Edgar James March (5 September 1897 – 22 July 1971) was an English writer, lecturer and historian of traditional British sailing craft.
March began his career during the The First World War as a draughtsman for the Air Ministry, and after the war he exhibited watercolour paintings of aeroplanes in action. However he had grown up on the Thanet coast in Kent, where he regularly witnessed working sailing ships, and a fisherman taught him to sail. So from around 1920 to the end of his life he was researching traditional British, wooden, working sailing craft which operated inshore and at sea. This research continued in tandem with his 25-year lecturing career, in which he brought to the public films, lantern slides and histories of sailing boats. For his generation in the United Kingdom, working sailing craft were already almost completely gone from the waters. By 1950 he had amassed a collection of over 15,000 lantern slides of lost or soon-to-be lost sail-driven fishing and cargo boats, which were about to be overtaken by motor vessels.
From 1948, March published six heavily detailed volumes laying out the history and construction of sailing barges, sailing drifters, sailing trawlers, British destroyers, and finally two volumes covering his life's research on inshore craft of the British Isles. His published works contain memories and photographs dating from the 1860s to the dates of publication. The books include scale drawings and construction plans of the vessels, which are sufficiently detailed for the use of model-makers. Of March's book, Sailing Drifters, the Lynn Advertiser comments, "The 191 photographs portray a way of life now gone for ever and likely to have vanished unrecorded had not Edgar J. March striven to collect information stored in the wise old heads of a generation now well into the evening of its day".
Early and personal life
March's father was William March, a butler, who became a seaside hotelier. His mother was Lizzie "Lissie" March née Barr, daughter of William Barr, who was a groom and postilion for the Earl of Craven, and later a farmer. William and Lissie March were married at the Church of All Saints, Leighton Buzzard on 17 October 1888. Between at least 1901 and 1921 they were running the Kimberley Hotel, a 22-room seaside boarding house, in Westgate-on-Sea, with a resident cook and housemaid. Guests included Sir Gilbert Parker, MP, and Frederic Wallace Hastings Blake, governor of HM Prison Pentonville. In 1935 the Kimberley Hotel, under the management of March assisted by his elderly father, mounted a prizewinning exhibition on the subject of yachting, as part of the Queen Carnival in Westgate. March's uncle, George March, ran the Westcliffe Hotel in Westgate-on-Sea, and was a councillor for Westgate.
March was born on 5 September 1897, at his family's address, the Truro House Hotel, Ramsgate in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, England, where his father was the hotel's proprietor. He was baptised on 3 October 1897 at All Saints' Church, Westbere, Kent. He had an elder brother, William Francis George March, a 2nd lieutenant of the Royal Flying Corps, who died of his wounds in the First World War. March and his brother were brought up at the Kimberley Hotel in Westgate-on-Sea. On 17 October 1929, March married Linda Dorothy Tottenham-Bowman, at St Saviour's Church, Westgate-on-Sea. By 1939, he and his wife were living in Cedric Road, Margate. Before they moved to the Isle of Wight, they lived at Sunrays, 3 Cedric Road, Westgate-on-Sea, for more than fifty years. Linda petitioned for divorce from March in 1931, however the couple were together again by 1939. March dedicated his Spritsail Barges (1948) to his wife, thus: "To my wife, who has not minded my love for Kathleen and her sisters'", the dedication being accompanied by March's sketch of the barge Kathleen. March died on the Isle of Wight on 22 July 1971. His last address was Green Acre, Madeira Lane, Colwell, Freshwater, Isle of Wight.
Career March knew working sailing ships from an early age. He later wrote: "One of my earliest recollections of boyhood days was learning from a bearded fisherman the difference between a mulie barge and a ketch". He was already researching for his future publications during the First World War, saying that "[My] happiest hours in [the] war years [were] those I spent pottering about Whitstable Harbour, obtaining much of the material for [Spritsail Barges]". During his childhood he was familiar with fishing boats too. He wrote in Inshore Craft (1970):
Along the coast the longshore men from Westgate-on-Sea made a living chiefly by taking summer visitors for trips, especially when warships lay in Margate Roads for days at a time. In winter they went drift-netting for herring and sprats, a bitterly cold job in open boats ... The two big herring punts were Edith Mary and Enchantress owned by Chris Case – my friend from boyhood until his death during the [Second World War] – who taught me the difference between all the rigs of sailing vessels in the days when they could be seen every day in the offing ... As a schoolboy I used to walk to Margate, where Chris kept his boat in the harbour, and sail back with him, when he taught me many things.
By July 1913, when March was around sixteen years old, and was articled to the local district surveyor, a working barge appeared in St Mildred's Bay in front of the Kimberley Hotel. March's employer was ordering the repair of roads in Westgate-on-Sea, and March as a surveyor's apprentice witnessed the barge unloading stone for Sea Road.
Meanwhile, until his first book was published in 1948 when he was over 50 years old, March was continuing his research while earning his living by other means. In 1921, he was working as an artist, and he was still being described as an artist in 1950. During the First World War he worked for the Air Ministry and "executed many important drawings for the authorities". In 1920 he exhibited water colour action paintings of war planes and sea planes, in Trafalgar Square, Westgate. However March's brother, an airman, had died in 1917 of his wounds in the First World War, and March was disillusioned with aeroplanes. He later wrote in Spritsail Barges, "I cannot help thinking that the world would have been a happier place if aircraft had remained dreams instead of becoming nightmares". By 1939 he was working as a hotelier and lecturer, and was also serving as a special constable, number 53, in Margate Borough. He was elected as a councillor for Westgate in 1938.
War reserve constable
March was employed as a war reserve constable during the Second World War, when in plain clothes he arrested a burglar who was looting evacuated properties in Sea Road, Westgate, and after the offender punched March in the face, a chase began across the local golf course, together with another policeman. The burglar, a soldier Private Ernest Hipkiss, was again arrested and taken to the police station, pending a court appearance. The court heard the following from March:
War Reserve Constable March said he was on duty in plain clothes in Sea Road on November 24th when he saw the accused looking about. He kept him under observation ... he heard a noise coming from the rear of a house and then saw the accused ... [March] went with the accused to the rear of the house, saw a scullery window open, a pane of glass broken, and a stone on the sill. He then told accused he was a police officer and asked him to produce his pay book. The accused immediately hit him on the left cheek with his fist. Witness fell back and the accused fell on top of him. A struggle ensued and the accused broke away. [March] followed him and seized him again and raised his stick ... [Hipkiss ran away] ... [March] borrowed a bicycle and rode after him.
Following a chase with the assistance of Police Constable Farley and a second arrest, Hipkiss was charged with theft and assault and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment.
Researcher From the 1920s, March was occupied with the research which was to become the basis for his series of nautical books. He frequently appealed for information via newspapers. In 1928 he wrote to The Bioscope to appeal for "films of square-rigged ships or barques under sail".
In 1944, March was asking readers of the Thanet Advertiser for information about the Ramsgate sailing fleet. In 1946 and 1949, he was writing to the Banffshire Advertiser, asking for information about fifies and zulus. Also in 1946, he wrote similarly to the John O' Groats Journal, and to the Hull and East Yorkshire Times and Hull Daily Mail about fleets on the Humber and the Dogger Bank. In 1947, he was writing to the Cornish Guardian for information on Cornish luggers for his Sailing Drifters book. Public awareness of his research was prompting consciousness of loss of the old traditions and the need to preserve records.
Lecturer March travelled the country and lectured about marine matters for several decades. The following list demonstrates the breadth of his subject matter. In October 1925, March was one of the visiting lecturers taking part in the Hull University Lecture series at the Royal Institution in Hull.
In January 1926, at Garston, Merseyside, March took part in the Garston Free Lectures series with his "Salving of Ships" lantern slide lecture. This offered him a "rare opportunity to describe the wonderful apparatus for retrieving the damage done to shipping during gale and fog, and by the ravages of war. The sinking of valuable ships and almost priceless cargoes in the submarine attack on Britain's commerce in the Great War was dealt with, and many of the remarkable inventions that resulted from the crisis then experienced". A Garston newspaper reader D.L.H. added that, "March told of many ways of doing the work, and exciting and dangerous work it is. He told of the wonderful work done by the divers too. It was a splendid lecture by a fine lecturer. Every item of interest was explained so well". In the same month, March gave his "Salving of Ships" lecture in Belper, Derbyshire. The Belper News reported that he "proved a wonderfully fluent speaker who never hesitated for a word. For an hour and a half he spoke with scarcely a moment's hesitation, every word being clearly and loudly spoken, an achievement not often attained by other speakers". On 30 January 1926, he was at Bedford, giving his "Ships Throughout the Ages" lecture. In October 1926, in Dunstable he gave his "Salving of Ships" lecture which was described by the Luton News as "an interesting account of how many ships that had apparently become wrecked beyond help of salvage had eventually been saved". In November 1926, he twice gave his "Ships Throughout the Ages" lecture at Liverpool with lantern illustrations. In December 1926, March lectured at Runnacleave Hall, Ilfracombe, on "Ships Throughout the Ages", and this prompted a local councillor to tell of Barnstaple-built ships which once carried wool to Australia.
In February 1927, March gave his "Ships Throughout the Ages" lecture in Hull. In December 1927, March gave his "Ships Throughout the Ages" lantern lecture at the Smethwick Institute, which was then in Worcestershire.