Welsh Journals

SHIPPING AT CARDIFF: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE HANSEN COLLECTION, 1920-1975, By David Jenkins. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1993. Pp. xx, 98. £ 13.95. When Lars Peter Hansen settled in Cardiff in 1891 to establish his photographic business, about 7,000,000 tons of coal were being exported from the four docks of the port of Cardiff (West Bute, East Bute, Roath Basin and Roath). In 1913 (by which year a fifth dock, Queen Alexandra, had been built) Cardiff exported 10,500,000 tons of coal, and it had become the foremost coal-exporting centre of the world-a position it enjoyed until about 1920. Unfortunately, no negatives of photographs of Cardiff shipping taken by the Hansens during that exciting period of its history seem to have survived. Therefore, the period covered by the present collection of photographs witnesses the gradual decline, and eventually the virtual demise, of Cardiff as a coal- exporting centre. The reasons for that decline are, perhaps, epitomized in the photograph (no. 119, p. 88) of the American (12,705 gross ton) bulk carrier Robert L. D. arriving in Cardiff in 1972 'with a cargo of American coal later to be blended with South Wales steam coal for Central Electricity Generating Board'. Dr. David Jenkins, who compiled this attractive 'photographic album', has selected 128 photographs from the 4,565 extant negatives which comprise the Hansen Collection housed in the photographic archive of the Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum. The photographs of ships selected fall into seven categories Cardiff's Own"; 'Coasters and Colliers'; 'Tramps, Tankers and Liners'; 'Tugs, Trawlers and Dredgers'; 'Under Sail'; 'Navies of the World'. The description and provenance of each individual ship have been thoroughly researched, and add immensely to the historical value of this volume. As might be expected, many of the ships had local associations. We are reminded, for example, that the steamer Coryton (no. 3, p. 2) was owned by the family of the shipping magnate and philanthropist John Cory, and was named after the family home 'Coryton', which today is perpetuated in the name of a suburb in north Cardiff. Again, the liberty ship Day beam (no. 26, p. 18) had a blue funnel with two yellow bands which 'reflected the two colours of the Glamorganshire Cricket Club': but this was no accident for the owners of the vessel were the Claymore Shipping Co. Ltd., established by Charles Leigh Clay, father of the Glamorgan off-spin bowler of pre-Second-World- War fame. Of wider historical significance was the ship Peterston (no. 5, p. 5) owned by the company Evan Thomas and Ratcliffe, which was founded in 1881 when Captain Evan Thomas of Aber-porth, Ceredigion, went into partnership with Henry Ratcliffe-a partnership which represents the involvement of other merchant-mariners from Ceredigion in Cardiff's maritime past. The significance of the names of many ships is often puzzling, but some light is focused on this topic when, for example, we find that Coombe and Sons of Llanelli named their ships after Welsh rivers such as Afon Morlais (no. 39, p. 29). Others carried Welsh place-names with the prefix Llan- such as the Llandaff(no. 7, p. 5) whose first master was another Aber-porth man and the Llanberis (no. 6, p. 5). Similarly the Constants (South Wales) Ltd. named most of their vessels after 'rural villages' in Kent, such as the Ottinge (no. 29, p. 21).