s exhibition Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress which looks at three great shipping tragedies. The Empress was the Empress of Ireland whose loss was overshadowed by the others.

The full-length cotton apron, with lace-trimmed top, was worn by survivor Laura Francatelli on the night of the disaster. It may be the only item of such clothing on display in a public collection.

Miss Francatelli was personal maid and social secretary to the fashion designer Lady Lucile Duff-Gordon. Miss Francatelli was travelling First Class with her employer and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, baronet, a champion fencer who represented Britain in the 1908 Olympics. They boarded the ship at Cherbourg travelling under the names Mr and Mrs Morgan, presumably to prevent them being pestered by social climbers.

Miss Francatelli and the Duff-Gordons were among the first to escape from Titanic. They boarded Lifeboat No 1 which had just two male passengers and seven crewmen although it was built to hold many more people. On board the rescue ship Carpathia, Sir Cosmo asked Miss Francatelli to write out £5 cheques to each of the seamen who were in the lifeboat. This led to allegations of bribery.

However, the British inquiry stated that the nature of the Duff-Gordons’ departure from Titanic was “within the acceptable bounds of civilised behaviour”. Also on display is a photograph of the occupants of Lifeboat No 1 taken on board Carpathia. Miss Francatelli, who later married and lived until1967, is pictured standing between Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon. There's more on the apron, the Duff-Gordons and Miss Francatelli on our main website.

Most of the Titanic’s crew from the Liverpool area were lost in the sinking. On display are personal items linked to local crew members who died. A Bible, pipes and smoking accessories belonged to junior second engineer John Henry Hesketh, a 33-year-old single man from Kirkdale, Liverpool.

A poignant letter was written by a young girl called May Louise McMurray to her dad William McMurray, a bedroom steward from the city’s Kensington district. You can see the letter here.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

I love studying photographs, drawings and plans of the mighty Dreadnought battleships that dominated navies about 100 years ago. I admire the high-quality engineering which combined with great design to produce beautiful fighting machines gleaming from end-to-end with polished brass and steel armour plating.

However, submarine technology advanced during the First World War when undersea warfare became a reality and, along with the development of bomber and fighter aircraft, marked the beginning of the end of battleships.

Dreadnoughts and other huge warships bristling with guns that marked the arms race in Edwardian Europe were sitting ducks to much smaller war machines swooping from the skies or lurking beneath the waves.

Upon the declaration of war in 1914 Britain had around 50 submarines while her allies the French had more than 70. The Imperial German Navy, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, had between 30 and 40 diesel and petrol-powered U-boats.

By the end of the war the UK had 137 submarines in service with another 78 being built, having lost 54 subs during hostilities. The German Navy had more than 170 operational U-boats which were surrendered to the Allies.

In the First World War submarines were slow, fragile and only capable of staying under water for about two hours at a stretch. Early submarines had five or six torpedo tubes and deck-mounted guns, making them also dangerous on the surface.

Around 5,000 ships were sunk during the First World War by U-boats. The most famous was the Cunard liner Lusitania, torpedoed off Ireland in 1915 with the loss of 1,200 lives. There are a number of exhibits from the Lusitania in the Merseyside Maritime Museum exhibition Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress.

The most famous victim of a U-boat was probably British general Lord Kitchener, whose face graced the recruiting poster with the slogan “Your Country Needs You”. He died on a mission to Russia in 1916 when the cruiser HMS Hampshire hit a mine laid by the U-75 off the Orkney Islands.

The Maritime Museum’s display Liverpool: World Gateway has two models of ships linked to submarine warfare in the Great War, as it was also known. One is a superbly-detailed model of the cargo liner Malancha, (shown here) built in 1918 for the Brocklebank Line. It has two quick-firing guns mounted near the ship’s stern as protection against submarines.

The other is the Johnson Line’s cargo liner Barnesmore of 1905. After being sold and renamed Whitehall, she was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic in 1917.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

You may have seen that Google has recently released version 5 of Google Earth. It does lots of good stuff including allowing you to 'see' the ocean floor, wrecks and all. Both the Titanic and the Bismarck can be seen in 3D (the Bismarck is at 48°10′N 16°12′W). You will need to turn on the '3D buildings' layer.  

Last summer Anne Gleave, curator of photographic archives, found a lovely picture in the Stewart Bale collection of the Valentine display in the London Road Woolworths from back in 1937, which she suggested would make a great Valentine e-card. Little did we know at the time that by the time the next Valentines Day came around the retail giant would be no more.

A Woolworths Valentine display e-card is now available on the website - what better way to tell the shopaholic in your life that you love them, or remind a forgetful loved one to get you a card? As you'd expect with a Stewart Bale image, it's packed with detail, so you can zoom into the detail of the Valentine display on a zoomify page.

Of course the full range of Valentine e-cards is still available, with a range of amorous items from our collections including a Beatles bedspread and a romantic shrimp pot as well as the more traditional cards and roses. 

You can see more tales of passion linked to the collections in our Romance online exhibition, although be warned, the path of true love doesn't always run smoothly and there's a sting in the tail (or at least a nasty bite from a kissing bug) of many of the items featured.

Environment can help nurture talent and I think this is particularly true of Liverpool with its amazing architecture and maritime setting.

One of the great vanished buildings of the city was the Custom House (pictured below) which stood partly on the site of the new Liverpool One development. Bombed in the Second World War, this great sandstone pile was cleared in the post war rush to modernity.

Liverpool has always had more than its fair share of talented people who were either born here or settled for various reasons. For centuries Liverpool was little more than a village dominated by a castle. The 1660s and 70s saw big changes as the discovery and settlement of the Americas opened up different overseas markets.

At the same time a new breed of business people started arriving in the town. Some came from London to start again after the devastation caused by the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of the following year. Others were from the local area - all were keen to exploit new opportunities. Soon Liverpool was the fastest-growing port in the country after London, overtaking its local rival Chester in 1699.

Imports of luxuries such as sugar, tobacco, cotton and spices transformed the small fishing village into a thriving port with worldwide links.

Three remarkable watches on display in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum illustrate how talented people settled and thrived in Liverpool. Two were made by Thomas Aspinwall around 1607 and 1620 and the third by his son Samuel Aspinwall about 1660. The Aspinwalls were the earliest recorded watchmakers in one of the first centres for the craft outside London.

By the late 19th century Liverpool’s port provided direct employment for 60,000 people – about one-in-five of the male working population. Work on the docks was dangerous and men were recruited on a mainly casual basis. The system offered workers the chance to earn high wages but it also brought uncertainty and poverty. Commercial clerks kept business in Liverpool moving. By 1906 they made an amazing 750,000 entries at the Custom House each year – all delivered by hand.

Other exhibits include the huge metal key to Heywood’s Bank from about 1800. The bank building still stands in Brunswick Street.

Bryant & May’s Lifeboat Matches were among specialist products produced in Liverpool to serve the maritime industry. They were specially produced in watertight Bakelite containers to be included in the emergency kit of ships’ lifeboats.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

Des Newton, who has died after a long illness aged 67, was one of the world’s leading ship bottlers and I, Stephen Guy, admired him for his astonishing dexterity and well as his cheerful personality.

Des made ship models with amazing skill and precision and it was a delight watching his hands daintily getting things to work.  He could also talk at great length about the history of ship bottling, dealing with the most difficult questions effortlessly. I asked him how seafarers kept the bottle steady as sailing ships pitched and tossed on rough seas. He immediately produced an ancient photograph illustrating the answer – they rested the bottle on a stick.
Des, who also made ship models for the Royal family, was one of the best-known personalities at the Merseyside Maritime Museum where he had a ship bottling and model workshop for 20 years.

He was born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, the son of a seafarer. After his apprenticeship, Des became a welder working on submarines in the Vickers shipyard. He later became a professional entertainer and musician learning his trade on the nightclub circuit.

This was time well spent because anyone seeing Des demonstrating his ship bottling skills knew they were in the presence of a great entertainer. He always jokingly referred to himself as a Glass Receptacle Miniature Artefact Inserter.

Des - who lived in Bootle, Liverpool - appeared on television several times, most notably on Blue Peter and the panel game What’s My Line?

He supported Merseyside Maritime Museum at many exhibitions and events and this led to him demonstrating his skills at maritime festivals around the country. Even after retirement in 2004, Des was still in demand demonstrating his knowledge and skills on cruise ships as well as back at the Maritime Museum where he held his last workshop in September 2008.
Des was passionate about lifeboats and was a former crew member of the Barrow lifeboat and a RNLI life governor. He raised thousands of pounds towards the purchase of a lifeboat through running the annual Southport Model Lifeboat Rally.

Des made a model of the Royal Yacht and presented it to the Queen when she visited Merseyside on board the Britannia in 1993.

There's more on the world's smallest ship in a bottle, created by Des in 1990, and on making ships in bottles in general on this website.

The metal rings in the huge walls took on a menacing aspect when my father pointed to them with the chilling words: “The slaves were chained to those before being sold”. This was the Goree warehouse near the Liverpool waterfront. I was little more than a toddler when we would explore its colonnades with the sinister rings. Later I learnt that the rings were probably for tying up horses rather than people and that comparatively few enslaved Africans came to Liverpool.

However, Liverpool was the European capital of the slave trade from the 1780s to British abolition in 1807. Mersey ships transported nearly 1.5 million Africans into slavery – more than 10% of all known slaves transported by Europeans to the Americas and Caribbean.

Liverpool was not involved in early English slaving. Merchants from London and Bristol were the first to be involved but from the 1740s Liverpool had overtaken them. Liverpool merchants were sharp and successfully undercut their rivals’ costs, reduced turnaround times and increased the flexibility of operations.

Trade goods on display at the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, include horseshoe-shaped pieces of metal known as manillas. They were used as a source of metal for casting in Africa and also as currency, particularly on the Niger delta.

Colourful trade beads, like those shown here, were imported mainly from Venice, Prague and Silesia (Germany) and were much in demand for necklaces and bracelets. Among those displayed is a string of agate beads recovered from the wreck of a ship which sank off the Isles of Scilly.

Preparing a ship for a slave voyage was complex and expensive. Vessels had to be equipped and loaded with goods carefully chosen to appeal to African traders. Ships were usually fitted out by a single merchant on behalf of the owners – fellow merchants, bankers, politicians, landowners and other investors. The average cost of sending out a ship in 1790 was the colossal sum of about £10,000 – roughly £550,000 in today’s money.

Goods to buy enslaved Africans were selected to appeal to particular African traders. The trade was conducted formally at forts on the African coast run by Europeans. There were two such forts on the island of Goree, south of Cape Verde, West Africa. It gave its name to the huge vanished Liverpool warehouse still commemorated by a stretch of road called Goree which runs parallel to The Strand.

Elsewhere captains negotiated directly with Africans and generally had to pay customs and dues for trading rights. There's more on the history of slave trading on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

How far would you go to get a good view of an important event? Curator of photographic archives Anne Gleave has spotted one mystery figure who went to extraordinary lengths to see King George V and Queen Mary at the official opening ceremony of the Queensway Mersey Tunnel in July 1934.

The man appears in a series of photographs from the Stewart Bale collection recording the historic event. In the background behind the royal stand the photographs show him climbing above the crowds, then clinging precariously onto the wall above their heads.

Have a look on a page of details showing the mystery climber, in the web feature about the official souvenir album of the opening of the Queensway Mersey Tunnel. The only thing that isn't recorded is how he got back down again, so we hope he made it safely back to terra firma.

If you were then Emma Walmsley from the learning team at Merseyside Maritime Museum would like to hear from you. Emma is currently preparing a new WREN roleplayer character who she is hoping to introduce to museum visitors later this year, to tell the story of Liverpool's role during the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War. She would like to make the character as realistic as possible so would be interested to hear the first hand memories of anybody who was a WREN based in Liverpool at the time - especially if they worked in Derby House itself.

If you can help or know somebody who can then please send Emma an email or call her on 0151 478 4307, before Easter.

I have always enjoyed looking out for famous people going about their everyday lives. Among my coups were screen goddess Bette Davis sightseeing in Liverpool’s Castle Street and Brief Encounter star Trevor Howard wolfing down beans on toast in a Southport café.

Liverpool has always been a great place to people spot – particularly in the days of the great liners.

Sea travel has undergone enormous changes in the past 50 years with the rise of cheap air travel across the globe. Liverpool was, until the 1960s, a major port for transatlantic liners. At that time I was starting work as a junior reporter, but veterans would regale me with stories of meeting film stars as they came down the gangplank.

National newspaper journalists were based in Liverpool so they could meet and interview leading showbiz personalities, politicians, business chiefs and other people in the news as they disembarked at the Princes Stage.

With the growth of air travel, the passenger liner was replaced by the jet airliner and the sea cruise liner. During this period traditional ferries were replaced by multi-deck car ferries, high-speed vessels and hovercraft. For most people travel by sea became much more a matter of choice than necessity. While luxury and style were still available on many ships, the trend was towards cheaper and more accessible transport for all.

One of the ships which fell victim of the growth of air travel was the 13,345-ton cargo liner Media, the first ship to be built for Cunard after the Second World War. She was built by John Brown & Co of Clydebank and began her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in August 1947. Both Media and her near-sister Parthia struggled to compete with the growing competition of aircraft in the Atlantic passenger trade in the late 1950s. They were sold in 1961.

A fine 1:64 model of Media by Bassett Lowke Ltd (shown here) is on display in the Art and The Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum. It was given by the Liverpool, North Wales and Irish region of the GMB union in 2005.

Exhibits in the Life at Sea gallery include cocktail “swizzle sticks” from Canadian Pacific passenger liners in the 1950s. A small red plastic holdall was bought on the Southern Cross sailing from Southampton to Cape Town in 1961. Less glamorous but no less evocative is a sea sickness bag from a modern passenger ferry.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

When I was growing up in Liverpool in the 1950s and 60s it was quite a common sight to see exotic animals including a large ferocious monkey that was kept chained up in a garage. Brightly-coloured parrots squawked and screeched in many homes and even businesses – one used to throw bits of fruit at customers in our local plumber’s.

Animals were brought in through Liverpool by traders and sailors to sell or keep as pets. There were less legal restrictions in those days.

Liverpool’s success was built on trade and the huge variety of goods passing through its docks illustrates the origins of its wealth.

In the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a display (pictured) dominated by an image of the domed Custom House destroyed by enemy action in 1941. There is a cast-iron road sign for Custom House Lane dating from about 1920.

A small handcart of the standard Mersey Docks and Harbour Board pattern dates from around 1965. The letters PLS indicate that it was once used to trundle baggage around the Princes Landing Stage where the big transatlantic liners docked.

Luxury goods usually bring big profits and from 1600 there was a growing demand for tobacco, sugar and cotton in particular. The first tobacco arrived in Liverpool in 1648 and by the 1660s its ships were regularly sailing to Virginia, then a North American British colony, for cargoes. Imports rose from 200,000 lbs in 1670 to an estimated six million pounds weight in 1750, the trade growing rapidly as part of the triangular slave trade between Liverpool, West Africa and the New World.

Beginning with imports from Barbados in the West Indies in the 1660s, the trade in raw cane sugar was another of Liverpool’s most important trading relationships. Sixteen thousand tons was imported in 1785 as plantation sugar became another key component in Liverpool’s slave trading role. Until 1805 all sugar imports came from the West Indies but later in the 19th century other supplies came from Asia, USA and South America.

Raw cotton was shipped to Liverpool from America, Egypt, Brazil, Asia and the West Indies. By 1900 the city handled about 75% of British imports. Finished cotton goods from Lancashire and Manchester mills were shipped through Liverpool as exports to markets across the British Empire and the rest of the world.

Today about 60% of the world’s cotton is still traded under Liverpool rules.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I've always believed that practice makes perfect and I'm sure time spent making things at sea for pleasure made countless crew members very happy. I particularly enjoy looking at scrimshaw work evoking the sailing ship era with depictions of graceful ships set on strange seascapes or anchored off exotic shores. I love those spouting whales.

The crews of sailing ships turned their seafaring skills to making many different kinds of gifts and ornaments. Work on board sailing ships was physically hard and often very dangerous. Team work was vital for keeping the ship on course and afloat in all weather conditions.

Any crew member who did not "know the ropes" or could not work aloft was of little use. The able (or experienced) seaman had the pick of berths and food. They expected the lower grades to sweep decks and tar rigging.

"Idlers" were the cook, steward and carpenter who, except on small ships, worked daylight hours. The seaman on watch was always occupied, except at night or on Sundays, setting or furling (rolling up) sails, at the wheel, washing and holystoning (scrubbing) decks, replacing or repairing sails and rigging.

Seafarers on sailing ships often used their working tools and skills during their brief periods of leisure. They used knives and other tools to make gifts and ornaments out of wood, bone, rope, canvas, twine and similar materials. The skills and materials used in producing these items were distinctively those of the sailing ship seaman. The products concerned are among the most appealing relics of life under sail.

In the Life at Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there are examples of what were produced, including remarkable scrimshaw work on horns. They are pieces of art that originated on sailing vessels but became a popular pastime among many sailors. Traditionally, teeth and bones from whales were engraved with decorative images. The outline of the engraving was emphasised using black ink, tar, soot and lampblack.

Another exhibit is a painted toolbox lid from about 1898. It shows a three-masted sailing ship called the Hugh and Mary in full sail passing a lighthouse and two steam ships. The image is flanked by pictures of two saucy young women.

For many seafarers handicrafts became a lifelong hobby. There are examples of the work of Arthur "Jo" Dashwood-Howard (he's shown here and you can see his work on our main site) who perfected the craft of ships in bottles. He left seafaring in 1936 but continued his interest in the sea right up to his death in 1998.

You may remember that my post from last week concerned the Athenia, a passenger ship that was controversially sunk by a German U-boat in the first hours of World War II. Antiques Roadshow on Sunday featured an SOS Marconigram (basically a telegram) sent from the sinking ship at 22.10 on 3 September 1939. There was also a shore to ship message notifying ships of the outbreak of war. If you missed the programme you can catch it on the BBC iplayer - the Marconigram feature begins at 41 mins 19 secs.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback - Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website(£1.50 p&p UK).

You may have seen on the news that the Prime Minister, the Rt Honourable Gordon Brown MP was in town yesterday for the first ever Cabinet meeting in Liverpool, which took place at the BT Convention Centre. The Prime Minister had a busy day but found time to come and look around the site of the new Museum of Liverpool which is currently under construction on the waterfront.  

Accompanied by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham MP, the Prime Minister took time out to talk to museum curators about the sort of objects going in the museum, as well as meeting some members of the construction team who are creating the iconic building. I’m told he really enjoyed his visit and was very interested to see our future plans.

What you may not have seen on the news is that Mr Brown also spent some time with young people who have been involved with the museum. On first arriving at the docks by boat (which coincidentally had the youthful name ‘Groove Armada’), he was greeted by young people who have worked on the 'Portrait of a Nation' project and Museum of Liverpool's youth champions. At Museum of Liverpool he met two Creative Apprentices who are currently working on the project – they will be telling you more about their involvement at a later date. 

Outside the Merseyside Maritime Museum the ministerial party paused to admire the ‘The Orrery’ – a colourful community sculpture commissioned by Liverpool Culture Company. He also took time out to speak to pupils from Pleasant Street Primary School about their involvement in Liverpool 08, before moving on to his next engagements. A journalist recently commented that the Prime Minister is looking very well and incredibly youthful these days - perhaps it’s down to the company he is keeping. 

Today the last Woolworths shops will close their doors for the last time. The loss of this familiar household name from the high street marks the end of an era that actually started in Liverpool a century ago. The first British shop of the famous chain opened in this city in 1909.

I don't have a picture of that particular store, but for anyone who has been saddened to see the empty shelves of their favourite Woolies shop over the last few weeks, here's a photo of the Wavertree Road Woolworths during better times from the Stewart Bale collection, which was recently shown in the Metropolis exhibition. There's also a picture of the window display of the London Road Woolworths in 1931 from the same exhibition, advertising a 'Household week' sale with 'Nothing over 6D'.

There’s a lot to be said for having old heads on young shoulders but I think the terrible tragedy of the Athenia underlines the error of giving major responsibilities to inexperienced individuals.

Scores of innocent people died when a young U-boat submarine captain sent a passenger ship to the bottom. The Second World War was just eight hours old when 26-year-old Kapitauleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp sank the 13,581-ton liner Athenia with the loss of 112 lives.

Outrage was caused on both sides of the Atlantic by the sinking. The Athenia, operated by the Donaldson Atlantic Line, sailed from Liverpool for Montreal on 2 September 1939. She was torpedoed, without warning, by the U-30 at 7.39 pm the following day about 250 miles north west of Ireland. Of her 1,103 passengers and 315 crew, 93 passengers – including 22 Americans – and 19 crew members were lost.

Britain had declared war on Germany just eight hours earlier and the Battle of the Atlantic had begun (our main site has more on the campaign).

Lemp wrongly assumed from the Athenia’s lone, zig-zag course that she was an armed auxiliary cruiser. He then attacked and sank her, an unarmed passenger ship, contrary to both international law and the strict instructions of U-boat Command. Lemp also broke a pre-war international agreement by not offering help to survivors. When the U-30 arrived back in Germany, Lemp and his crew were sworn to absolute secrecy.

However, the sub arrived in port with victory pennants flying on her conning tower - one showed 14,000 tons, representing the Athenia. Lemp was ordered to falsify his war diary, re-writing two complete pages so there was no mention of the Athenia sinking.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a display of illustrations about the Athenia including photographs of survivors of the tragedy. News cuttings from the time reflect the horror caused by the sinking. One headline screams: “The Monster Strikes Again!”, referring to the Lusitania sinking by a U-boat in 1915 (more on the Lusitania on our main site).

In 1939 the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) was not strong enough to risk a major battle with the Royal Navy, still the largest navy in the world. Instead, Germany aimed to defeat Britain by ruthlessly attacking her merchant ships and those of other countries that supported her. This long and bitter campaign was fought worldwide but was at its most relentless in the north Atlantic. The Germans used submarines, mines, surface warships, armed merchant ships and aircraft. Winston Churchill later wrote: “The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.”

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Let me say from the start that I have never been a great one for celebrating New Year. To me there seems to be a lot of phoney emotion around at this time and for quite a few people it’s just an excuse to drink too much. However, it is a good time for families and friends to get together.

New Year and the festive season can be lonely times for seafarers who find themselves in distant countries far away from their loved ones and friends.

Today ships spend little time in port because of the swift turnarounds introduced more than 30 years ago with the arrival of containers carrying cargoes. Few seafarers have opportunities to sample port life. In the past, however, ships often spent several says or even weeks in port. For many mariners, life in port – especially overseas – was one of the main attractions of going to sea and made up for whatever privations there were on board ship.

All seafarers look forward to reaching their destination, particularly after a long and stormy voyage. Ports all over the world - including Liverpool - had sleazy sailor town districts near the waterfront. Many seafarers headed straight for these areas.

Sometimes life in port turned out to be even more dangerous than life at sea. In the early 1800s, press gangs wandered the streets of British ports forcibly recruiting seamen for the Royal Navy. In the 1900s crimps made money by delivering drunken or drugged seamen to ships in need of hands.

From the early 19th century, sailors’ charities saved many mariners from the clutches of the land sharks by providing them with safe havens in port – work which is still carried out today. For example, the Mersey Mission to Seamen has been operating since 1865 (more on them on the Port Cities website).

Floating churches, seamen’s missions and sailor’s homes were established in ports all over the world.

A display at Merseyside Maritime Museum has exhibits reflecting life in port. There is a sailor’s trophy from the 1950s – a red head-dress worn by the waitresses at the Moulin Rouge Club in Recife, Brazil. These were much-favoured trophies among seafarers visiting the club.

There are membership and introduction cards from sailor town clubs around the world in the 1950s.

An amusing decorative earthenware plaque from about 1780 (shown here) depicts Jack on a Cruise while ashore. The smartly-dressed sailor sports a plumed hat, striped trousers and a sword as he swaggers in the wake of a pretty girl dressed to the nines and carrying a furled parasol.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

Christmas is, for me, best spent at home but to many people a festive cruise is their idea of bliss. You don’t have to mess about with Christmas trees or decorations, bother about cooking or the washing up. On second thoughts I might try it …

Holidaymakers enjoy sea cruises in warmer climes to escape the cold weather and among the presents they take home are souvenirs from the ship’s gift shop. Cruises recently sailed from Liverpool on a regular basis for the first time in many years visiting such locations as the Canary Islands, Portugal, Spain, Norway, the western Mediterranean, France and Ireland.

There is a souvenir shop display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum featuring some of the items sold on British ships from 1900 up to the present day. They range from cigarette lighters and dolls to books and toys.

On display are playing cards, small construction kits of the original Queen Mary, pens, china and other metal smokers’ paraphernalia includes ships’ crested ashtrays and cigarette cases along with tea spoons. A handkerchief shows the Empress of France while a table mat depicting White Star Cunard’s Britannic dates from the 1950s.

A Norah Wellings sailor boy doll carries the name Lancastria on his cap. The luxury liner completed many cruises before becoming a troopship in the Second World War. She was sunk in 1940 with terrible loss of life.

Bringing the tradition up-to-date, there are souvenirs from Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 (QM2) – billed as the largest, tallest and widest passenger vessel ever built when she made her maiden voyage from Southampton in January 2004. She lost this distinction to Royal Caribbean International's Freedom of the Seas in 2006. QM2's facilities include 15 restaurants and bars, five swimming pools, a casino, a ballroom, a theatre, and a planetarium. The latter is said to have been inspired by the Planetarium in World Museum Liverpool.

For 100 years there have been books of comparisons produced to emphasise the huge size of the liners. The first one appeared in 1907 to celebrate the maiden voyages of the Mauretania and her doomed sister Lusitania (more on the Lusitania on our main site).

The idea was revived in 1936 for the original Queen Mary. The most recent version shows the Queen Mary 2 in imaginary situations. She is seen on the Mersey waterfront where she is as high as the huge Port of Liverpool Building.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Here's a great photo from the Stewart Bale collection. It may look like crowds of Christmas shoppers but it actually shows the very first cars to go into the Queensway Mersey Tunnel on 18 July 1934. After an official opening ceremony the cars took King George V and Queen Mary through the tunnel to Birkenhead.

The photo is one of a series taken by Stewart Bale Ltd which were collected in a souvenir album documenting the day's events. The entire Queensway Mersey Tunnel souvenir album is now available on our website. As always, I've enjoyed using the zoomify pages to have a really close look at some of the scenes - for example you can zoom into the picture of the tuinnel entrance shown here. If one of your relatives was at the opening ceremony then you might be able to spot them standing in the crowd or sitting on the roof of one of the Dale Street buildings. There's one thing that you can't see in the pictures though for the simple reason that it hadn't been built yet - the flyover next to the tunnel. It's quite strange seeing this scene without it.

I'm getting very excited now that there's less than a week to go before Christmas, especially as I've been fairly organised this year and have sent all my cards and bought or made all my presents already. Can you feel my smugness?

If you're still panicking about Christmas then don't worry, we're here to help. If you miss the last posting date for first class post tomorrow then you could always send a free vintage e-card from our selection from the Decorative Art collection.

Anyone worried about what to do with the family over Christmas may be interested in our programme of free events and activities throughout the Christmas holidays at our venues.

Looking further ahead, keep the evening of Saturday 10 January 2009 free in your diary for the Transition events, celebrating the end of the Capital of Culture in style. The Maritime museum and International Slavery Museum will be open until 10pm that evening with a programme of free entertainment, see our Transition: Liverpool Late Night page for further details.

The fun doesn't end there though as we have lots of great exhibitions to come featuring fashion, Freud, football, French Impressionists and more things that don't even begin with the letter f - see our exhibition programme for 2009 for further details.

And one last thing on the subject of great exhibitions, don't forget to vote for your favourite exhibition of 2008 in our poll.

Movie news is buzzing with anticipation now that Kate Winslett and Leonardo di Caprio are due to be reunited on screen in the film Revolutionary Road. The two first starred together of course in the blockbuster Titanic.

The tragic story of the Titanic has always captured people's imaginations, and many have flocked to see the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery at the Merseyside Maritime Museum since it opened last year. In fact the popularity of this gallery is one of the factors that has made this a record breaking year for the museum. The millionth visitor to the Maritime Museum is due to walk through its doors today, possibly as I type, making it the first venue in the National Museums Liverpool group to attract one million visitors in a year since the organisation was founded in 1986.  

Even more visitors are expected with the announcement of a new display of previously unseen Titanic exhibits opening today. The exhibits are a five dollar banknote, pince nez spectacles, a White Star Line cup, a lead ventilation grille, a gold wrist watch and five tie pins, all of which are on long term loan to the museum. These personal items are an evoicative reminder of the human cost of the tragedy.

If you had a tricky trip to work this morning in the wintry weather then spare a thought for the poor folk on the steamship Britannia on 3 February 1844. The ship became stuck in the ice in Boston harbour at the start of a voyage to Liverpool. Luckily the Boston merchants helped pay for a channel 7 miles long and 100 feet wide to be cut through the ice to free her.

The scene has been captured in a sketch by JC King, which was then turned into this colour lithograph by A de Vaudricourt. The lithograph, which is in the Maritime Museum's collection, is featured in our winter online exhibition of objects related to the cold weather from several of National Museums Liverpool's venues. I've said it before but I'll say it again - possibly the coolest thing on the website.

Regular childhood trips on the Mersey ferries gave me my first taste of the sea even though we didn’t go further than New Brighton. I have never sailed on the high seas apart from in an ocean-going yacht around the Canary Islands - the Isle of Man and Irish ferries are more my style.

The Mersey ferry is perhaps the most famous ferry service in the world – deservedly so because of the dramatic maritime setting of river estuary, open sea and Liverpool waterfront.

The song Ferry ‘cross the Mersey is known all over the globe and is played on the Mersey ferries as they ply their triangular route between Liverpool, Seacombe and Birkenhead.

We have to go back to the 1150s for the start of the Mersey ferries when the monks at Birkenhead Priory would row passengers across the estuary for a small fare. At that time it was a wild and desolate area when the Priory was the biggest building for miles around – there was no castle or tower at Liverpool. This was 50 years before King John granted Liverpool’s charter in 1207. Even then the population never exceeded 500 until the 16th century.

A painting at Merseyside Maritime Museum dates from the era when steam was just beginning to make an impression although sail still held sway in the maritime world. The Rock Ferry (shown here) was painted by leading marine artist Samuel Walters about 1834 (other Walters paintings can be seen on our main site). It gives an insight into the type of craft in use before the advent of steam. Relying upon sails and oars, crossing the Mersey was often unpredictable. The ferry boat in the painting is the James, built in 1826 by Mottershead and Hayes of Liverpool. Walters shows the return trip to Liverpool laden with passengers along with fresh fruit and vegetables from the Wirral.

In the past there were up to 10 ferries between Liverpool and the Wirral – Rock Ferry, Eastham, New Ferry, Tranmere, Birkenhead, Woodside, Egremont, Seacombe, New Brighton and Monks Ferry. There was also a ferry terminal at Garston, Liverpool.

Also on display is a designer’s prototype model of the paddle steamer Alliance of about 1854, showing the dramatic change in ferry boat design in just 30 years. She was later built in Glasgow and served as a ferry on the River Clyde. Unusually, the model has identical stern and bow, each housing a small paddle wheel, with four funnels arranged in a square.

On our main site there are a number of ferry related features including a 1945 photograph of the Royal Daffodil II, a 1959 photograph of the Pier Head and ferry, and an information sheet providing a brief history of the Mersey Ferries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

For some people shoes are just a practical necessity to stop your socks getting wet and tatty, while for others shoes can be more of an obsession. Here's an early Christmas present for anyone in the second category.

There are lots of shoes of all shapes and sizes in the collections at National Museums Liverpool's venues. For the first time ever we've gathered together a selection of them in a brand new shoes online exhibition. The online exhibition features a range of fabulous footwear, from the rather bling Terry de Havilland platforms shown here, to a fragment of a leather heel from a 17th century shipwreck. There's also a lot of publicity material from the archive of local shoe makers and retailers J Collinson & Company, which is now held in the Maritime Archives and Library.

Most of the shoes and shoe-related items in the online exhibition are currently in storage, so the only place to see them all together is on the website. So indulge your inner Carrie Bradshaw and take an online stroll round the collections. Go on, you know you want to.

I believe that style and elegance go in and out of fashion and we tend to think people in the past had more poise and élan than now. In my opinion we are currently not in a very stylish age but things are changing. Land transport may still be largely utilitarian but once again lovely ships sail the seas.

Ships often feature beautiful artworks from the majestic figureheads of the sailing era to stunning displays on great liners.

A painting by Norman Wilkinson is perhaps the most famous artwork on a ship. The Approach to Plymouth Harbour hung above the mantelpiece in the First Class smoking room on the Titanic. It has been represented in many films and TV documentaries about the disaster. Thomas Andrews, the Titanic’s designer and a hero of the tragedy, was last seen staring fixedly at the painting, awaiting his fate. Shortly afterwards Titanic plunged beneath the waves, taking Andrews and about 1,500 people to their deaths.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are a number of artworks which once graced famous ships.

There is one of a pair of glass panels removed from the officers’ wardroom on the doomed Lusitania, sunk by a German U-boat submarine in 1915.The pretty oval panel has a flower design and subtle tones and shades. It was removed by a joiner in Liverpool because the other one of the pair was cracked.

There are six stunning decorative glass panels from the Mauretania II, built at Cammell Laird’s in 1939. They were rescued when the ship was broken up in 1965. The panels were originally displayed in the Cabin Class (1st Class) restaurant. Each image – based on the signs of the zodiac – represents a specific date in the history of Mauretania II. One is shown here.

There is a large, intricately-painted mural from a lesser-known ship, the Blue Funnel line’s Ixion. John Mansbridge painted the panel in 1951 for the officers’ lounge. When Liverpool Blue Funnel founders Alfred and Philip Holt began naming their ships, they chose names taken from the Odyssey and Iliad.

Homer’s heroes provided inspiration for their own epic adventures as shipowners – their ships were among the most advanced of their time. Other mythical figures are depicted in the mural including Mrs Lawrence Holt, who launched Ixion, as Britannia with her husband as Neptune.

The Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 (2004) has many exquisite artworks including massive polished bronze reliefs, murals and tapestries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

You've probably heard the expression that 'worse things happen at sea'. Sailor Robert Bruce wanted to make certain that these unspecified terrible things didn't happen to him when he was an engineer the Merchant Navy in the 1940s, so he carried this leather cosh and swichblade knife with him. Apparently he never needed to use them, but - to trot out another cliche - better to be safe than sorry, I suppose. The cosh and knife were donated to the Maritime Museum by his son Gary and are now on display in the Life at Sea gallery.

According to curator of port history, Ian Murphy, sailors were paid at the end of their voyage, sometimes getting several months back pay at once. This made them targets for all sorts of unsavoury types once they were ashore, so sailors felt most at risk in port. However, the tensions created by crews being shut up together for long periods and the presence of weapons on board, meant that many incidents actually happened aboard ship.

The idea of a fleet of small ships being mustered to support the Normandy landings in the Second World War is something I find very inspirational.

It was part of an audacious plan to hoodwink Hitler’s forces but it paid off handsomely. I also think this element of surprise is very British and the D-Day landings rank with other victories over the centuries.

They were workhorses of the sea, but 362 coasters played a vital role in Operation Neptune – the landings in northern France which heralded the end of the war.

The Battle of Normandy was launched on 6 June 1944 when the Allies landed on the beaches of German-occupied France.

Once they had a foothold and had forced the Germans back, substantial Allied contingents poured through the beachhead and joined the battle to liberate Europe.

One of the little ships involved was the 577-ton Clara Monks, a sturdy Liverpool-owned steam coaster dating from 1920.

She was part of convoy ETC.16 which left Southend on 23 June 1944, arriving the following day at Seine Bay, east of Cherbourg, with crucial supplies.

There were a total of 24 merchant ships in the convoy, with two escort ships. Small coasters were perfect for maintaining the continuous flow of supplies of ammunition, cased petrol and general stores from more than 20 Allied ports to the Normandy beaches.

There is a model of the single-funnelled Clara Monks in the Life at Sea gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum which captures the robust construction of the original ship.

She had a long and varied career carrying diverse cargoes around the west coast of England for John S Monks of Liverpool, one of the major coastal companies of the day. After the war the Clara Monks carried goods between Le Havre and the Channel Islands and Liverpool before being scrapped in 1959.

A photograph shows her at sea with members of the crew on the monkey island (the roof of the wheelhouse).

Two similar ships are featured in the display – the Cornish Trader, also of 1920, and the Slievenamon.

A plan of the Cornish Trader shows the layout of crew accommodation as well as cargo holds. There is a page from the cargo book of the Slievenamon dating from 1922, the year of the Irish uprising, when her cargoes included coal, stout – and IRA prisoners.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

A young Merchant Navy officer lived opposite us and for months his mother would wait with growing anticipation for him to return home on leave. There was always a big party when Gordon arrived – so packed that they took the downstairs doors away to make more space. The following morning empty beer bottles were placed neatly around the front gate – and at intervals all the way to the bus stop.

The downside of going to sea can be that seafarers leave home, family and friends for weeks or months at a time. In the days of sail they could be away for several years and no-one would know whether they were alive or dead.

While many mariners and their families are often able to cope with this occupational hazard, others cannot. Long voyages and lack of contact made family life especially difficult for the crews of sailing ships. Sailors on steam and motor ships usually benefitted from shorter voyages and faster communication. Occasionally, captain’s wives and children accompanied them.

Today seafarers stay in regular touch and close family can even accompany them on some ships. The arrival of mobile ‘phones, texting and e-mails in recent years means that mariners can communicate with home in many parts of the world and even on the high seas with cheap satellite links.

On the other hand, many seafarers have found leaving the sea to be a painful experience. The longer someone is at sea the harder it may be to leave or “swallow the anchor”. My late cousin Ken Guy was a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy and experienced major challenges after he left. He was so used to people obeying his commands that he had few interpersonal skills.

Marriage and parenthood often marked the beginning of the end of a seagoing career. For many the experience was made worse because jobs were hard to find ashore.

In the Life at Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a display called Family Life.There are photographs sent by Mrs Alice Solomon from Sierra Leone to her husband who served as a clerk on the Volta Palm in the early 1950s (one is shown here).

A creamware jug inscribed The Greenwich Pensioner was possibly made in Liverpool between 1780 and 1800. Two retired sailors, one with a wooden leg and the other with a hook for a hand, are seen sitting outside an inn.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I went to a great knitting workshop at Merseyside Maritime Museum at lunchtime. It was organised by the Seized learning team who normally hold events looking at how smugglers try to get firearms, drugs and other illegal substances through customs - and how customs officers stop them. Apparently wool also used to be smuggled out of the country centuries ago - I never knew that I had been knitting with such a precious material before!

As a fledgling knitter I had great fun learning some new techniques and making a few mini projects. If you want to have a go then the good news is that Ildi will be back at the Maritime Museum on Sunday afternoon with some fun things for knitters of all ages and abilities to make in the 'Where there's a wool there's a way' workshop. Have a look at the Seized! events page for further details.

In the 1950s it was very easy to pick up army and navy surplus and I had a friend who was ace at recycling equipment into working gizmos. One that amazed me was a private telephone line between two of our houses. Looking back I’m convinced he used parts of a Huffduff to make these contraptions.

When the United States entered the war in December 1941, the German U-boat submarine offensive entered a new phase which led to the underwater menaces losing the initiative and then the battle.

First the Americans had to learn a hard lesson. U-boat captains were ordered to move to the US east coast and immediately created mayhem. Within weeks the huge losses of ships and supplies suffered by the Americans threatened the whole Allied war effort.

It was six months before the United States finally introduced its own coastal convoy system. This quickly ended what the U-boat crews called their “American turkey shoot” which had cost 149 ships, including many vital oil tankers, totalling well over two million tons.

From mid-1942 more British, Canadian and American naval escorts became available. Some 150 corvettes were in service along with new sloops and frigates. However, many Atlantic escorts were diverted at this time to support Arctic convoys and the Allied landings in north Africa. The escorts themselves were much better equipped than their predecessors.

Examples of equipment and weapons used to beat the U-boats are on display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery. A large blue metal box with dials and knobs was known among crews as a Huffduff – a HF/DF or High Frequency Direction Finder. These were used alongside radar and the improved Asdic equipment to more efficiently detect U-boats.

A small bomb (pictured) was one of 24 which bristled in an anti-submarine mortar appropriately known as a Hedgehog. These were all fired at once and plunged into the sea over a wide area, with great effect.

At the end of May 1943 there was an uneasy underwater peace when all U-boats were withdrawn from the north Atlantic convoy routes for six months. U-boat command had decided to regroup and concentrate on developing new submarines and weapons. Although still a menace to Allied shipping, especially in British and European coastal waters until the very last days of the war, the U-boats were never to regain the upper hand in the Atlantic.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

If anyone deserved a medal it was Captain Arthur Henry Rostron – a man I have always admired because he kept cool and saved hundreds of lives in the Titanic disaster. Recently I went to have a look at his house in Crosby, Liverpool, not far from where the Titanic captain Edward Smith lived. It’s strange to think that these two major players in one of the greatest sea dramas were near-neighbours.

The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 continues to fascinate people and Captain Rostron of the Cunard liner Carpathia is remembered as the shining hero of the rescue operation. The Titanic hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage to America and sent out frantic distress signals as she began to sink. More than 1,500 people were to die in the icy waters.

Harold Cottam, the wireless operator on the Carpathia, left his headset on while dressing for bed - in those days there wasn’t 24-hour radio cover. He heard the distress signal and alerted the captain who immediately ordered Carpathia to race towards Titanic. Capt Rostron showed great skill and courage in moving his ship so quickly through vast ice fields to rescue all 712 survivors.  It took more than three hours to reach Titanic but Rostron made good use of the time. A list of 23 orders was successfully implemented by the crew to prepare Carpathia for taking on survivors. These included getting accommodation, food, drink and blankets ready and ordering his medical crew to stand by. Rostron, a devout Christian, was seen praying quietly.

Six of Capt Rostron’s awards are on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum, loaned by members of his family. There is a huge inscribed silver loving cup presented personally to him by a heroine of the disaster, ‘The Unsinkable’ Molly Brown, on behalf of Titanic survivors.  A stunning gold medal of the US Congress was presented by President William Howard Taft in the name of the American people. There are also gold medals from the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society and the Life Saving and Benevolent Society of New York, a US Cross of Honor and a bronze medal presented to the captain, officers and crew of Carpathia by the survivors.

Capt Rostron is pictured here relaxed and smiling after the task of picking up survivors was complete. He is seen standing between Mr and Mrs Ogden who took photos of Titanic’s lifeboats approaching Carpathia.

There's more on the Titanic and related objects in our collection on our main site.  

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Lord Hastings is one of those larger-than-life characters I would have liked to have met – he had a very colourful career and seems, for his time, to have been rather a good egg.

I was amazed when I discovered how he literally had a hand in his wife’s funeral.

The massive wooden figurehead depicting Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, looks straight ahead with features nobly bland as befitting a governor-general of India. Lord Hastings (1754 – 1826), is depicted wearing a magnificent uniform with gold epaulettes, gleaming medal and foaming cravat. The figurehead, now at Merseyside Maritime Museum, once graced the bows of HMS Hastings named after this soldier who was born into the Irish aristocracy.

The 74-gun warship was built in Calcutta for the East India Company in 1818  and acquired by the  British Navy the following year. At this time Lord Hastings was enjoying a brilliant career helping to carve out the burgeoning British Empire by extending territories in India and the Far East.

HMS Hastings’ figurehead is typical of the type found on British naval ships in the early 19th century. It was probably English-made and fitted on her arrival here in 1819.

The warship travelled many thousands of miles as she plied the seas between Europe, the Mediterranean and East Indies. Eventually she came to Liverpool as a coastal defence vessel in 1857 before becoming a Royal Naval Reserve training ship in the port. After ending her days as a coal hulk in the south of England, she was broken up in 1886.

And what of the Lord Hastings who gave his name to the dependable warship? He was governor general of India from 1813 to 1823, a period marked with many military victories against peoples opposing British rule. However, things later turned sour with mud-slinging against Lord Hastings over financial issues. He resigned and left India exhausted by his labours.

Far from having enriched himself as governor-general, when he arrived back in England he had to seek employment. He became the popular governor of Malta and died at sea off Naples in 1826.

Lord Hastings married when he was 50 and fathered five children. On his death, he left a bizarre request - his right hand was cut off and preserved until the death of his wife, when it was placed in her coffin.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

There's an interesting story on the Guardian site today (and in the paper too I guess) about HMHS Britannic, sister ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic. Apparently it lies in the Mediterranean after sinking off the Greek island of Kea in 1916. It's been purchased from the British government and there are plans to turn it into a tourist attraction, with submersibles taking visitors down to the seabed to visit the wreck - Britannic is far better preserved than Titanic and in shallower water. Not sure how I would feel about visiting it - claustrophobic more than anything and presumably a lot lighter in the pocket.

I have always wondered about my reactions if I was shipwrecked but thankfully this is one particular challenge that hasn’t come along yet. I don’t think any of us could say with any accuracy how we would behave in that sort of situation.

Full fathom five they lie, shipwrecks of all types scattered over the floors of the world’s oceans and seas along with the bones of countless seafarers and passengers. Each is testimony to disasters, accidents and mishaps caused by age-old dangers such as foul weather, fire, war, collision, bad navigation, stupidity or simply bad luck.

The safety of everyone on board a ship depends on good navigation - knowing where you are and where you are going. This is a simple truth that has been disregarded on innumerable occasions.

Before 1850 bad navigation alone caused the loss or damage of many British ships. Captains and other senior officers often had inadequate navigational skills and equipment. There were no clear rules to prevent collisions. After 1850, however, masters and mates had to be trained and examined in navigation. Methods and equipment were improved. By the 20th century ships became much safer due to radio, radar and other electronic equipment. Today most ships depend on satellite navigation systems.

In the past seafarers also faced hazards from pirates and privateers. Pirates such as the legendary Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Anne Bonny and Captain Kidd stole or took control of ships from their lawful crews. Privateers operated in times of war up to the 1850s. They were armed merchant ships which attacked enemy merchant vessels. There's more on privateering on our main site.

Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery has a display which focuses on navigation and safety at sea. A lifelike portrait of a sea captain, painted in oils about 1900 by WH Walton, captures the character of the veteran ship’s master.

There is a telescope which belonged to Captain A W “Hellfire” Sinclair who came to Liverpool in the 1850s at the start of his seafaring career. Sinclair was the hard-driving captain of packet ships operated by the famous Black Ball Line.

A jug, possibly made in Liverpool around 1780, tells the sad tale of man overboard. The black-and-white image shows men in a rowing boat throwing a rope to a man in the sea.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Think this is the lamest title we've ever used for a blog post, but in true alliterative tradition I've gone with it anyway. Saw two unrelated but interesting bits today:

1. The Incoming Passenger Lists for 1878 - 1960 are now available on www.ancestry.co.uk. The records of around 16 million immigrants, business travellers, tourists and returning ex-pats and their descendants are available for you to peruse. This is good news for those of you researching your family tree as you can search by port of arrival, name of vessel, shipping line, port of embarkation and date of arrival. And as well as passenger names, you can discover historical information such as the date of birth, occupation and, from 1922 onwards, intended UK address of each passenger. 

2. The boston.com website has some fabulous photos of Sun activity including close-ups of magnetic structures, a sunspot, an erupting solar filament and a solar eclipse. Fascinating and beautiful and well worth a look.

Looking at this masterly portrait, I have to admit a certain liking for Captain Hugh Crow.

He was very much a man of his time and did what he did efficiently and well despite condemnation in his own day and now. Of course he was wrong in his actions and, with all his charm, personified the end of an evil era.

Captain Crow stands wearing his top hat and clutching a cutlass, sporting a billowing white linen shirt and blue trousers with matching necktie – a man at ease in retirement. At his feet are other relics of his prime - a pistol and a megaphone used for enforcing orders on a sailing ship ploughing across the ocean.These are subtle clues to the former occupation of this distinguished-looking man in a finely-observed watercolour portrait painted by A R Burt in 1820. 

Captain Crow was the last of the slavers.

The picture is among exhibits at the International Slavery Museum in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building.

Crow (1765 – 1829) is best known as the captain of Kitty’s Amelia, the last British slave ship cleared for sailing from Liverpool in July 1807 just before the trade was outlawed. Crow was master on six other slaving voyages. On retiring from the sea he wrote his memoirs – an engaging, rare first-hand account. He remained a staunch supporter of the slave trade.

Crow claimed he treated both the crew and enslaved Africans on his ships comparatively well. However, like other ships’ masters, it was in his interests to keep the captives healthy so they would fetch a better price. The voyage of the Kitty’s Amelia was eventful – she caught fire and they also rescued the crew of another ship that had been wrecked.

Another exhibit is the original account book of the Liverpool slave ship Enterprize for a voyage in 1794-5. The accounts reveal that the ship’s carpenter Daniel Small was perhaps considered the most important person on the ship – he was paid £5 10s (£5.50) per month. He could save the wooden ship if she sprang a leak or was damaged. Surprisingly, the captain, William Young, was paid less - £5 a month. However, a captain was entitled to commission on slaves he sold plus one or two privilege slaves he could sell himself. This was probably worth up to an additional £200 per voyage.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Whenever I look at Merseyside Maritime Museum’s collection of miniature ship models I marvel at these wonders created without the aid of plans or drawings. I could manage plastic construction kits of HMS Hood and the Bismarck but when I see these beautiful sailings ships – some little more than and inch long – I’m amazed. They are the ship model equivalents of beautiful humming birds – tiny vessels built by French prisoners-of-war.

Many of these models have - comparatively speaking - as much detail as those at the other end of the spectrum in the museum’s collections, such as the 20 ft-long model of the Titanic.

The Pilkington Collection of French Prisoner-of-War Models illustrates a vanished art when prisoners used materials such as wood chips or shavings, bone and straw to create wonders of model building. This collection of 39 miniscule warships and boats is one of the museum’s outstanding treasures.

Little is known about the captives who honed their skills to create masterpieces which they could sell or barter to improve their poor food, illustrating that hunger is a great motivator. The talents of the model-makers indicate that they may have been trained as jewellers or watchmakers. The prisoners were held in Britain during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars which lasted between 1790 and 1815.

Many French prisoners were held in Liverpool as well as other places around Britain. There is no evidence that the