Book Reviews
On the following pages you will find all my current book reviews along with full details of how and where you can obtain your own copy.
I am very happy to review any English Language book that covers any maritime subject. To have your book reviewed please send (signed copies if possible) to the address on the contacts page.
Please remember to included details of how and where the book can be obtained and your own contact details.
Figureheads of the Royal Navy By David Pulvertaft
A review by Richard Hunter Figurehead Historian
Not all that long ago looking for a book on the subject of Ships Figureheads was very much limited to a few “General” works on the subject, exploring as they did the tradition on both Merchant and Naval vessels, offering the reader a narrow insight into both subjects, for anyone interested in primarily Naval Figureheads “Old Ship Figureheads and Sterns” by L G Carr Laughton published in 1925 has been the principal source of information, dealing with the style and construction of decorative carved work on and around the bow and stern of vessels, as well as British Naval Figureheads, Laughton also deals with the tradition of decoration in other major European nations, such as France, Spain, The Netherlands and Scandinavia, with a number of re-prints over the years this I am sure will continue to be one of the primary sources of information, when Laughton began to write his book during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Standing in front of a massive ships Figurehead one is in awe of the skill, effort and time that went in to the creation of such icons of the sea, size and weight held little fear for the eighteenth and nineteenth century carvers, the original Figurehead of HMS Victory when she was built in 1765 stood a staggering 24 feet high and over 18 feet broad, the shear weight of wood needed to create this monster of a carving is difficult to imagine, if we turn the time clock forward over 200 years, we find a modern day craftsman keeping the skill of figurehead carving alive, only this time the amount of materials need in wood and the size of workshop is staggeringly small, the American Lloyd McCaffery has a skill equally as astounding as that given to our ancestors, only this time in reverse, his creations are figureheads in miniature, breathtaking gems of the carvers art, that take weeks and months to create Lloyd offers an insight in to creations. 
Second Revised and Expanded Edition,