Captain William Morris Barnes was born in 1850 into a shipowning family in St Johns, Newfoundland, and first went to sea while still a schoolboy. His career seemed predestined, and by the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a Liverpool company, serving in their sailing ships working a triangular passage to St Johns, the Brazils and back to Liverpool. He tried to 'swallow the anchor' when he married but running a grocery store was too mundane, and he soon went back to sea, transferring his skills to the now dominant steamships. Even though he was 64, on the outbreak of the First World War he promptly volunteered for service during which he was mined or torpedoed three times; the last time he was badly injured and spent three days adrift in an open boat.
AOS Other Non-Fiction |
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| Series: n/a | ||
| Year | Book | Comment |
| Rolling Home | The autobiography of a sailor | |