Sea fever

Looking at the sketchbook of William Whitelock Lloyd, a soldier-artist who joined a P&O liner after surviving the Anglo-Zulu War, I’m reminded why I avoid cruises. On board this India-bound ship were: a ‘man who talks a great deal of yachting shop and collapses at the first breeze of wind’, ‘a successful Colonist’, and ‘the victim of mal de mer who lives on smelling salts’. It would be just my luck to be stuck in the cabin between ‘One of our Flirts’, the busty lady with pretty eyes, and what Lloyd affectionately called ‘Our Foghorns (automatic)’ — two bawling babies.

By the late 19th century, ocean liners attracted all sorts, from emigrants seeking a new life in the US to curious poseurs. Ever since Samuel Cunard launched his first scheduled passenger steamer from Liverpool to Boston in 1840, the race had been on to provide the most efficient liner service. From the cramped and disease-ridden early vessels to the smart QE2, the history of the ocean liner, explored in a new exhibition at the V&A, is fraught with rivalry.