Classic Ships – A Maritime Legacy Explored: From Ocean Liners to Tugboats (Nicholas Faith, 1995)

Front Cover, Class Ships - Romance and Reality by Nicholas Faith, 1995. Jacket designed by Robert Updegraff. GGA Image ID # 202075de18

On the Front Cover

In 1967, the RMS Queen Mary made her last Atlantic crossing, from Southampton to New York, before sailing to Long Beach, California, where she is now a floating museum (Popperfoto).

🌍 Introduction: A Wide-Lens View on Maritime Legacy

Nicholas Faith’s Classic Ships – Romance and Reality stands out as a comprehensive exploration of maritime history—blending technical detail, social commentary, and visual narrative into a compelling chronicle of seafaring vessels from the last 150 years. For teachers, students, genealogists, and historians, this title is not just about ships—it’s about how ships have shaped the world through commerce, war, recreation, and identity.

This page from the GG Archives provides a visual and bibliographic snapshot of the volume, which accompanied a six-part Channel Four documentary series. While the site does not provide full-text access due to copyright restrictions, it preserves the archival record and visual cues necessary for identifying the book as a research-worthy resource.

Explore Nicholas Faith’s Classic Ships (1995), a richly illustrated social and maritime history covering warships, liners, fishing boats, and yachts. Discover its relevance for teachers, students, genealogists, and maritime history researchers.

From the Inside Flap

In the first full exploration of the subject, Classic Ships surveys the important industrial, military, commercial, and leisure ships of the last one hundred and fifty years.

The range is vast, from warships to sailing dinghies, oil tankers, and Thames barges. While covering all aspects of maritime history and architecture, Classic Ships is also a social history of one of the greatest shipping nations in the world. Ships, boats, and yachts touch every strata of the community.

They describe Britain's social and industrial heritage as tools, workhouses, and objects of pleasure.

In this remarkable account of ships and the people working on them, Nicholas Faith details the developments that have taken place in the history of shipping, once one of Britain's proudest industries.

Classic Ships accompanies the six-part series produced by Uden Associates for Channel Four Television.

Back Cover, Class Ships - Romance and Reality by Nicholas Faith, 1995. GGA Image ID # 202099977a

On the Back Cover

(Top left) Astra, racing in the classic yacht regatta, Nioulargue, at St Tropez in 1994 (Kos/Kos Picture Source). (Top right) Crowds gathered for the Cambridge boat races in June 1892 (Popperfoto). (Bottom left) The last moments of the Prince of Wales were sunk by the Japanese in Malaya in 1943. (Associated Press/Topham). (Bottom right) Tug boats at Sunderland-on-the-Wear (Topham).

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Men o' War The Expendables

2. The Great Liners - And Some Lesser Ones As Well Star of the South

3. A Life on the Ocean Wave

4. Boats at Work The Norfolk Wherry: Work Before Pleasure From Baldie to Zulu

5. The Fishermen of England - And Scotland

6. Messing About in Boats A Floating Morris Minor Uffa and the Duke

7. Sail, Sea, Snobbery - And True Grit

Sources

Index

✨ Content Highlights and Educational Relevance

🧭 1. A Global and Historical Maritime Framework

Faith’s coverage spans everything from battleships and ocean liners to sailing dinghies, Norfolk wherries, and yachts. This diversity makes the book highly relevant for:

• History Teachers and Students studying industrial and social revolutions
• Genealogists tracing seafaring ancestors through commercial or naval roles
• Maritime Historians interested in technological evolution and naval architecture

🌊 2. Chapter 2 – "The Great Liners":

This chapter is especially useful for those studying ocean travel in the golden age of steamships, with contextual focus on ships like the RMS Queen Mary, RMS Titanic, and their “lesser” counterparts. Students writing essays on transatlantic travel, migration history, or shipboard life can find valuable secondary-source grounding here.

🎣 3. Fishermen, Workboats, and Social History (Chapters 4–5):

Faith brings in the labor history of maritime Britain, covering fishing culture and working-class seafarers. These chapters offer grounding for research into class systems, regional maritime traditions, and the human cost of ocean-based economies.

⛵ 4. Sailing and Leisure:

In exploring the intersection of snobbery and sport—from yacht clubs to amateur boating—Faith documents how class dynamics played out on the water, revealing insights into elite vs. working-class maritime culture.

About the Author

Nicholas Faith is a well-known author and journalist. As a business writer, he has been variously Assistant Editor of The Economist, Industrial Editor of The Sunday Times, and Contributing Editor of The Independent on Sunday. Nicholas Faith has written over a dozen books on subjects as wide-ranging as Swiss Banks, Bordeaux, and Cognac and two books on railways, one of which was filmed as the BBC TV series 'Locomotion.' Nicholas Faith is also the author of Classic Trucks: Power on the Move.

🖼️ Noteworthy Images in the Archive

📸 Front Cover:

RMS Queen Mary making her final crossing in 1967 before retirement to Long Beach, California.

→ Ideal for students comparing active duty vs. preservation of classic ships.

📸 Back Cover Montage:

• The Prince of Wales sinking in 1943
• Cambridge boat races (1892)
• Classic yacht racing at St. Tropez
• Tugboats at Sunderland

These visuals underscore the breadth of the book’s appeal—from military conflict to social recreation—making it useful for essays on British maritime identity, wartime naval losses, or leisure and class in boating.

📣 Encouragement for Students & Researchers

✍️ Students: Use Classic Ships as a secondary source for essays on migration, maritime innovation, or social structures aboard ships.

🧑‍🏫 Educators: This title supports cross-curricular teaching in history, technology, geography, and economics.

📜 Genealogists: The book contextualizes ancestors' lives who worked aboard ships, from naval crewmen to merchant sailors.

🛳️ Historians: Faith’s narrative intersects industry, war, and leisure—providing valuable perspective for any study of 20th-century Britain and the sea.