Imprint:
United Kingdom : Seaforth Publishing, 2013
Notes:
William Morris Barnes was born in 1850 into a shipowning family in St John's, Newfoundland, and first went to sea while still a schoolboy. By the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a Liverpool company, serving in their sailing ships working a triangular passage to St John's, the Brazils and back to Liverpool. After marriage, and an attempt to 'swallow the anchor' and run a grocery store, he soon went back to sea, transferring his skills to the now dominant steamships.
On the outbreak of the First World War, though he was 64, he promptly volunteered for service in Europe and, despite being mined or torpedoed four times, seems to have relished the dangers. Like many a sailor, he probably felt safer at sea - while in one port he fell for an exotic woman, only to discover she was a German spy.
Bookmark Link:
https://hampshire.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/KIDS/BIBENQ?BRN=2922994
