Beschreibung:

Maritime Archive. A voluminous archive of autograph letters and associated material from Colin Campbell Watson, serving on various steamships and later as a P & O Captain, mostly c. 1912-32 but some earlier and later and many undated, comprising over 400 letters sent by Watson to his wife Lilian “Bunny” (née Hawkins) in Bayswater, London, serving on board SS Mesaba, SS Umtali, SS Beltana, HMY Sagita, SS Nankin, P & O Branch Service SS Commonwealth, SS Barrabool, Ranpur and Strathallan, etc., including news and accounts of his life at sea through the First World War and up to before the Second World War, serving largely as a P & O Captain on board various ships travelling around the world, a total of over 1,600 pages, plus some diary extracts and accounts, postcards, photographs and sundry ephemera including cheques and a quantity of letters to Colin Watson and his wife, the letters from Watson largely arranged in 32 ring binders by year where dated, the remainder loose and largely unsorted (Quantity: 4 cartons) An extraordinary archive covering some 25 years of Watson’s full career at sea. Partial transcriptions of a small number of letters are available on request. Sample extract: on board S.S. “Beltana”, September 1915 '… The night before arrival at Alexandria during my watch I got a hail from the crow's nest look out “Object right ahead.” I peered anxiously round, eyes literally glued to my binoculars but couldn’t see anything I immediately called the Captain and together we tried to see what had been reported. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a small object which I thought was a T.B.D. [Torpedo Boat Destroyer]. She had no lights, so down went the helm and we swung round eight points. Then we lost sight of her. On arrival at Alexandria we found that my surmise was correct, for a small French torpedo boat had reported by wireless “large steamer carrying no lights apparently a transport suddenly altered course 8 points. Evidently excellent look out kept.” This coming to the authorities notice I called up Monk (the look out man) and told him of the report and you may be sure how pleased he looked to find his vigilance had been noted. At Alexandria we landed the aeroplane and other cargo and one of the officers with whom I became great friends – a Lieut. Bird, took me to lunch at the Club and then we went to see Pompey's Pillar. The Catacomb – the Museum and other places of interest. Oh Bunny it is marvellous, I felt just transported somehow back a thousand years. The wonderful works of arts of the ancient Romans and Egyptians cast a feeling of wonder and admiration for these bygone empires. I will be able to tell you more fully all I saw – it is beyond me to write. Our next orders were to proceed to the Dardanelles and disembark our troops at the Island of Lemnos. This Island is just off the mouth of the straits and about 40 miles away from the actual front. Our twisting tortuous course though the countless islands of the Grecian Archipelago was something new to me and I can assure you dear we were relieved when we dropped anchor in Mudros Bay [Lemnos, Malta]. I have already related in a previous letter of our engagement with the supposed submarine so will not bore you with a repetition. I also gave you all the details concerning our stay in Lemnos and the trip down to Alexandria. Dear I will tell you now I am alright but we had over two hundred cases of enteric and dysentery on board. We were an armed ship – naval hospital ship – although we had 6 or 7 hundred helpless men on board and were therefore fair game for a submarine attack. Consequently the usual precautions had to be taken. Also seeing the torpedoed transport “Southlands” coming into Lemnos and other small craft bringing in those who had jumped into the water made us doubly anxious as you can imagine. Therefore the ports had to be screened and the holds in which the dysentery and enteric cases – were – a horror. The germs of disease seemed to have spread for after I