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.
Kelsick Wood, Georgian shipbuilder, artist, doodler…
I have been fascinated with the pocketbooks and story of Kelsick Wood for some time now. Kelsick was a Georgian shipbuilder in the West Cumberland town of Maryport, who carried a small leather-bound pocketbook with him during the 1820s and 1830s. He filled its pages with the business of his yard: contracts for ships, timber yard stock lists, details of his shipwrights, even a short-lived diary.
