Captain Bayldon's scrapbook of coloured prints of ships
Date1933 - 1948
Object number00029987
NameScrapbook
MediumInk on paper, cardboard
DimensionsOverall: 310 x 255 x 55 mm, 2.25 kg
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Mary Bayldon
DescriptionA scrapbook compiled by Captain Francis Joseph Bayldon containing colour prints of ships. The attached book plate on the interior reads `Ex Libris Francis J. Bayldon, Master Mariner, 1933.'
The album contains 83 colour prints of various sailing ships, most copies of original works by artists Arthur Briscoe and Jack Spurling. Also interspersed throughout book are illustrations, greeting cards, photographs and newspaper clippings.HistoryCaptain Francis Joseph Bayldon, M.B.E, R.I.R., F.R.G.S., F.R.A.H.S., Master Mariner and hydrographer was born in 1872 in Lincolnshire, England. He went to sea as a cadet at the age of 15 on the RODNEY, a Devitt and Moore clipper on the Australian run. In 1894 he secured his first mate's certificate in London and served on the
ILLAWARRA until 1896 when he left Devitts and Moore and secured his Extra Master's certificate.
Bayldon then moved to steamships serving as third officer on SS GRANTULLY CASTLE, one of Donald Currie's Castle Line vessels, to South Africa. In 1897 he joined the Canadian Australian RMS AORANGI as second officer at Newcastle-on-Tyne, came to Sydney and also served on the WARRIMOO until 1901. From 1902 - 1910 Bayldon was master of the steamships TAMBO, TITUS, MALAITA, INDUNA and MORESBY of the Burns Philp Island Line and carried out a considerable amount of hydrographical surveying which was incorporated in Admiralty charts and sailing directions. In 1912 the Bayldon Shoals, located near Tulagi, were named after him by HM surveying vessel SEALARK.
Bayldon's surveying work received the thanks of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in 1907 and he was promoted to Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserves. Many of his observations of the zodiacal light were published by the Lick Observatory in the United States and the British Astronomical Association from 1898 - 1901. From 1897 Balydon recorded meteorological observations in the Pacific for London, Sydney and Washington offices.
In 1910 Bayldon retired from active sea service and opened a school of navigation in Sydney, catering for all types of nautical certificates and later civil aviation licences as well. He published ' Hardlings Steamships during Hurricanes on the east coast of Queensland' and numerous articles for the Royal Australian Historical Society and a comprehensive list of Australian shipwrecks from 1605 to 1927 for the Australian Encyclopaedia. Balydon was elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1913, assisted in founding the Geographical Society of New South Wales in 1927 and was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Historical Society in 1934. In 1938 he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire after receiving HM King George VI Coronation Medal in 1937.
Captain Bayldon died in 1948 in Edgecliff on 21 July 1948 and his ashes were scattered over the Bayldon Shoals. And with his death, so passed an era.
SignificanceCaptain Francis Joseph Bayldon was a widely respected Master Mariner who’s many years at sea and contributions to various international scholarly and maritime societies saw him become known as the 'doyen of Australian seafarers'.
