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The Allen Collection |
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History and Content |
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How did the Website come about? On hearing of this collection, Ships Nostalgia members were extremely enthusiastic about saving it for posterity and making it available for research and educational purposes. We launched a project to scan the photos to make them available on-line, and hopefully at a later date on DVD. Scanning was done at 600dpi to preserve the quality of the pictures though they are only available in medium resolution on this website for performance reasons. Information recorded on the back of the photos by the Allens was transcribed into a spreadsheet and added to each page as a table. Scanning and data compilation took many weeks of effort by the indefatigable Barrie Rees. We decided to add background information about the shipping companies represented in the collection as, in many cases, this is not readily available. This added many weeks of research effort using extensive Internet searches and visits to the Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Organisation of Content We have retained the Allens system of classification and naming. It is a bit quirky but we wanted to provide it "warts and all" rather than re-write it. Most ships are classified by shipping company with classifications for specific types of ship like tugs and colliers. Where the Allens did not record the shipping company, the information is recorded on pages for ships with specific letters of the alphabet. Finally there is a page with completely unclassified photos. There are currently no search facilities on the website but to find a particular ship we suggest you start with the page for the shipping company if you know it, then check out the special pages. Where the collection contains two photographs of ships with the same name they are listed as e.g. Framlington Court 1, and Framlington Court 2. This is confusing where there have been two or more ships with the same name. The numbers refer to the photographs and do not indicate that the first of those in this example is of the first ship name Framlington Court and the second to the second ship named Framlington Court. Errors and Omissions The intention of this site is to present the Allens work unchanged. However since this site was launched, there have been a number of requests to correct data and fill in gaps in data. This is still under consideration and it may be decided to include updates in a form that distinguishes them from the original material - possibly by using a different coloured font.. If anyone has proposed changes or spots errors, please send an email to: brian@benjidog.co.uk |
