Vanishing Age of Sail

Kelsick Wood was a nineteenth-century Georgian shipbuilder in Maryport, Cumberland, with a private passion for painting. He combined his two loves in his journals, where shipyard contracts and inventories share their pages with beautiful and curious watercolour pictures. The Vanishing Age of Sail revels in the rich, textured story behind these little books. It shows how each small shipyard on Britain’s coast played its part in Britain’s economic expansion in the nineteenth century. It is also a personal tale, and the faces which look out from Kelsick’s journals remind us that these wooden ships and brigs carried the dreams and livelihoods of all those who owned, commanded and crewed them.Simon Francis Brown’s highly visual title speaks immediately to lovers of maritime history, illustration and the Georgian era, drawing in daydreamers and doodlers alike.

Simon Francis Brown is an English Literature graduate from Oxford, with a passion for maritime history and illustrated manuscripts. He began his career in academic publishing and has worked for many years in management and communications. He lives in South London, and is a keen mudlark, hunting for history on the banks of the Thames.