A new exhibition examining the divide between safe harbours and hazardous seas has opened in Dumbarton. Harbour and Horizon is now showing at the Scottish Maritime Museum (Denny Tank).
The exhibition draws on artworks, artefacts and photographs from the past 200 years held in the museum’s nationally recognised collections. It explores daily life at the water’s edge and the stark realities faced by sailors beyond the harbour walls.
Paintings and prints show Scotland’s ports as places of industry, community and refuge, from the River Clyde to fishing harbours around the coast. These scenes are set against rare photographs taken at sea in 1909 by sailor and amateur photographer William Sinclair.
Born in Stevenston, Sinclair served with Thomas Law & Co of Glasgow and sailed twice around the world on full-rigged ships. His images capture early twentieth-century seafaring hardships, from calm conditions in the Doldrums to violent storms in the Roaring Forties and the dangers of Cape Horn. Ship logs and diaries shown alongside the photographs provide further insight into life at sea.
Eva Bukowska, Exhibitions and Events Officer at the Scottish Maritime Museum, said: “This fascinating exhibition explores life at the water’s edge and far beyond the horizon.” She added: “The photographs of William Sinclair create a powerful contrast with artworks showing harbours as places of safety and hard work.”
Artefacts on display include an 1888 tribunal transcript into cargo lost aboard the Maggie and Maritime Protest Notes from Dundee dating from 1987 to 2000. Also featured are a seaman’s record book and a discharge certificate for nursing sister Elaine Margaret Westhead, who served on Cunard liners.
A personal diary recounts able seaman John Stuart MacMurchie’s voyage on the 1903 Scottish National Antarctic Expedition aboard SY Scotia. A photographic journal by purser Owen Charles Bennett documents daily life aboard the SS Nowshera between 1930 and 1931.
The Harbour and Horizon exhibition is included with museum admission.
