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Tall Ships on Camera: The Photographs of David E. Smith ARPS
This catalogue, which accompanies the 'Tall Ships on Camera' exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum, contains a selection of photographs taken mainly during the 1920s and 30s by David E. Smith, a keen photographer of ships. He was an associate of the Royal Photographic ~Society, served as president of the Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association and was a member of the Liverpool Nautical Research Society. His ship portraits gained numerous prizes in national photographic competitions.
The coastal schooners and ketches which feature in these photographs represent the last generation of sailing vessel to trade to and from the Mersey. They were the seagoing equivalent of the humble lorry or cart ashore, scraping a living by carrying everyday cargoes around the coasts of Britain. They were already everyday becoming a rare sight when David Smith recorded them and few of them continued to trade after the Second World War.
The coastal schooners and ketches which feature in these photographs represent the last generation of sailing vessel to trade to and from the Mersey. They were the seagoing equivalent of the humble lorry or cart ashore, scraping a living by carrying everyday cargoes around the coasts of Britain. They were already everyday becoming a rare sight when David Smith recorded them and few of them continued to trade after the Second World War.
64 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1992
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David Williams
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April 2, 2025
As a boy I was always fascinated with Tall Ships (probably brought on by my reading of Jim Hawkins' adventures on the 'Hispaniola' in Stevenson's 'Treasure Island') so this book of photographs, mainly taken in the 1920s and 1930s, is a real treasure as we view what were the waning days of the tall ships.
David Smith had a childhood interest in photography that he carried through to his adult life and he spent many hours exploring the docks at Liverpool, Garston and Runcorn photographing ships, their crews and their cargoes. Not only did he take his photographs from the quayside but he also took advantage of the ferries, getting into a favourable position to photograph ships passing the Pier Head.
The result is some excellent photographs of ships that were part of the last generation of sailing ships that traded to and from the Mersey. They were in the business of ferrying everyday cargoes around the coast of Britain even though some of them would be in a poor state of repair, such as having leaking hulls and patched sails. It was also common for them to be infested with rats, cockroaches and other vermin as they were ending their trading days with very few of them trading after the Second World War.
The book begins featuring schooners as those of small wooden type were the last type trading regularly in the Mersey. They were carrying survived long into the age of the steamship, carrying such as coal from the Lancashire mines for use in Liverpool or for export, salt from Cheshire, China clay from Cornwall to Runcorn for use in the Staffordshire potteries, iron ore and pig iron from the mines and blast furnaces of Furness and stone from the quarries of North Wales, Cheshire and beyond. And his superb photographs show schooners from all over the country doing these very things such as the impressive 'M A Jones' bound from Runcorn for Flushing, Cornwall, under the command of Captain Ellis. The schooner was subsequently requisitioned for barrage balloon duty, a role in which she suffered much damage and deterioration, ending her days as a hulk at Appledore.
Smith also featured ships in dock, such as the Canning Half-Tile and Albert Docks, and in such shots we see the shore buildings and locations, some of which are now part of the Merseyside Maritime Museum.
There are also shots of some Square Riggers, much larger than the schooners, that carried much larger cargoes on the longer ocean voyages. These ships needed more manpower to deal with the more complex sail and rigging involved and as a result the wage bill made it more difficult to show a healthy profit. One of this type of ship, the 'Kobenhawn', owned by the East Asiatic Company of Denmark, was the largest ship ever built in the British Isles regularly carried cargoes of timber, grain and cotton to Australia and the Far East and features in a number of photographs, one of which shows her, newly arrived, with a cargo of grain for Spillers of Birkenhead.
There is also a section devoted to the Schoonermen for whom the conditions were often far from ideal as poor food and living conditions prevailed. There were occasions when the ships were infested with vermin, house bugs swarmed in mattresses and hammocks and in the stuffing of lifebelts. And Smith tells of one occasion when shipwrights at Birkenhead refused to begin work until the ship in question had been fumigated!
Smith ends the book with a small section on Tall Ships, a race involving which was first organised in 1956 when 21 sailing ships from 12 countries contested the Tall Ships Race to mark the passing of the days of sail. It subsequently became a regular event with Smith visiting Falmouth to photograph the 1966 contestants at Falmouth and also managed to capture some of the ships that visited Liverpool during the Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race in 1984. These shots provide a fitting end to the days when sail ruled the waves!
David Smith had a childhood interest in photography that he carried through to his adult life and he spent many hours exploring the docks at Liverpool, Garston and Runcorn photographing ships, their crews and their cargoes. Not only did he take his photographs from the quayside but he also took advantage of the ferries, getting into a favourable position to photograph ships passing the Pier Head.
The result is some excellent photographs of ships that were part of the last generation of sailing ships that traded to and from the Mersey. They were in the business of ferrying everyday cargoes around the coast of Britain even though some of them would be in a poor state of repair, such as having leaking hulls and patched sails. It was also common for them to be infested with rats, cockroaches and other vermin as they were ending their trading days with very few of them trading after the Second World War.
The book begins featuring schooners as those of small wooden type were the last type trading regularly in the Mersey. They were carrying survived long into the age of the steamship, carrying such as coal from the Lancashire mines for use in Liverpool or for export, salt from Cheshire, China clay from Cornwall to Runcorn for use in the Staffordshire potteries, iron ore and pig iron from the mines and blast furnaces of Furness and stone from the quarries of North Wales, Cheshire and beyond. And his superb photographs show schooners from all over the country doing these very things such as the impressive 'M A Jones' bound from Runcorn for Flushing, Cornwall, under the command of Captain Ellis. The schooner was subsequently requisitioned for barrage balloon duty, a role in which she suffered much damage and deterioration, ending her days as a hulk at Appledore.
Smith also featured ships in dock, such as the Canning Half-Tile and Albert Docks, and in such shots we see the shore buildings and locations, some of which are now part of the Merseyside Maritime Museum.
There are also shots of some Square Riggers, much larger than the schooners, that carried much larger cargoes on the longer ocean voyages. These ships needed more manpower to deal with the more complex sail and rigging involved and as a result the wage bill made it more difficult to show a healthy profit. One of this type of ship, the 'Kobenhawn', owned by the East Asiatic Company of Denmark, was the largest ship ever built in the British Isles regularly carried cargoes of timber, grain and cotton to Australia and the Far East and features in a number of photographs, one of which shows her, newly arrived, with a cargo of grain for Spillers of Birkenhead.
There is also a section devoted to the Schoonermen for whom the conditions were often far from ideal as poor food and living conditions prevailed. There were occasions when the ships were infested with vermin, house bugs swarmed in mattresses and hammocks and in the stuffing of lifebelts. And Smith tells of one occasion when shipwrights at Birkenhead refused to begin work until the ship in question had been fumigated!
Smith ends the book with a small section on Tall Ships, a race involving which was first organised in 1956 when 21 sailing ships from 12 countries contested the Tall Ships Race to mark the passing of the days of sail. It subsequently became a regular event with Smith visiting Falmouth to photograph the 1966 contestants at Falmouth and also managed to capture some of the ships that visited Liverpool during the Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race in 1984. These shots provide a fitting end to the days when sail ruled the waves!
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