The travels of merchant seamen

[Merry]

Just thought I'd post this as passing interest for those who (like me) don't know much about the life of merchant seamen!

Researching OH's mysterious grandfather, David Hutton, has led me to study the movements of the man who was married to DH's mother - David Hutton senr - merchant seaman.

Though we have a lot of merchant navy men on our joint tree we have never had the opportunity to follow any of their travels until now. It was quite an eye opener for me, as though I realised places like Australia were many weeks away from Britain, I suppose I'd never really thought about how long a person might be gone (how on earth did they manage to have a family with their wives! lol), imagining ships would go to place X and then come back home, then off somewhere else, but of course reality turns out to be nothing like that!

David Hutton's was First mate on the sailing ship Glenclova which was launched in Sept 1893 at Glasgow. Here's an abbreviated list of it's movements:

Sailed from Glasgow Sept 1893
Arrived New York Oct 1893
Sailed for Yokohama Japan Nov 1893
Arrived Yokohama May 1894*
Sailed for Takoma Washington DC July 1894**
Sailed from Tacoma for Hull Oct 1894
Arrived Hull March 1895
Arrived Newport (Monm) April 1895
Sailed for Rio de Janeiro May 1895
Arrived Rio June 1895
Sailed for Tacoma Sept 1895
Arrived Tacoma Jan 1896
Sailed for Sydney Mar 1896
Arrived Sydney May 1896
Sailed for Tacoma Aug 1896
Arrived Tacoma Oct 1896
Sailed for Cardiff Nov 1896
Arrived Cardiff Mar 1897
Sailed for Cape Town May 1897
Arrived Cape Town July 1897
Sailed for Tacoma Sept 1897
Arrived Tacoma in 81 days - a record - Dec 1897
Sailed for Queenstown Cork Jan 1898
Sailed from Queenstown for Le Havre June 1898

The ship then went on to South Africa and Australia but arrivals didn't show in the paper and then I reached the end of the database!

* From where DH instigated divorce proceedings

** Conception of DH jr happened at this point so DH senr definitely can't be his father!

So, if you were part of the crew of this ship and from Dundee as DH senr was, then unless you made a quick trip back home from Hull or from Cardiff then you could very well spend a really massive time away from home (goodness knows if this ship ever returned to Scotland!!)!!

I was also quite surprised at how long the ship was in port abroad - commonly two or three months.

The ship's captain retired in March 1897 after 30 years with the company and it was noted he had spent "his whole life" at sea - I can well believe it!