15/10/2025
It’s an expression rarely heard these days: “Wooden ships and iron men.”
But, for centuries, it was the harsh reality for those who sailed before the mast.
According to Greg Pettys, https://liboatingworld.com/kicking-jack-williams/, the expression originated in a 1933 book of poetry, ‘Clipper Ships and Captains,’ by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet. It’s also the name of a popular board game.
‘It will not come again,
When the best ships still were wooden ships,
But the men were iron men.”
With its lengthy coastline, B.C. is a maritime province and in colonial days before the establishment of our own Royal Canadian Navy was policed and surveyed by the wooden ships and iron men of the Royal Navy.
Shown here is one of those hardy ships, HMS Rocket and her crew, 187-. There are British naval records, of course, but we have the BC Archives to thank for keeping these officers and sailors of old from vanishing into limbo with these photos.
Read more stories at www.britishcolumbiachronicles.ca
Newest release Unknown Nanaimo is now available by emailing firgrovepublishingATgmailDOTcom (please put Unknown Nanaimo in the subject line), at https://britishcolumbiachronicles.ca/books or at Volume One in Duncan.
