Newell Dunn Exhibition Guildhall Library

Mer c ha nt Navy Tr eas u r es An Introduction to the Newall Dunn Collection at Guildhall Library

East London, South Africa

Queen Elizabeth in troopship grey on the Clyde

Union-Castle Coastwise Excursions 1939

Cunard White Star postcard Queen Mary

SS Ceramic cabin class brochure 1937

The Newall Dunn Collection: The Collectors

The Newall Dunn Collection comprises one of the world’s richest photographic and ephemera resources for merchant shipping history.

This treasure trove offers material from about 1880 to the turn of the twenty-first century. A key feature is an extensive series of images of ocean-going liners, cruise ships, cargo vessels (including tankers, coasters & colliers) – in fact vessels of all types and sizes.

In addition, there are over three hundred information files consisting of press releases and cuttings going

back to the early 1930s, a large number of shipping company brochures, menus & other ephemera representing a wide-ranging pictorial history.

The collection was built by shipping historian Peter Newall and was gifted to Guildhall Library in 2018.

The resource he compiled includes material and photographs amassed by several previous shipping enthusiasts and writers. The most important of these was writer and artist Laurence Dunn but also includes work created by Captain Emile Sigwart of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and photographs of ships on the Thames by Jeffrey Curtis taken in the 1930s.

The Basket Trick (1905)

Background image: Normandie first class smoking room

Mer c ha nt Navy Tr eas u r es An Introduction to the Newall Dunn Collection at Guildhall Library

Queen Elizabeth at Southampton

First Class Menu on mailboat Yarra (1890)

Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen menu (1899)

Normandie (1935)

Deutsche Ost-Afrika-Linie Hamburg menu (1907)

Laurence Dunn sketchbooks Holland America Line Cabin Class 1938

Newall & Dunn

Belgian State Mailboats brochure 1930

Background image: Aquitania (1914)

Peter Newall (1945-2018) spent much of his childhood in Cape Town where his father was a well-known artist, photographer and antique dealer. After a successful career with British Airways Peter became a full-time shipping historian and journalist, publishing nine books on maritime subjects including Union-Castle Line, Orient Line, Cunard Line (with a volume devoted to the Mauretania) and P&O Line. His final book, “Ocean Liners: An Illustrated History” was published in 2018.

Laurence Dunn (1910-2006) was born at Llandaff but his childhood was spent in the Devon port of Brixham, which once had one of the largest fishing fleets in Britain. It was here that he developed a lifelong interest in ships and the sea. A gifted artist, he trained at the Central School of Art in London, after which he created artwork for several companies including Orient Line, Esso, Union-Castle Line, P&O, New Zealand Shipping, Blue Funnel, Clan Line, Cunard Line and William Cory & Son. Guildhall Library was delighted to receive a collection of Laurence Dunn’s sketchbooks and other work, some of which is shown here.