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. The first photograph of a person was taken in Paris in 1838 by Louis Daguerre, and cartes de visite only became popular from the late 1850s.
William Russell is the exception. He was born in 1827 and was a young boy in Maryport when Kelsick was building his brigs. Kelsick’s life maps closely onto the Regency period, whereas William was a Victorian.
Much later in life, in 1896, William stood before an audience at Maryport’s old court house. He described the town of his childhood, six decades earlier, and spoke of it with immense affection and pride.
William’s notes for his speech are now in the Carlisle Archive and run to about thirty pages. They were invaluable as I built a picture of Maryport at the time.
Alongside poet Jonathan Douglas and Kelsick himself, William is the third of the book’s principal contributors. Together, their words and pictures help to transform the past into the present.
The three men carry much of the weight between them, but they are supported by several visitors to the town, such as Richard Ayton and John Spear, who each recorded their often unflattering impressions as they passed through. Elsewhere, unnamed reporters of the Cumberland Pacquet watched with interest as this muddy stretch of river bank continued its transformation into thriving harbour.
William made his living as a rope maker and his father Joseph was master of a brig built by the Wood family yard around the time of Kelsick’s arrival. The Russells were another Maryport family that knew the dangers of the sea, as shown by events four years before William’s birth.
In July 1823, William Russell’s grandfather was returning to Maryport from Dublin aboard his 80-tonne schooner, the Bee, with one of his sons as the only crew. The sea was rough, and the son, also a William, was knocked overboard by the boom. His father first threw a rope, which William managed to grab, and then a ladder secured to another rope. William tried to haul himself to safety but drowned among the tangled ropes. His father was left to sail the remaining fifty miles to Maryport alone, with his son’s body dragging in the wake. Four years later, Joseph Russell gave his next-born son the name of his late brother, William Russell.
Notes:
- The photograph of William Russell is reproduced from J.D. Wells’ book “Maryport. The Passing Years”.
- Notes from William Russell’s 1896 speech are at the Carlisle Archive (DCR 1).
