William Russell’s Maryport childhood
I don't have photographs of many of the people who feature in The Vanishing Age of Sail, unsurprisingly for a book set largely in the 1830s. William Russell is the exception.
Jonathan Douglas, Maryport poet
The poems of Jonathan Douglas play a small but important role in The Vanishing Age of Sail.
Publication Day
My second book, The Vanishing Age of Sail: The Illustrated Journals of Kelsick Wood, Shipbuilder, is published today by Amberley. It tells the story of Georgian Britain, the Industrial Revolution and a Cumbrian shipbuilder’s fight for survival.
Cumberland and Cumbria
I have learned that no amount of proofreading will catch every mistake: there will always be something.
The Vanishing Age of Sail
I've been captivated by the wonderful journals of Kelsick Wood since I first saw them, and they are at the heart of my latest book, The Vanishing Age of Sail
Shipyard business
Some of Kelsick's pictures relate to shipyard business, including designs for figureheads and billetheads, and sketches of the yard’s ships at sea.
Away from the yard
Not all of Kelsick's pictures were obviously shipyard related. Some depict family members, animals, birds, even insects, objects on his desk and imaginary demons.
Family portraits
Very few of the portraits which Kelsick painted are named. A handful do have names next to them, though, often added not by Kelsick but by a later hand.
Reviews of Bonaparte & Brimstone
'In a masterful achievement of interpretation of old historic documentation and an extensive period of research, Simon Francis Brown has produced a wonderful book in which I have spent many hours totally immersed.'
EBTG. Banished to the Thames
One of my favourite Thames finds carries the promise of an interesting history. It is a small black pouch, with a rusty popper on the front. A heavy iron bolt has been carefully threaded through the back and tied down tightly. Tucked inside is a cassette tape, along with a rectangle of earthenware tile to act as further ballast. Whoever prepared this package wanted it to sink without trace.
The puzzle of the eight thousand map cards
I have an old, homemade chest of drawers in my study. It is barely a foot across, and the drawers need to be wiggled and wobbled to get them open. Filling its five drawers are thousands of small cards. Each has a map glued to it, showing an area of about ten square miles of the United Kingdom. I’ve wondered for years what they were for.
Private memories. A wartime photo
This little photograph was a chance find at the bottom of a rusty toolkit, left on the pavement for scrap or recycling. It is just three inches wide and shows a group of nameless men, sat, stood and reclining across the fuselage and wings of a fighter plane.
Bethiah Townsend, William Wood’s mother
Having located the artist William Wood's burial place in Bunhill Fields, this post explores the identity of his mother, Bethiah (1732-1805).
‘Adieu the spot where first my breath I drew’ (1775)
Mary Ryder was John Monk’s aunt, once-removed. She liked to write verse letters, poems and prayers for her friends and family. Among her most charming poems is a love letter to Neston, Parkgate, and childhood friends. It is full of the vigour of youth and melancholy of distance.
The headstone of artist William Wood (1769-1809)
I started to look into the life of artist William Wood when I realised how little recorded biography there seemed to be about him. At the time of writing, William Wood doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.
