FIGUREHEADS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20786, 3 August 1929, Page 21

FIGUREHEADS.

OF FAMOUS VESSELS. ORNAMENTAL FINISH. TO BEAUTIFUL CLIPPERS. The art of figurehead, carving his almost 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 fish schooners of Sapin and Italy are so ’fifties. But to-day the sailing vessel is Almost a thing of the past, and the steamers have the vertical bow. It is a case of the ornamental giving place to the utilitarian (writes “G. R, L.,” in the Melbourne Age). In the British Museuni 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 the old war triremes, and may even have adorned the vessel of the great Octavius himself. ■ .

The Viking‘ships bad 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 Roman conquerors were .accustomed to adorn the Rostrum in The Forum with the prows or beaksiof-the vessels taken in battle; and we have records of figureheads belonging to Roman galleys. The nations ,of Southern Europe made use of the figures .for their patron saints to adorn their vessels, harbouring religious feeling that these would bring them: luck. Even to-day the fruit and fish .schooners of Spain and Italy are so adorned. BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES. The whalers from the New England coast, United States, had the opposite urge. They were " the descendants of the old Quakers, who crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower, and they considered that the placing of- -figureheads on their vessels was akin to a form of idolatory. The British navj? in olden days had many beautiful examples of figureheads, and the remnants of some have been preserved in museums and dockyards in the naval ports of England,

The > figure head of the first Captain, built in 1678, is of the wild' beast type, common in the reign of James 11. Another beautiful figurehead was that which adorned La Gloirc, taken from the French in \ 1747. It is the full length human-figure type, common to the English and French navies at that time.

Nelson’s Victory had four figureheads, each of a different pattern. The first was: knocked off at Ushant; the, • second at !st. Vincent, the third at Trafalgar, and the old vessel still carries the fourth.' Captain W.. Wharton says: “ Among other injuries’ the Victory's figurehead, a coat of arms supported by a sailor on one side and a marine on the other was struck bv a shot which carried away the legs of r the soldier and the arms of the sailor. The figurehead is still the same; but the wounded supporters have been replaced by two little boys, who,' leaning affectionately on the shield, ■ seem certainly more fitted for the peaceful life o'f Portsmouth Harbour than for. the hard times - their more warlike predecessors lived in.” The United States frigate Constitution also - had several figureheads. When built she had ; Hercules; later on Neptune, and finally President Jackson. The story goes that the President. was decapitated by Captain Dewey, who rowed off quietly to the vessel.one night as she lay an anchor and after climbing up | the bobstay he used a saw. The United States flagship Olympia, at Alaniia, carried at her bow' a winged figure of .Victory supporting a golden eagle. . THE CHAAIPION OF THE SEAS. Australians, however,.are more interested in the old clippers and vessels which visited Melbourne -in the earlv days. Unfortunately, very few-records or photos remain of the figureheads, 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 scries of record-breaking passages from England to Australia carried a' fuiMength figure ,of Alarco '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 stem she had a curved medallion of the globe, supported by the arms of Great Britain and the United States.- The Donald M‘Kay perpetuated the memory df that great shipbuilder of Boston, who to the. order of the British films built the finest' and fastest ship's trading to - Australia, The Champion of the Seas, a frequent visitor to Alelbourne, had ; 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 his 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 hia dark blue jacket and sou-wester, which he waved aloft in the grip of hia tattooed right hand. GRECIAN AIODELS. The celebrated Lightning had always been described as carrying the figure nt the old Grecian hero Ajax, defying the lightning. But Clarke, speaking oi her launching, says: “Her only ornament, was.a beautiful full-length' figure of a young woman holding a golden thunderbolt in her outstretched hand; the 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 I find it called Pluto (the god of the lower world). It is possible she may have lost her original figurehead, but her last one was on view for many years at Geelong, where she was burnt. 'The world-famed Thermopyls had a figure of the Spartan Leonidas, who with 300 men held the pass of ThernSepylae against Xerxes with 1,000,000. The Cutty Sark, which vessel still survives, was adorned with a figure of the witch Nannie (Tam o’ Shanter) stretching out from her bow. while at her mast head she carried a gilded cutty sark (short shirt). The original of this was lost when she was dismasted. The ship Parsce. from which the writer’s father, Captain Richard Leggett. landed iu 18.17, had a heauumiiy ornamented figure of an Indian prince in all liis robes. Ami 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 1800, 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 lookout.” 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 of 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 gossamer drapery of white and gold, with one arm extended, and her dainty bare feet lightlv stepping on the .crest of a wave. The'Northern Light carried an outstanding representation of an angelic creature in flowing white drapery bearing l in her slender

hand a flaming torch with a golden flame. The Nightingale carried Jenny Lind.-and the New York the Jersey Lily. Another interesting vessel to carry 'a striking figurehead, viz„ a Gorman princess, was the Herzogin Cccilie, .which has just sailed in the wheat race from South Australia to Falmouth, 104 days; being second to Archibald Russell, with 94 days’ voyage. The ship Gamecock, which eluded the privateer Shenandoah here in Australian waters, , carried a fighting cock with neck outstretched. Among . local steamers we had- the steamer Rotomahana, \with the 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.