As a child I used to envy the young boys I read about who were sent to sea. I had thought it was an option they pursued as it led to a fine career. Older and wiser, I have long thought how heartless a family could be to shove their sons out the door like that. Then came articles on children sent to boarding schools at young ages, even sent alone on ships to attend from India! Of course there were the Home Children stolen from their [parents and shipped off to Canada and Australia, and the young African children during slave days, and now refugees. It's a sad planet. Ms. Brendon has written a fine book of accounts of several children and their experiences. It should be used in history classes. So much suffering....

This is a beautiful book, full of depth and nostalgia and hardship of young people in their sea journeys.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC and all the best to the author.

Inspiring stories of children either deported, separated from their parents, or otherwise sent to the far corners of the earth. Resilient and strong, many of these stories end on a positive note. Detailed historical examination, readable and recommended.

"...an ocean...both feared and loved; endlessly interesting in its unchanging changeability; always, inevitably there"

"Apart from the photograph and family legends passed down through the generations...I found myself a historian at sea...I was inspired to investigate tales[especially] those who embarked as children on voyages which would shape the rest of their lives".
-Vyvyen Brendon

In Georgian and Victorian times, the sea was "a key element of Britain's national existence, vital to defense, commerce, culture and empire." Mary Branham, 14 years old, was "summarily convicted [of stealing clothes] and sentenced to seven years' transportation". The year was 1784. "Until the Declaration of Independence..., it was Britain's American colonies...that had received such convicts banished...[now] Australia's unexplored hinterland and treacherous coastline would make New South Wales 'a great outdoor prison'." A long sea journey...changing climate conditions...the choppy English Channel...violent squalls...'sexual piracy'...".

Joseph Emidy, born in a small village near the Guinea Coast, heard the musical rhythms and sounds of Africa. At 8 years old, he was captured by panyaring, kidnappers of villagers to supply European slave ships...a forty day voyage to Brazil. Sailors on board played drum, fiddle or bagpipes...purchased as a house slave...taught to play the violin. "Musical aptitude was especially prized and some plantation owners even boasted slave orchestras...pressed into service by the Royal Navy as a fiddler during the Napoleonic Wars...". "The greatest threat to his well being would come from the sea".

William Barlow age 8, along with two of his siblings, boarded a ship for a six month journey from Calcutta to London. Children of East India Company employees were generally sent on their own to be educated in England. Potential dangers on this journey in 1800 included the peril of French warships and privateers in the Indian Ocean. Risks aboard the sailing vessel itself included the advances of 'lascivious seamen' ...the 'corruption by hard-drinking fellow passengers' and from infection which often plagued the ship. Barlow received nautical training at the Royal Naval Academy which also trained Jane Austen's two brothers.

Sydney Dickens was the fifth son of Charles Dickens. Sydney was born while Dickens was writing monthly installments of "Dombey and Son", a book filled with images of the "dark and unknown sea that rolls around the world...". Sydney's pet name was Ocean Spectre. "Ocean Spectre, having spent much of his life by the shore...[had] plenty of opportunity to observe 'great ships standing out to sea or coming home richly laden'...". Midshipman Sydney faced the usual seafaring perils: "war, weather, and all manner of threats to his physical and moral well being". [He] would carry the burden of growing up with a surname 'widely and uniquely loved'."

"Sea Fever...a yearning for the lonely sea and the sky...he had left the sea but it had not left him". Children at sea experienced "absolute loneliness" which arguably made it difficult for them to form future relationships...I dare not love people...in case I lose them".

"Children at Sea: Lives Shaped By the Waves" by Vyvyen Brendon is a highly detailed and thoroughly researched tome documenting and following the lives of eight children shaped by their sea journeys. A history lovers delight!

Thank you Pen & Sword History and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

We can never forget the distressing photograph of 3 year old boy Alan Kurdi washed up as a child refugee from Syria from the Mediterranean Sea only as recently as 2015 alongside the other 90,000 lone child refugees that travelled that year from Asia or Africa. Many more have braved the seas since.
In this book we note the historic tragedies (amongst some celebrations) of how children (many less than 10 years of age) found themselves at the mercy of the ocean's elements, abandoned, transported, sold but rarely accompanied by loving parents on huge ships to the other side of the world.
The author has done some thorough research and it is justified in filling in the missing years of so many of these children. There are 8 separate stories but often they include other siblings from the same family giving an even wider and often distressing overview of how the innocence of childhood was destroyed early on.
"without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd and unknown" wrote Byron of those young children who never even made shore - bodies often that floated to the deep secrecy of the seas not even exposed and recorded like poor Alan Kurdi.
Charles Dickens spoke and wrote often of childhood, its innocence, turmoil and many times of its rescue. However as as father Dickens himself was terrible. He said he was "more partial to girls" and although not in a sexual manner his worrying obsession with two of his wife's younger sisters and of course his later affair with an actress meant he very early on decided his sons should be sent abroad. We hear of Sydney - once feted by his father- but then rejected and sent to sea who always trying to seek reassurance spent unwisely, acted badly and then died a tragic early death. He along with William Barlow, whose father was an employee of the East India Company were not born as paupers, seeking the sea to escape terrible lives and penury, found in wealth, power and influence families who rejected them to the mercy of the waves in a manner that was even more abusive.
Slavery is topical today as we digest the past history of places like Bristol and the trade in people from Africa to support the rich white ship and plantation owners. It was interesting to read how Joseph Emidy (much like Solomon Northup of 12 Years A Slave) used his musical skill to try and ensure he had a sort of respectable and safe life beyond the manacles of forced labour.
Overall a fascinating and well written factual book. I remember meeting Margaret Humphreys who set up the Child Migrant Trust in 1987 whilst working for her MP as she even now grapples with the lives of child migrants sent by this country to Australia post WWII, whose lives were torn from their families and whose mental health has forever never been washed away by the mass expanse of water that divided them from their real mothers or fathers.

Well written, well cited, fascinating and heart-breaking book. I confess I had a favorite subject -- given my affection for teenage boys and sailors, I admit to a real soft spot for Chapter 3's George King. But all the stories were wonderful. This book is highly recommended!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.