Photographer Alan Villiers chronicles the last days of merchant sailing

The Australian sailor, author and photographer Alan Villiers chronicled the last days of merchant sailing in a series of voyages at the beginning of the 20th century. Take a look at some of his most evocative work
  
  


Alan Villiers: Alan Villiers
Alan Villiers, pictured, was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1903, the second son of Australian poet and trade union leader Leon Joseph Villiers. Growing up close to the docks, watching merchant sailing vessels, he developed a lifelong love of the ocean, first going to sea aged 15 as an apprentice on a barque in the Tasman Sea Photograph: Alan Villiers /National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: The crew of the Herzogin Cecilie 1927 Alan Villiers
Villiers worked his way up to able-seaman, but after suffering a temporary injury he decided to become a journalist, working in Tasmania on the Hobart Mercury newspaper. He took six months' leave from his job in 1927 and secured passage to Falmouth, England on the Herzogin Cecilie, the crew of which are pictured here. The ship was challenged to a race by the Swedish barque Beatrice, and won in a 96-day passage during which a female stowaway was discovered. Villiers wrote a book, Falmouth for Orders, during the voyage Photograph: Alan Villiers /National Maritime Museum
villiers: The Grace Harwar sailing in a storm
Villiers returned to Tasmania after a few months in Europe, and decided to make a documentary with his friend and fellow journalist Ronald Walker recording the last of the great sailing ships. The pair signed on with the Grace Harwar, the last full-rigger in the Australian trade, pictured here during a storm, and set sail for England. But the voyage was a harrowing one: Walker was killed in an accident, the second mate had a breakdown, the ship was under-provisioned and the crew developed scurvy. Villiers filmed the whole experience, and also wrote about it in a later book, By Way of Cape Horn, in which he called the Grace Harwar 'a dog with a bad name' Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: Looking down from the afterside of the foreroyal on the Parma by Villiers
In 1931, Villiers became part owner, with the de Cloux family - he sailed on the Herzogin Cecilie under Ruben de Cloux - of the four-masted barque Parma. The view here is from the afterside of the fore royal sail on the Parma Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: Rounding Cape Horn on the Parma by Alan Villiers
Rounding Cape Horn, one of the most treacherous sailing routes in the world, on the Parma between 1932 and 1933. The Cape is renowned for its huge waves and gale-force storms Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: A sailor and his accordion onboard the Parma by Alan Villiers
A sailor and his accordion on board the Parma. The ship was a 3091-tonne steel four-masted barque built at Port Glasgow in 1902 Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: Sailors working onboard the Parma by Alan Villiers
Sailors working on board the Parma in 1932 or 1933. Villiers wrote Voyage of the Parma in 1933, detailing the ship's voyage from Australia to Falmouth by way of Cape Horn. It was the third book in a trilogy by the author which he wrote to complete 'the picture which I set out to give of the graceful wind ships before the last of them departed' Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: The Parma on the high seas 1932 by Alan Villiers
The cutwater, the nautical term for the forward part of a ship's prow, cleaving its way beneath the bowsprit of the Parma in around 1933 Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: Voyage of the Parma 1932 by Alan Villiers
The second sailmaker at work on the deck of the Parma in around 1933. After two years of profitable running of the barque, Villiers sold his shares back to the de Cloux family and bought the Danish ship, Georg Stage, in 1934 Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: The figurehead of the Joseph Conrad by Alan Villiers
He renamed the Georg Stage the Joseph Conrad, and she became his training ship, setting sail with a crew of international apprentices around the world. The figurehead of the ship, which he sold in 1936 to a passing millionaire in New York harbour, is pictured here. The Joseph Conrad now resides in the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
Alan Villiers: Man up aloft on the Sheikh Mansur 1938 by Alan Villiers
After he sold the Joseph Conrad, Villiers began a study of sailing culture in the far east, sailing to Zanzibar and back on an Arab dhow and recording his experiences in Sons of Sinbad. Pictured here is a man up aloft on the Sheikh Mansur in 1938. During the war, Villiers was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his command of landing ships. He continued to write about ships and the sea until his death in 1982 Photograph: Alan Villiers/National Maritime Museum
 

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