The Coolie Ships and Oil Sailers
Glasgow: Brown, Son & Ferguson, Ltd., Nautical Publishers, 1955. Hardcover with Dust Jacket.
WHEN SAIL STILL CARRIED PEOPLE AND OIL ACROSS THE WORLD.
THE LAST WORKING YEARS OF SAIL
Basil Lubbock records two specialized chapters from the final era of commercial sail: ships carrying indentured labor from India and China, and the great sailing vessels employed in the international petroleum trade.
The first section follows the so-called coolie ships and their role in colonial migration; the second turns to the Anglo-American Oil Company's four-masted sailing ships carrying American oil to the Antipodes, India, and the Far East. Drawing on ship histories, firsthand recollections, and an extensive photographic record, Lubbock preserves two distinctive trades as steam displaced deep-water sail.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: SAILING SHIPS IN PHOTOGRAPHS
Bound in bright blue cloth with gilt titles to the front board and spine. Original photographic dust jacket featuring the full-rigged Daylight. 9.5 inches; x, 180 pages, with appendix and index, printed on substantial stock, [37] pages of plates, with illustrations and portraits. Reprint of the 1935 edition.— 1955.
Frontispiece of the Avon at Calcutta. Illustrations throughout reproduce photographs and images of individual sailing ships, crews, and maritime subjects, including Mofussilite, John Allan, and Avoca, with a photograph of the lascar crew of the Avoca.
CONDITION: Near Fine Hardcover in a Very Good Dust Jacket. The bindings are tight and square. Text is clean with light, even age-toning. Minimal shelf handling wear. Blue cloth remains bright with gilt titles well preserved. Dust jacket shows light handling and edge wear with minor soiling and toning. The photographic front panel remains well preserved. Jacket protected in a clear removable cover.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: DOCUMENTING THE HUMAN SIDE OF SAIL.
Lubbock's subject reaches beyond ship design and maritime technology. The first half documents the transportation of Indian and Chinese indentured labor within nineteenth-century colonial systems, while the second preserves the history of specialized sailing ships employed in the international petroleum trade as steam power was overtaking commercial sail.
Lubbock's strength was his access to surviving mariners and maritime records from the age of sail. The book retains research interest beyond traditional maritime collecting. Modern scholarship concerning indentured migration and conditions aboard migrant vessels continues to cite Lubbock's work among historical sources for the nineteenth-century movement of Indian and Chinese laborers.
SUBJECTS: Sailing Ships, Coolie Ships, Indentured Labor, Oil Sailers, Clipper Ships, Maritime Trade, Indian Migration, Chinese Migration, Petroleum Transportation, British Empire, Merchant Marine, Basil Lubbock, Maritime History.
Item #22457
Price: $45.00
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