FIGUREHEADS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 24, 27 July 1929, Page 29

FIGUREHEADS

OF FAMOUS VESSELS

ORNAMENTAL FINISH

TO BEAUTIFUL CLIPPERS

The art cif figurehead carving has almost completely disappeared because at the present date no figureheads are required. Moreover, there remain very few vessels possessing them. The figurehead was the ornamental finish to the beautiful clipper or overhanging bow of both sailing and steam ,vessels ■of the 'fifties. But to-day tho sailing vessel is almost a thing of the past, and the steamers have the vertical bow.. It; is a case of tho ornamental giving place to the utilitarian, writes "G.R.L." in the Melbourne "Age." In the British Museum there is a genuine ' figurehead of classic times, which was.dredged up in the outer harbour of Prevysa—ancient Actium. This belonged to one of tho old war triremes, and may even have adorned the vessel of the great Octavius himself. The Viking ships had the curved and ornamental bows ' similar to those of the Roman galleys, and as far back as we can go in history we find examples of figureheads or their equivalent. The Boman conquerors were accustomed to adorn the Rostrum in The Forum with the prows or beaks of the vessels taken in battle; and we have records of figureheads belonging to Eoman galleys. The nations of Southern Europe made use of the figures of their patron saints to adorn their vesesls, harbouring the religious feeling that these would brings thorn luck. Even to-day tho fruit and fish schooners of Spain and Italy are so adorned. BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES. The whalers from the New England coast,' U.S.A., had the opposite urge. They wer ( e the-descendants of the old Quakers, who crossed tho. Atlantic inthe Mayflower, and they considered that the placing of figureheads on their vessels was akin to a form of idolatry. The British Navy in olden days had many beautiful examples of figureheads, and the remnants of some havo been preserved in museums and dockyards in the naval ports of England. The figurehead of the first "Captain" built in IG7B is of the wildbeast typo, common in the reign of James 11. Another beautiful figurehead was that which; adorned La Gloire, taken from the French in 1747. It is tho full length human-figuro type, common to-the English and French Navies at that time. Nelson's Victory had four figuroheads,. each of. a different pattern. The first was knocked off at Ushant; tho second at St. Vincent, tho third at Trafalgar, and the old vessel still carries the fourth. Captain W. Wharton says: "Among other injuries tho Victory's figurehead, a coat of arms supported by a^sailor on one side and a marine on tho other was struck by a shot which carried away the legs of the soldier and the arms of the sailor. The figurehead is still the same, but the wounded supporters have boon replaced by two little boys, who, leaning affectionately on. the shield, seoni certainly more fitted for the peaceful life of Portsmouth Harbour than for tho hard times their more warlike predecessors lived in." Tho U.S.A. frigate Constitution also had several figureheads. When built she had Hercules; later on Neptune, and finally President Jackson. Tho story'goes'that tho President was decapitated by Captain Dewey, who rowed off quietly to the vessel ono night as she lay at anchor and after climbing up the bobstay he used a saw. The U.S.A. flagship Olympia, at Manila, carried at her bow a winged figure of. Victory supporting a golden eagle. . • v • THE CHAMPION OP THE SEAS. Australians,' however, aro more interested in the old clippers and vessels which visited Melbourne in the early days. Unfortunately very few records or photos remain of the iigureheadß, but the present writer has been able to compile a small record of some of the best known. The famous old vessel which began the series of record-breaking passages from England to Australia carried a full length figure of Marco Polo, the celebrated explorer, at her bow. The James Baines also was adorned with a striking likeness of her owner at the bow, and across her stern sh. had a curved medallion of the globe, supported by the arms of Great Britain and United States. Tho Donald M'Kay perpetuated the memory of that great ship builder of Boston, who to the order of the British films built the finest and fastest ships trading to Australia. The Champion of the Seas, a frequent visitor to Melbourne, had an outstanding piece of carved sculpture which showed a figure of 'a square'built sailor with dark curly hair and bronze clean-shaven face. A brass belt with massive brass buckles supported his white trousers, skin tight at the hips, and swelling out into bell-shaped bottoms, which almost hid hip shining pumps. He wore a loose-fitting blue and white check shirt with wide rolling collar, and black neck handkerchief of ample size, tied in the most rakish of square knots, with long flowing ends. But perhaps ;: the most impressive of this mariner's togs were his dark blue jacket and aon'-weaiei, which he waved aloft in the grip of his tattoed right hand. GRECIAN MODELS. The celebrated Lightning had always been' described as carrying the figure of the old Grecian hero Ajas, defying the lightning. But Clarke, speaking o£ her launching, says: "Her only ornament was a beautiful full-length figure of a young woman holding a golden thunderbolt in her outstretched hand; tho flowing white drapery of her graceful form, and her streaming hair completing the fair and noble outline of her bow." In a newspaper report of her burning 1 find it called X'iuto (the god of the lower world). It 78 possible she may havo lost her original figurehead, but her last one was on view for.many years at Geelong, where she was burnt. The world-famed Thermopylae had a figure of tho Spartan Leonidas, who with three hundred men held the pass of Thermopylae against Xerxes with a. million. The Cutty Sark, which vessel still survives, was adorned with a figure of the witch Nannio (Tarn o' Shanter) stretching out from her bow, while at her mast head she carried a gilded cutty sark (sho»* shirt). Tho original of this was loai VSsfe-n she was dismasted. The &ip Parsee, from which the writer's favim Captain Richard Leggett, landed in*lßs7, had a beautifully ornamented figure of an Indian prince iv all his robes. And I suppose that the Ethiopian, which broke several records to Australia, was adorned with the figure whose name she carried. The figurehead of the Blue Jacket, burnt in 1860, on her ■way to England, was picked up two years later at Fremantle. On each side of it was a scroll engraved with these words:— "Keep a sharp look-out." The American ships came into the Australian run when the gold rush was at its height, and some had beautiful figureheads. Clarke says:—"Probably the most beautiful figurehead ever carved was that on the Panama—a nude full-length figure of a beautiful woman with arms extended —pure white and of great artistic merit" The Witch of the Wave had the figure of a young woman partially clad in gosasmer drapery of white and gold, with one arm extended, and her dainty bare leet lightly stepping on the crest of a wave. The Northern Light carried an outstanding representation of an angelic creature in flowing white drapery bearing in her slender hand a flaming torch with a golden flame. Tho Nightingale earned Jenny Liml, and tho New York the Jersey Lily. Another interesting vessel to carry a striking figurehead, viz., a German princess, waa the Herzogin Ceeilie, which has just sailed in the wheat race from South Australia to Palmonth, Mi days, being seepad to Archibald Rus-

sell, with 94 dayi' voyage. The ship Gamecock, which eluded the privateer Shenandoah here in Australian waters, earned a fighting cock with neck outstretched.

Among local steamers we had the I steamer Rotoraahana, with tho clipper bow supporting the figure of a woman, and the well-known Edina, still going strong, though her figurehead, the maiden Edina, is no more as the result of a collision.

Queen Victoria was portrayed on many vessels, the last one recalls being on the Muscoota, a big sailing vessel which came into collision with the steamer Yarra off Wilson's Promontory in 1923, with the result that the figure was shorn off and fell on the deck of the Yarra.