Basil Lubbock

After an education at Eton, Basil Lubbock headed to Canada in 1897 and reached the Klondike during the gold rush. On his return in 1899, he signed on as an ordinary seaman aboard the four-masted barque Royalshire and came home round Cape Horn, an experience he later turned into Round the Horn Before the Mast.

Lubbock went on to serve as a soldier in the First World War and later became a remarkably prolific writer on maritime history. He focused especially on the last generation of merchant sailing ships, and his work helped preserve first-hand knowledge of the Age of Sail through a mix of lived experience, archival research, and conversations with seamen and ship managers.

He was also an early member of the Society for Nautical Research, served on its council, and contributed to The Mariner’s Mirror. Today he is remembered as a pioneering historian of commercial sail whose books remain valuable for readers interested in clippers, windjammers, and the working lives behind them.