Sepia Saturday 274: A Grand Tour of Europe, 1904

A year ago in Vacation Days are Kodak Days I featured a few images from a collection shared with me by Bill Nelson, scanned from a series of nitrocellulose negatives taken by an as yet unidentified amateur photographer on a European tour in 1904, probably using a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak camera. Most of these high quality shots were taken in locations that were, even in 1904, relatively well known tourist destinations, but with an eye for composition and a technique that betrays not inconsiderable experience.

Today, given this week's Sepia Saturday image prompt of a poster of a coal cart drawn by two horses, I'd like to show you a few more of these images. I was initially struck by how many scenes included carts, carriages, wagons and other vehicles drawn by animals, wondering whether the photographer had intentionally focused on them, but in those pre-motor days, such methods of conveyance were a normal facet of everyday life in Europe, and our photographer would have used at least some of these during his journey.


Horse-drawn omnibuses, London, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The journey appears to have started in bustling London, where the wide and still unpaved streets were full of pedestrians dodging a variety of horse-drawn hansom cabs, carriages and omnibuses, overshadowed by the tall buildings of the city. A deluge of advertisements flood the viewer with admonishments to buy Horlick's Malted or Nestle's Milk and Fry's Cocoa, or to watch the latest show at the Adelphi or Wyndham's theatre.


Organ grinder tableau, possibly in London, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
In a quieter suburban street, with a background of sash windows drawn up to let in the languid afternoon air, he captured this engaging image of an organ grinder busy shutting up shop at the end of a day's performances. His hat is perched jauntily on the back of his tousled head, a monkey balances on the organ and his daughter poses between the shafts of the hand cart, totally absorbed by the photographer setting up his apparatus on a tripod. Almost as an afterthought, a pedestrian in a straw boater walking along the pavement, perhaps on her way home from shopping, is momentarily distracted by the tableau.


Suburban scene, possibly in London, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
A less well framed, and yet just as charming, scene captured in a slightly upmarket residential area appears to record a visit to a private house. The upstairs windows are neatly framed by chintz curtains and underscored with an ornate wrought iron balcony. A hansom cab waits at the kerb, a horse impatiently champing at the bit and stretching its neck against the pull of the reins, while a group of young boys loitering on the pavement ham it up for the camera.

A woman wearing an enormous pancake hat, so characteristic of the mid-1900s, pauses on the threshold, in front of the already open doorway, while the somewhat disembodied lady of the house and a uniformed house maid peer as if taken unawares over decorated flower boxes through an open window. A scullery maid, caught as if by accident while having an rare break from her daily drudgery, leans wearily against the railings on the steps leading down to the servants' quarters in the basement.


Outside the Blue Ball Inn, Countisbury, Lynmouth, Devon, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
In Somerset the photographer visited several locations popularised by Romantic poets, such as in R.D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone (published in 1869), including Lynmouth, Countisbury and Porlock. Here a coach drawn by six horses prepares for departure from the Blue Ball Inn, which still operates to this day as a bed and breakfast.


Donkeys outside the New Inn, Clovelly, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The tiny but picturesque fishing village of Clovelly in North Devon, brought to public attention by Charles Kingsley's 1855 novel Westward Ho! was another destination visited. Its steep cobbled streets, wattle-and-daub cottages, donkeys with pannier baskets and crusty old characters provided fertile ground for photographic procrastinations.


Dog cart in the Netherlands, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
A journey on one of the many ferries crossing the Channel took our photographer to Normandy, where the lives of peasants and fishermen on the pebbly beaches around Étretat caught his attention for a while, and then to the Netherlands, where he photographed this young man selling wares from a small dog cart parked in a leafy avenue.


Smock mill Sanssouci Park, Potsdam, Germany, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The ubiquitous Dutch windmills and canals were photographed too, but it was this huge smock mill in Sanssouci Park, Potsdam (just west of Berlin, Germany) that caught my eye, particularly because of the marked contrast presented by the bizarrely shaped horse-drawn van. Unfortunately I can't quite make out the name of the business painted on its side, and the banner-shaped sign on top is facing the wrong direction, but I wouldn't mind buying a frankfurter or an ice cream from him, should either of those be on offer (perhaps not a frankfurter in Berlin).


Oxen and wagon, Austria, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
In Austria a group is just visible taking refreshments in the cool shade of a leafy arbour in the village square, although the camera catches a woman washing laundry in the cherub-adorned fountain, while two oxen harnessed to a four-wheeled cart wait patiently nearby.


Possible itinerary for Grand European Tour, 1904
A possible itinerary drawn up for the unknown photographer's 1904 Grand Tour through Europe is somewhat fanciful, given that we don't have a clear picture of the order in which the photos were taken, but it does give an impression of the large amount of ground covered. One of the most intriguing aspects to this story is that a contact print of one of the negatives has been discovered in an archive in Bayreuth, Germany, suggesting that the films were being developed and printed along the way. How would this have been feasible for an amateur in 1904? For an answer to that we must start by looking at the camera which produced these fine photographs.


No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DeLuxe Camera, modified Model AB, c.1902
Image © and courtesy of David Purcell
118-format roll film, with individual frames measuring 3¼" x 4¼" was introduced by Eastman Kodak specifically for the No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak camera first offered for sale in April 1900. By 1904 this camera was available in its fifth version, the Model C-2, with an array of shutter and lens options. Given the high quality of the images, it seems likely that our photographer was using a recent version with high quality lens and shutter, perhaps similar to the modified AB Deluxe model with Persian morocco leather case, brown silk-covered bellows and an engraved silver nameplate, advertised in the 1903 Kodak catalogue for a pricey $75 (compared with $17.50 for a standard model).


Negative album and index card for 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format rollfilm
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The negatives in this collection, some with slightly uneven edges suggesting they were cut using a pair of scissors, are housed in a negative album containing 100 thick paper pockets in a thick green cloth-covered card folder, advertised in Kodak's 1903 catalogue for $1.00 (below).


Eastman's Negative Film Albums, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
Each 118-format transparent film cartridge with 12 exposures cost 70 cents, and supplies were available from Kodak outlets in, amongst several other cities, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Vienna. Several dozen rolls must have been used during the trip, since there are multiple negatives in each sleeve.


Kodak 118-format roll film
Image © and courtesy of Geoff Harrisson
The opening pages of Kodak's 1902 catalogue focused on their daylight-loading film cartridge, which utilised a strip of black paper along the back of the film strip to exclude light, making "pocket photography practical and ... it possible to do away with the dark room in loading and unloading the camera." This technology was already a decade old, invented by S.N. Turner of the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company for his Bull's Eye camera, then licensed and later purchased by George Eastman for the Pocket Kodak range.


Eastman's Kodak Developing Machine, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
By the time their 1903 catalog was released, however, the emphasis had taken a leap forward as Kodak announced, "The Dark Room is abolished" with the introduction in August 1902 of the Kodak Developing Machine, an idea brought to Eastman a few months earlier by its inventor A.W. McCurdy. The Kodak slogan had made a radical change, from "You press the button, we do the rest" to "You press the button, then do the rest."


Eastman's Kodak Developing Machine, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
With this tank (the Style E sold for $7.50, which included a wooden carrying case with leather handle) and a Kodak Developing Outfit (containing chemical powders and various other equipment needed, for another $1.60) our photographer would have been set for his expedition. According to The Kodak Story, a press photographer took one of these portable developing tanks with him to the front of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and was able to send developed negatives back to Collier's magazine for quick printing and publication.


Cover of 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
Even with some presumed failures, our photographer must have been extremely competent, and I think we must examine the motives for this tour. Was he or she merely recording the adventure for posterity, as some snapshots of people in gardens and on board ship attest to, or were some of the photographs intended for some other purpose? Eastman Kodak Ltd sponsored a huge international contest open to amateur photographers, and many of the winners were featured in The Grand Kodak Exhibition, a spectacular travelling photographic show which toured Britain in 1904 and America in 1905.


Men and Girl on the Docks, Marken, Netherlands, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
It is possible that our photographer was inspired by seeing this exhibition in England. Compare the images taken in Marken and Volendam in the Netherlands with those graphics used to illustrate Kodak marketing material and it's hard to deny their similarity. With such a serious commitment to photography, some considerable previous experience and, in the light of both contest and exhibition, was our photographer hoping to enter his own photographs in a subsequent competition? Or perhaps there was a hope of selling scenes to a postcard publisher?


The Streets of Volendam, Netherlands, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Marken, Volendam and Alkmaar have long been tourist destinations, just as they were when I visited my Dutch grandparents in Holland in my youth, and likewise other European destinations like Oxford, coastal Devon, Bayreuth, Potsdam, Prague and Vienna. The itinerary was one already well worn by generations of travellers as attested to by any number of Baedeker guides from that era. A new century in which transatlantic travel was much easier and quicker presented huge marketing opportunities for the firm of Eastman Kodak, and they had already made it clear they welcomed contributions from skilled amateurs.

Acknowlegements

Many thanks to Bill Nelson for the opportunity to study his collection of nitrocellulose negatives and reproduce scans of them, and for an ongoing conversation from which much more may eventually emerge.

I'm indebted to Rob Niederman and Milan Zahorcak for their extremely useful Digitized Kodak Catalog Project, which has cast such light on the background to Bill's collection, not to mention Rob's kind responses to my questions and sharing of his extensive knowledge of the history of old cameras.

Thank you also to David Purcell and Geoff Harrisson for permission to use the photographs of items in their private collections, which help to round out the photohistorical story.

References

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers, 240p.

Coe, Brian (1988) Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.

Collins, Douglas (1990) The Story of Kodak, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 392p.

Hannavy, John (Ed.) (2013) Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, Routledge.

Niederman, Rob & Zahorcak, Milan (nd )Digitized Kodak Catalog Project

Sepia Saturday 219: Vacation Days are Kodak Days

Almost five years ago Bill Nelson shared several images with me from a large, fascinating set of nitrocellulose negatives taken during a grand tour of Europe during the summer of 1904, and very kindly offered me the use of them for future Photo-Sleuth blog posts. It's taken me a while, and I'll admit they did slip off the radar a little in the mean time, but at last I've found an opportunity to use a few of them. Hopefully I'll be able to share more of them in the next few months.

I first obtained them as a packet of nitrocellulose negatives in glassine sleeves, approximately 12 cm x 9.25 cm. Through a little sleuthing of my own, I was able to establish that they were taken beginning in May, 1904 and throughout the summer in England, France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and, in one instance, Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine the identity of the photographer. I'm working on it.

One thing about these images I find remarkable is that the quality is quite high - I've cleaned them up in some cases, but the images are sharp enough to enlarge to 40 cm x 50 cm. Another is that the images themselves are not typical tourist photos but rather more documentary in character.

Stephansdom from the Graben, Wien, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
None of the views were annotated, but this one was immediately recognisable to me as the Stephansdom (St Stephen's Cathedral) in Wien (Vienna) with its characteristically patterned roof tiles. Further investigation via Google Earth indicates that, in spite the photographer presumably being an amateur - judging by the content, rather than quality, of the remaining images in the collection - he has taken the trouble to find a suitable viewpoint above street level, in fact on the first floor of a building in the Graben.

The usual horse-drawn traffic which still plies the area around the cathedral today - albeit carrying tourists rather than trade goods - is evident and the streets are mercifully free from thronging hordes. Conveniently overlooking the square in front of the cathedral are the offices of Thomas Cook & Son, and I am very sad to report that the Riedl Hotel Royal is now occupied by none other than ... you guessed it, MacDonalds.


Stephansdom, Wien, October 1989
Kodachrome colour positive film, 35mm
Image © 1988 Brett Payne
Having visited Vienna in October 1989 and again in June 1993, I was very much taken with the striking mosaic of roof tiles. Although the impressive interior of the domed roof of the Library of Congress Reading Room depicted in this week's Sepia Saturday Photochrom image is quite different architecturally, it too has a pattern to it that both pleases the eye and emphasizes its slope and expanse.


Stephansdom, Wien, October 1988
Kodachrome colour positive film, 35mm
Image © 1988 Brett Payne

Stephansdom, Wien, c. 1901
Photochrom image by Detroit Photographic Co.
Indeed, the Detroit Photographic Co. had published their own colourised photographic view of Stephansdom a few years earlier using the Photochrom process under license.


The Asparagus Seller
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
This wonderful photograph is also from Bill's series of negatives, showing two women selling asparagus and what are probably roast chestnuts wrapped in chestnut leaves from the street in front of a large building. Although it too has no title, I feel there is a distinct possibility that it may have been taken in front of Vienna's famous cathedral.


Stephansdom, Wien, c. 1905
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Another photograph of Stephansdom taken around the same time shows figures in front of the cathedral who may similarly be touting their wares to tourists and other passersby.


Two Gentlemen in London, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
As usual when I am looking at early amateur photographs, my mind turned to the camera which might have been used to produce such high quality images. Bill was thinking along similar lines when he emailed me this convivial snapshot from the same series:

I can't believe this never occurred to me in all the years I've been looking at these photos. Look at the "Two Gentlemen" photo [taken in London]. The guy in the straw boater. Do you think that might be a camera case he has slung over his shoulder? The camera was obviously on a tripod for this photo- the shutter speed was too slow for a hand-held shot. I wonder if the photographer himself stepped in front of the camera and had a companion trip the shutter?

The shape of the case looks to me more like one for binoculars than a camera, but to provide a more definitive answer I looked at the size of the negatives. Bill told me that they vary in size to a certain extent, but are generally "approximately 3.6 in. x 4.75 in. or about 92.5 x 120 mm." I presume that these are the maximum dimensions of the cut negatives, which could be expected to vary somewhat, depending on how they were cut. If so, then the actual photographic image dimensions would be a little less, and should be more regular, being defined by the size of the camera body.

Comparing this to the range of roll film available at that time (i.e. 1904ish), I think it most likely that it equates to a size of 3½" x 4¼" (89 x 108). There were several film sizes produced with these dimensions, but the two most likely candidates are the 118 and 119 formats, first manufactured by Kodak in 1900.


No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak Model C3
Several cameras used this film, and the most commonly available ones at the time those photographs were taken were:
118 format: No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Models A to C-3 (1900-1907) & Deluxe (1901-1903), No 4 Folding Pocket Ansco
119 format: No 3 Cartridge Kodak (1900-1907)


No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak with leather case
The No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak was produced in huge numbers (over 288,000 between 1900 and 1915, when it was replaced with the No 3 Autographic Kodak), and I think is most likely what was used for the duration of the unidentified photographer's "grand tour." The images above show the camera opened up as well as folded and with its typical leather case. The shape is quite different from that carried by the man in the London street photograph. I am aware, however, that there were other roll film cameras around, as well as more sophisticated plate cameras which had been adapted with roll film backs.


The Pringle sisters in the garden, Ontario, Canada, c.1909-1912
Toned silver gelatin print, mounted on album page, 5½" x 3¼"
Image © and courtesy of Gail Perlee
Coincidentally, fellow Sepian Gail Perlee posted a family photograph on her blog Songs of a Nightingale last week of a group of young women posing in a garden. One of these women carries a leather case on a strap around her shoulders which I tentatively identified - because of its size - as being for a No 3A Autographic Kodak Special, slightly larger than the No 3. Gail confirmed the dimensions of the print:

I have the orig. prints. First 2 pix are 3 1/4 x 5 1/2. Shows how astute I am! I thought she was carrying a purse. A 2nd look, of course, shows a camera case!

The 5½" x 3¼" size equates to the 122-format film used by the No 3A.


No 3A Autographic Kodak Special, Model B, 1916-1919
Image © 2014 Brett Payne
The No 3A Autographic Kodak Special above, still in excellent condition although sadly without a case, is from my own collection. It is probably very similar to the camera used to take the group portrait in the garden, although manufactured just a few years later. Unfortunately this size film is no longer available, or I would have very much liked to try it out myself.


The Folding Pocket Kodaks, Advertisement, 1901
Courtesy of Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection Item K0014
Actually, it wasn't a lack of astuteness which led Gail to think she was carrying a purse. As Nancy Martha West discusses in her book, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia, the Kodak pocket folding cameras of the 1890s and early 1900s were specifically marketed towards women, and designed to look as much like a purse or pocketbook as possible.


There's more to the Vacation when you Kodak, Advertisement, 1908
Courtesy of Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection Item K0074
In a series of advertisements appearing widely in newspapers, magazines and even in literature published by the Eastman Kodak Company, the image of the Kodak Girl became synonymous with the amateur photographer.


Bring your Vacation Home in a Kodak, Advertisement, 1905
Courtesy of Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection Item K0521
Likewise, images of leisure activity in the country, on the beach, at fairs and travelling on holiday overseas pervaded Kodak advertising. I am struck by the similarities in content between several of the images in Bill's 1904 album and the themes commonly portrayed in the Kodak advertising of the time. Compare, for example, this 1905 advertisement of two Kodak girls on a dockside in the Netherlands, one using a Folding Pocket Kodak, the other a Box Brownie, with the photograph taken of two men and a girl wearing clogs in Marken by our anonymous visitor in 1904, reproduced below. All that's missing in the latter is a windmill. There were several similar scenes taken at Marken and Volendam, at least one including a windmill.


Men and Girl on the Docks, Marken, Netherlands, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Since this brings us back to the 1904 album, albeit by a somewhat circuitous route, I'll leave it there for now. I'm very grateful to Bill and Gail for permission to use the images from their respective collections. The rest of the negatives from the Grand Tour set can be seen on his FlickrStream here. Once you've seen those, head over to Sepia Saturday to check out the remainder of this week's contributions.

Sepia Saturday 180: A Life on the Ocean Wave

The Sepia Saturday image prompt this week reminded me of maritime uniforms, even though it was taken in quite a different setting, and I'll take the opportunity to use some images relating to this theme from my own family collection. You're welcome to start the music below to get you in the mood with an appropriate soundtrack, and then read on.




Willem Hendrik Schipper (1882-1932)
Photo button (12.4mm diameter) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
We all have those relatives who appear in family albums, but about whom we know very little, and my great-uncle Willem Hendrik Schipper is one of those. Surviving genealogical records are mainly centred around an individual's birth, marriage and death. Census enumerations, which add to the basics in generating a basic framework of family history research in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, have not been kept in the the Netherlands. As a result, all I have to anchor the dates of a biographical history for Willem, since never married or had any children, are his birth in 1882 at The Hague and his death at sea in 1932, somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam.


There are a few documents and items of ephemera which fill in some of the gaps, such as a "Testimonial of Attendance" for Willem at the Ambachtschoool te 's-Gravenhage, dated 1 July 1899, and a funeral notice in the form of a newspaper clipping. However, what we do have are plenty of photographs, both loose and in a loose-leaved album compiled by his younger sister (my great-aunt Gien) in the 1920s and 1930s. Using these, I have been able to piece together more of a story.


Hendrik (Harry) Jan & Willem Hendrik Schipper, c.1901-1905
Cabinet card by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
My grandmother and her three older siblings grew up in The Hague, where their father Jan Schipper (1857-1921) worked as secretary to the Director of Queen Wilhelmina's Cabinet at The Binnenhof. According to my mother (who presumably learned it from her mother, since Willem died when she was only eighteen months old), Jan Schipper became very embittered after a disagreement with his new boss, perhaps also from being passed over for promotion, which reflected on his behaviour at home and made life very unpleasant for his wife and children. Willem and his younger brother Harry both 'escaped' from this odious atmosphere by joining the merchant navy at a fairly young age.


Willem Schipper, c.1909-1912
Silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne

Willem Schipper joined Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd as an engineer in 1909, where his "zeal and devotion to duty earned him quick promotion." He appears to have spent most of his early service in the Dutch East Indies at a time when the Empire was reaching its maximum extent. The photograph above shows him in front of a lifeboat on an unknown ship, with what I believe is the rank of 2nd Engineer.

Willem Schipper (at right) and friends, Weltevreden, Batavia, c.1910-1915
Studio portrait, silver gelatin print (96 x 61mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Life in the tropics was not all work and no play, as is amply demonstrated by this studio portrait of Willem relaxing with two friends or colleagues in Weltevreden, the suburb of Batavia (then capital of the Dutch East Indies, now Jakarta) which housed the Dutch administrative headquarters. The cigarette in his right hand is indicative of what would becopme a life-long habit - rarely does Willem appear in photographs without a cigarette or pipe.


Batavia, 1910-1915, courtesy of YouTube
This series of silent film clips which I found on YouTube were probably taken from a moving motor vehicle, which must have been one of the few in Batavia at that time. It gives a very good feel fpor the ambience of the colonial suburbs and busy merchant quarters, complete with wagons, carriages, rickshaws and trams. Another YouTube film of 1920s life in Java includes a clip showing the arrival of a ship at the wharf, together with crowds of colonial men in their whites and solar topees.


Suikerfabriek (Sugar factory), Soemberhardjo, Java, c.1912-1915
Silver gelatin print mosaic (161 x 98mm) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Willem must also have found time for some leisure travel, as demonstrated by this mosaic of a sugar factory at Soemberhardjo in central Java pasted into his sister's album. The factory was built in 1912, thus providing an earliest date for the photograph, and is apparently still operating, complete with geriatric steam locomotives used for hauling the sugar cane.


2nd Engr. Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
There are several photographs in the album taken on board the SS Gelria, a passenger steamer in service with KHL from May 1913 to March 1916 and again from 1919 to 1931, and it seems likely that Willem served on this ship during the earlier period. The Netherlands retained neutrality during the Great War and their ships continued to operate. The image above shows Willem (seated at left) apparently being congratulated on his promotion to Senior 2nd Engineer by Kapitein Brunt, Junior 2nd Engineer Visser and 1st Marconist (wireless operator) Vuyck.


Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Another group portrait on the Gelria shows him with junior officers, each with only one stripe on their epaulettes, seated on and standing around cane and wicker furniture in a more formal arrangement.


Willem Schipper and friends, off Calabar, West Africa, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (71 x 102mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
En route from Amsterdam to the East Indies the ships often paused off the coast of West Africa. Willem and his colleagues took advantage of the opportunity to barter for curios with the locals who paddled out to the ship at anchor in the port of Calabar in Nigeria.


Willem Schipper and friends, SS Prins der Nederlanden, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (85 x 111mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The steamship Prins der Nederlanden was a passenger ship of the SMN line (Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland/Netherlands Steamship Co.) which operated between 1914 and 1935, so I must presume that Willem was a guest on board when this group photo was taken.


Willem Schipper on board the S.S. Zeelandia, c.1915-1920
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
After some years in the East Indies, illness forced a return to the Netherlands, but he was quickly offered a position on the Royal Dutch Lloyd ship SS Gaasterland. On this and other ships, perhaps including the SS Zeelandia (above), he spent at least a decade plying the trade routes of the North and South Atlantic, calling in at ports on the coasts of several continents.


Unidentified ship, possibly at a South American port, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 58mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
I found several crew lists from the SS Gaasterland arriving in New York in 1920 and 1921 but, juding from number of photographs from South America in the album, supplemented by a postcard sent to his recently widowed mother from Buenos Aires in July 1921, most of his trips headed further south. The print above shows timber and other goods being loaded from a wharf onto a cargo ship (or possibly unloaded) which unfortunately has part of its name clipped, leaving only "...LAND ...ERDAM" visible at the stern.


Unidentified ship, Patagonische Kanalen (Patagonian Channels), c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 116mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Some of his journeys ventured a little further afield almost into the Pacific, visiting the western coast of Chile via the Patagonian Channels. This ship also appears to be carrying a cargo of timber on the deck.


Willem Schipper (at right) and colleagues at work, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (78 x 91mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In a rare shot, Willem appears in his working clothes with two colleagues, apparently engaged in some real work (or at least supervising it), the now ever present pipe clasped firmly in his right hand. Another shows a group of people repairing a winch aboard the SS Rijnland.


Willem Schipper and friend, Funchal, Madeira, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (67 x 109mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne

Criss-crossing the Atlantic regularly allowed them to stop off periodically in Funchal, the capital town of the Portuguese island of Madeira, where they stayed at the Grand Hotel Belmonte, strolled through the municipal gardens, wandered the narrow cobbled alleys, and caught a ride from Monte down the steep streets on mountain basket sledges, which still catch the unwary tourist today.

Chief Engineer Willem Schipper and colleagues, c.1930
Silver gelatin print (64 x 98mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In late 1931, while on a voyage of the coast of West Africa, Willem became very ill and he wrote to his sister and brother-in-law just before Christmas that he had seen doctors in Grand Bassam (Cote D'Ivoire) and Freetown (Sierra Leone), who diagnosed heart problems. He rested for a short while at the Grand Hotel in Freetown, but died on board ship somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam on 12 February 1932. A letter to his mother from an Evangelical Lutheran Missionary who travelled with him off the West African coast makes it clear that he "felt that he would not live long."


Silver ashtray, possibly from East Indies
Collection of Brett Payne
I inherited this rather battered and well used silver ashtray from my Dutch grandparents some years ago, and even used it for a while until I gave up smoking. I always thought that the engraving had a somewhat oriental look to it, but it wasn't until recently, when I started examining the photographs in Aunt Gien's album in greater detail, that I realised that it may well have been picked up by Willem in Dutch colonial Batavia. The maker's marks on the base don't mean much to me, but perhaps a knowledgeable reader will recognise them and enlighten me. I'm not sure that I feel quite the same way about it, now that I know it may have been so closely associated with Willem's heart disease, and therefore his death.