The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Sailing home
As a new exhibition of model ships opens in the McManus Galleries Caroline Lindsay explores Dundee’s seafaring history and its place in the wider world
A new exhibition of model ships sheds fresh light on Dundee’s seafaring history and its place in the world.
January 22 1875. In the dead of night, thick fog envelopes the southern Indian Ocean. With a sickening thud, the Strathmore – built in Dundee and on her maiden voyage – runs aground on rocks upon the notorious Crozet Islands. Of the 99 passengers and crew, 44 drown while the remainder make it to land. Here they survive on albatross mixed with moss and flavoured with gun powder, until they’re picked up by a passing ship.
The fate of the survivors is just one of the poignant and remarkable stories brought to life in a new display opening today at the McManus Galleries in Dundee.
The Maritime Quarter will be a permanent exhibition within the museum’s Dundee and the World gallery, exploring the city’s rich shipbuilding and maritime heritage.
It sits alongside displays based on three of Dundee’s other important historical “Ms” – Missionary, Merchant and Military.
Forming a key part of the McManus’s 150th birthday celebrations, the exhibition’s centre piece showcases 32 of the best ship models from the museum’s collection.
From the earliest of times, Dundee’s harbour has been of huge importance to the city and its prosperity and from at least the 16th Century, Dundee had its own Maritime Quarter. Situated between the Nethergate and Seagate, it was home to shipmasters as well as different trades that provided for the ships.
The exhibition was inspired by the recent purchase of eight Dundee Perth and London (DP&L) Shipping Company models. DP&L was founded in 1798 and the models – scale replicas of actual vessels made by a mix of ship builders and amateurs – represent Dundee and her place within the wider world.
Builders’ models were built by the shipyards before or just after the full size ships and are remarkable feats of craftsmanship in their own right.
“Models were displayed in the builder’s yard offices to demonstrate their skill at the yard and as a record of the ships built,” explains the McManus’ social history curator Julie McCombie.
“They were made in-house by skilled craftsmen but sadly little is known about them.”
The shipshape collection includes models from Dundee’s most famous yards including Alexander Stephen, Gourlay Brothers and Caledon.
Others were made by keen local amateur model makers and the collection represents various types of vessels, including sailing ships, clippers, whalers, pleasure boats and war ships.
As a result they are made from a
Models were made in-house by skilled crafstmen but sadly little is known about these men
variety of materials, including alabaster and bone, and vary massively in size.
The smallest, the Verona, stands less than 10in tall and just over 1ft long while the biggest, the SS Perseverance, comes in at more than 3ft high and nearly 7ft long.
An iron-hulled, four-masted sailing ship built in 1889 by the Dundee
shipbuilder, WB Thomson’s Clyde yard, (later known as Caledon), the Perseverance only lasted five years before she went missing off Cape Horn in the winter of 1891.
The exhibition is a powerful reminder that Dundee wasn’t just renowned for jute, jam and journalism – the city’s shipbuilding industry was also a force to be reckoned with.
And as the 21st Century renovation of the waterfront gathers pace, it is timely to remember that the city’s economic development owes much to Dundee’s 19th Century shoreline.
“Throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries Dundee shipyards were known for their world-class skills, competing against those on the west coast of Scotland for major contracts,” says Julie.
“The exhibition will tell this story through some of Dundee’s most famous shipbuilders, including Caledon and Gourlay Brothers.”
Alongside the ship models, which date from early 19th Century to post-Second World War, displays will include a case of navigational instruments including an octant, a sextant and a chronometer, and a rare designer’s drawing of part of the SS Dundee’s (VII) interior.
The building skills inherent in some of the models and ships have been recognised with medals, which are also on show.
“The SS Perseverance won a bronze medal at the 1889 International Exhibition in Paris so we are delighted to have that out on display,” adds Julie.
The Terra Nova, one of the collection’s finest amateur models, made by Dundee artist Charles GL Phillips, has a particularly colourful and poignant history.
Built by Alexander Stephen and Sons originally as a whaler, the vessel learning skills that would have taken them in to adulthood,” she reflects.
Since the models were bought from DP&L in 2015 they have been kept in store, in a humidity and temperaturecontrolled environment. Due to their size and to avoid damage to the fragile rigging, they have been on open display, either in their original cases or unwrapped on shelves.
Each one has been assessed and treated by the museum’s conservator Rebecca Jackson-Hunt who found working on such a small scale a tricky . “Ships with lots of rigging can be particularly taxing as it makes getting in and out of the deck areas very difficult,” she says.
Perseverance is one of her favourites because all of its flags are intact.
“It’s rare that the flags on models survive,” she says. “They are generally made of silk and can deteriorate quite quickly, so the fact that ‘Percy’ has all her flags is fantastic.”
It was all hands on deck last week when the models were moved to the McManus in a meticulously planned two-day operation.
Museum staff worked with Bishop’s Move Edinburgh on the painstaking process.
Mission accomplished, the permanent exhibition ensures the ships will remain in Dundee, bringing the city’s maritime past alive for future generations.
And as surely as the tides turn, the hope is that this unique display will prompt a torrent of memories: of time working in the yards, trips to the seaside on the ferries and that instinctive call of the sea.
“Many families in Dundee past and present were connected in some way to the shipyards,” says Julie.
“The collection belongs to the city and the people of Dundee.”
www.mcmanus.co.uk