johnsmachines

GLASGOW MUSEUMS THE SHIP MODELS

A HISTORY AND COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE

Emily Malcolm and Michael R Harrison

Large format, hardcover.  £35 RRP

Doesn’t sound particularly interesting?  That was my thought when I read that this book is a catalogue.  After all, who reads a catalogue?

However, the artwork on the covers is attractive and interesting, and I do have an interest in ships, models, modelling and history, so I opened a few pages at random.   And was transfixed!  This book is glorious!   Back to page one, read a few pages, then worked through every one of the 373 pages.

The photographs of the models are beautiful and expert.  Most are laterals, but some are of smaller details.  There are many historical photographs, pictures of modelers in action, previous exhibitions.  To describe the pictures as “lavish” would be an understatement.

Glasgow and the River Clyde was (and is?) famous for ship building.  Most of the 676 models in the Glasgow Museum’s collection are of ships built or owned in this region, over the past 150 years.  So this book includes models from the age of clippers and steam dredges, through the age of steam and dreadnoughts, to Queens Mary and Elizabeth, and later.  A wonderful historical tour.

Chapter 1.  Models in Shipbuilding (the whys and wherefores of making model ships)

Chapter 2. Professional Model Making (there were companies which made models for ship builders and owners for industrial and marketing reasons)

Chapter 3.  Amateur Models.  (including models made by French prisoners of the Napoleonic wars)

Chapter 4.  Ship Models and Exhibitions

Chapter 5. Building the Collection

The Catalogue  (220 pages)

Glasgow is now on my bucket list.

A few random pages to tempt you.

Yes, I do find dredgers interesting.  Note who bought this one.