The Vanished Art of the Ship Carver

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 928, 22 March 1930, Page 17

The Vanished Art of the Ship Carver

'•Jp- HE Field oE Memj ories-a “cenotaph” j — ~— feature of the New | BBfiSSIH 1 Base, at the CalliI mi ... ope Dockyard, Devonport. This Field, destined to rank with the most historic in. the Dominion, fronts the seaward edge of the dockyard reserve; a triangle of green, velvety grass with a centre piece formed of a flower bright rockery. Around the sides of the triangle stands six figureheads of ships that have sailed into the Past. Six striking memorials of craft which roamed the sea-lanes of the Seven Seas; warships, trading vessels, missionary sotiety boats all of which have played their part in planting a new race in these ancient lands of the Pacific, and whose bones are scattered in forgotten places around our rockguarded country, or rest in foreign parts. These figureheads tasted the salt spume from oceans that heat on the Horn and roll around the Cape of Good Hope; they laughed at the waves as their ships ran down the roaring ■ forties.” or languished by painted isles in trop egions. They stand proudly no the glory of new dressing.

The idea of a memorial to the ships that once sailed fearlessly out on the heaving bosom of Hine-moana, the Sea Goddess, as the Polynesian personified the ocean, came from kind-hearted naval men who regard ships as sensitive creations; dumb things of wood and metal but possessed of temperaments—coquettish, tantalising, contrary, "cranky” or steady, sluggish or sprightly, but things to be handled tenderly and taken care of in the certain knowledge that, if treated properly, they will not fail in the hour of danger. The passing of a ship is a Thing to be mourned: her name and deeds things to be treasured and handed on. The actual impulse to set up the Field of Memories came from the necessity of removing an ancient piece of marine pageantry; a ships figurehead that had stood for thirty six years under the shadow of the flagstaff of the Admiralty cottage at The dock entrance. In the task of cleaning and reconditioning this fragment of ship’s furniture, and tracing its history, other figureheads were dis-

covered. It was then resolved to collect, at one point, as many as possible of the examples of the ship-carver’s art. No doubt, as the years mount up, other ship-memorials will be found worthy of being added to the present historic assembly, for the art of the ship-carver has all but vanishea and j the collection will he a mute and vigorous testimony to the craft of un-

known carvers. The expensive figureheads that were such a feature of the last days of sail were a survival of the days when European and African peoples decorated and carved their ships just as we found the Maoris doing. At various periods the craze for rich ornamentation of boats reached a pinnacle of prodigal extravagance. Caligula’s galleys, which the Italian Government is now recovering from the bottom of a lake, had decks of porphyry and tinted marbles. Mosaic patterns embellished both the decks and the floors of the cabins. Bathrooms in Roman magnificence and hothouses crammed with the rarest flowers were but some of the refinements of these floating palaces, the bulwarks of which were of east bronze instead of finished wood while the stately bow and stern pieces were an Emperor’s pride, sculptured by the world’s greatest artists.

Long before Caligula the navigators of the craft sailing the Nile, had fashioned their water-borne homes in the likeness of swans or other aquatic birds, the graceful neck designs being copied in the bow piece. In the case of royal owned boats these aids to shapeliness in ships were gold-plated, and the steering oars were carved as were masts and yards. In later European times dragons’ and boars heads were common for ships figureheads, vieing with modellings of gods and birds. When William the Norman came to England many of his boats had boars’ heads ornaments. At times the search for the bizarre, led to plac-

were easy, there was a tendency to i spend money on elaborate figureheads, and stern ornament..tion for ships. Some of the early steamers, that carried sail as well, retained the figurehead, but the last flurry of a dying art j was maintained by the warships; in the building of which extraordinary care was taken in the production of the figurehead which generally typi- ! tied the name of the ship. The fanci- | ful finishing of ships was introduced • into England about the time of the re- | turn of Richard the First from his j visits to Levant. | The era of the figurehead, the last ! phase of the dying art of ship decorajtion, lasted into our own times —the “Down Easters,” the “Limejuicers,” the “Tea Clippers” and the sailing vessels in which arrived the fathers

Ing the sculptured head of an animal j on the bow; the animal’s tail being] featured at the stern. In the middle ages there was almost universal competition in turning out gorgeously decorated ships. Men who owned boats spared no expense in securing the most splendid display. Ship’s stems and sterns were carved elaborately, somerimes by the most highly-paid men the world had to offer; hulls were carved, and painted in all the tints of the rainbow; the women took keen interest in the competition and embroidered sails and banners. Velvet sails, resplendent in gold and crimson, -were used as show sails in port while flags in every conceivable combination of colours and designs floated from all parts of the ships. It was the hey-day of the ship decorator and carver. Even the most humble vessel had its carved tiller and bow post. Timid “merchant venturers’’ placed I figures of gods and saints at the bows of their boats to placate deities and ensure prosperity. More affluent merchants, with more trust in big money bags, boldly “reproduced’’ their ancestors, or the founders of their fortunes, in painted and graven wood and placed them proudly at the vantage points at the prows of the argosies, so that it might seem that the spirit of the family still guided and watched over the progress of family ships. Warships of all the nations were adorned with images of national heroes to excite a spirit of imitation in the crews and to instil a “fear psychology” in the minds of the enemy, or to stress the inferiority complex in a beaten opponent. Probably professors of economics, in different lands, railed about national j

(Written for THE SUN by

and mothers of the race of New Zealanders, all carried figureheads, in some cases the carving being a personification of the ship’s name and at times splendidly executed. The pride of shipowners led them to j ask for artistic figureheads and ship ! builders were ready to meet the demaud. It was the custom to carve these ornaments for ships’ prows from a solid log of teak, specially brought from India, or, in the case of American ships, from specified timbers, for the American clipper builders at one time headed the world in beauty of design and speed of the craft coming from their yards. The interpretation of the ship’s name into a wooden image was often cleverly conceived. Thus, the famous tea clipper Thermoyplae was fitted with a figurehead of the fearless Leonidas. The Red Jacket, well known in Australian

and individual extravagance and foretold ruin to the nations that wasted their substance in gorgeously decorating ships, but just as the much-married Solomon had to admit that he could not tell anything about the way of a ship in the sea, so no person could foretell the future of marine transit. The age of* ship pageantry passed almost in a breath with the dawning of the present commercial era, and competition for profits, allied with the discovery of the possibility of building iron ships. i The ship carver found his calling .listed with the diminishing and dying i trades. For a time in the middle of i the 19th century when the clipper 'ships had brought sail-driven transit i to its highest efficiency, and profits

waters, carried a proud figure of the Indian chief after which she was named. The Witch of the Wave had her beauty of line set off by a representation of a young woman, partially clad in gossamer drapery, with one shapely arm extended above her head and her small feet lightly stepping on the crest of a wave. The Lightning

|Field of Memories at Calliope Dock

T. WALSH.)

i carried a full-length figure of a young woman holding a golden thunderbolt jin her hand. The Romance of the ; Seas was known by her figurehead of ian ancient mariner with his right hand shading his eyes as he gazed on unknown lands and seas. The Sea ; Serpent carried a long slender serpent picked out in green and gold. The j Nightingale was proud of her figure- ; head of Jenny Lind, the Swedish | singer. Seamen used to consider that the most beautiful figurehead was that of the Panama—a full-length, nude figure of a surpassingly pretty woman, with arms extended, painted in glistening white. A figurehead, cast in bronze, was fitted to the ship Captain Cook built at Mort’s Dock, Sydney; the model was made under the supervision of a member of the Sydney University

staff to be sure of historical accuracy. The bronze casting was effected in the dock works and was much admired. Possibly it was the only one in bronze ever made. Inevitably the first big | ship to be constructed in Auckland, the Moa brig, had to conform to mariitime convention and have a suitable [figurehead. The Moa was laid down

in 1844, hardly three years after the founding of the city, at the yards of Messrs. Niccol and Sharp in Mechanics’ Bay, and was launched in 1849. The ship-carver, who was assigned the task -of modelling the Moa figurehead, had an almost impossible task. The Maoris had legends of the moa of a gigantic bird, but no living Maori liad

i seen a moa or could describe one. We j have a much better knowledge now ot 1 the moa than the Maoris did when the | Europeans arrived, from the fact that j scientists have been able to rebuild ; the bird from fragments found here | and there. Who was the artist for the Moa cannot be stated now (maybe he was one of the principals, though Mr. Sharp was tragically killed when the stem was being placed in position

i owing to the heavy piece falling and crushing him) but whoever he was !he did his best to build a huge bird, i though he rather leaned to the idea , that a moa was an “outsize” in seabirds. The old carving has borne a charmed life. For fifteen years it defied the waves as the Moa parted the ocean ways. Then came the Waikato War and the Moa, brig, was commandeered for a store ship at Onehunga. Her surplus gear, including the moa figurehead, was dumped jat the old naval base in what is now Windsor Reserve, at Devonport. Some i wayward naval man erected the figure!head at the seaward end of the big j store-shed in the reserve, and there for :30 years the old bird surveyed the progress of the Waitemata and watched the “smoke-boxes” oust the white wings, while a city sprung up jwhere a few "huts had stood among tea tree in 1544. In 1593, some years ; after the new dock had been built, the big old store, near the wharf was given to an amateur sports club. Before it actually took possession fire destroj'ed the building, but the old figurehead of the Moa, on the seaward end of the roof ridge, escaped lightly. Afterward it was taken along to the dock and erected at the foot of the flagstaff by the Admiralty cottage; where it- stood for another thirty-six

Guarding the Dead

On the Enderby Island, in the Auckland Group, the headpiece of the ship Berry Castle was used to mark the graves of seventeen people who met their doom when the ship crashed on a rocky island in that chilly region. It was a fitting memorial, but a sea roamer, passing recently, was unable to see it and surmised that time and storms had taken their toll of the timber-made memorial. Scattered about the Dominion are a number of well-known ships’ figureheads. That of the Northumberland is at Akitio. The Hyderabad’s at Foxton, has been promised for the Field of Memories. Three more have been preserved in North Auckland (one of which has been donated to the Calliope Field). Another reposes in the garden of a well-known Auckland citizen and in all probability will be handed over to swell the gathering at Devonport. The Rewa, slipping into decay on the Waitimata and one of the last of the big sailing boats has a figurehead. Some figureheads of ships are In the Auckland War Memorial Museum;

years until rescued from destruction. Now, at the age of 81 years, it stands hale and strong; a tribute to tlie kauri that forms its body, watching the men-of-war at play; and the Waitemata glisten with white wings on regatta days. The old Moa went as a coal store ship to Port Chalmers, after being re-rigged and sailing the Tasman. There, tied to a wharf, she rotted out her days. The relic of the Ocean Ranger smiling at the sailors as they pass to and fro oil their duties, is familiarly known to them as “Old Harry.” He belongs to a family of figureheads popularised by the designer of the headpiece of the Champion of the Seas —an image of a square-built seafarer with dark curly hair, only partly hidden by the smart “boater,” a neat black beard, and with bell-bottom trousers held up'by a broad belt. The shirt is of blue and white stripes with a wide collar and the black kerchief is tied! with a rakish knot.

Then there is St. Barnabas deposited by the Bishop of Melanesia. It was made for the Southern Cross the sixth vessel of her name to carry missionary influence in the Pacific. St. Barnabas in his dark robe, rude cross in his right hand and a scroll in his left hand, symbolises the first missionary, whom legend names St. Barnabas. This piece of ship’s decoration was damaged during the visit of the ship to Norfolk Island and was thought to be beyond repair but skilful hands on H.M.S. Philomel made good the damage. Storms often wrenched off the fittings on the bows of the ships, particularly when after the lapse of years, fastenings became rusted and fragile. In this wise the Hinemoa lost the bold stem head with which she had been sent from the yards. Auckland Museum also possesses a head, torn off at the neck, of a helmeted man. It was found on a west coast beach but nothing could ever be found to identify it. A small schooner of 41 tons, the E. U. Cameron went ashore near the lightship at Bluff in May, 1889, when bound in ballast from Lyttelton. The vessel soon broke up and the headpiece of a girl was salvaged by a member of the Harbour Board staff. He passed it on to the collection at the Calliope Dock, after keeping it for 40 years. Mystery clings to the neatly executed figurehead, of a woman clasping a fan, that was found on the West Coast, near the Waikato Heads, about 50 years ago, and which has been handed to the collection by Mr. A. M. Barribal, of W’aiuku, whose family had ■ cared for it during the intervening [years supposing it to belong to the

I wrecked Orpheus. This warship sank on the Manukau bar in 1864, but it is almost certain that Her Majesty’s shipyards would have been careful to i have the figurehead of that ship representing Orpheus of Greek story—the musical prodigy whom Pindai; called the “Father of Song,” but who lis better known from the claim that ! mail and beasts, trees and rocks were moved from their places to follow his j golden harp.

those of the warships Virago, Wolverine and Orpheus and that of the Wellington, a steamer-yacht that was for many years in the costal trade from Auckland. There is another, also, from an unknown ship, which was found many years ago on the West Coast, north of the Manukau, and con-

sists of a head wrenched off at the neck. Possibly the Museum Council, some day, may see fit to deposit these heads in the Field of Memories (under proper conditions ensuring their care and protection) and thereby assist in the building up of what undoubtedly will be one of the most historic New Zealand collections dealing with the sea.