Landlord of ‘Drum’ Novel Collection – Eastern Craftsmanship (picture)

May 1936

Mexborough and Swinton Times May 1, 1936

Novel Denaby Collection
Eastern Craftsmanship
Wanderers Retrospect

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In the private drawing room of a Hotel in Denaby is housed an array of finely fashioned furniture and costly bric-a-brac – a tray from Beypore, a lacquer and mother of pearl screen from Japan, a gold wire cushion from China – collected during a lifetime spent ranging the seven seas. This fascinating collection attracts visitors from a wide radius.

The owner is Mr Percy John Dinsdale, scion of an old Hull seafaring family one time chief steward on City and Hall steamship line, and now landlord of the Denaby Main Hotel.

I was privileged to see the collection this week. Most of the articles came from Eastern ports, and originally the collection was very much larger. Some it has been sold, but what remains will be sufficient to make an interesting annexe to a museum.

Three pieces of kagaware, for instance, among the pride of Mr Dinsdale collection, are been then the several connoisseurs, and their perfection of form and colouring would gladden the heart of a museum curator. There are other examples of meticulous and superb craftsmanship of these Japanese artists. One ball is of cloisonoe , in which the classroom fashion their wares out of thousands of tiny brass wires, the interstices between which are filled in with lacquer.

Another brilliant example of Eastern craftsmanship is a vase made of brass, steel and clay. How these vases are manufactured remains a mystery to Western experts, the metal cannot be shared before the pottery, for it would melt dress out of shape in the fierce heat in which the clay is baked.

Mr Dinsdale has, too, some very fine specimens of Japanese lacquer ware.

The other things he showed me, the cast group of Japanese wrestlers, the seal-ivory temple to Buddha, the Indian cruet set made from annas and rupees, the Chinese ginger jars, the brass trays from Indian bazaars, and the delicate, translucent Japanese China, are all flawlessly made, and yet with an individuality that immediately arrest the attention worthy of mention at length.

Exciting Career

But interesting as they are, their owner is equally interesting.

Mr Dinsdale comes of old seafaring stock. Like most retired seaman, he is reticent. Mr Dinsdale grandfather was captain Graystock Kipling, hard bitten Hull skipper of the graceful clippers which two generations ago used to carry tea home from China. One of the old school of down easterners, he was a distant relative of the family which the famous point of that name sprang.

But if Mr Dinsdale ever writes his memoirs, they should make good reading. He received a thorough baptism in seafaring, for from school he went as an apprentice on one of the old fourmasters to Australia. Out via the Cape of Good Hope he got a vigourous initiation into what see weather can be, and coming back via Valparaiso and Cape Horn, most dreaded danger spot of all the seas, was no picnic.

He spent three years in sail, and then, because he feared his eyes would not be strong enough to enable him to take his “ticket,” he joined the P and O. Then, in his own work, E “knocked around ashore for a couple of years,” and finally went into the City And Hall line. Yet five years on the South African – London run, carrying cargo and passengers, with occasional diversion to Durban, Delagoa Bay, Beira, Mauritius, Bombay, Calcutta and Liverpool.

Outbreak of War

When the war broke out Mr Dinsdale was aboard the “City of Norwich,” the first merchant marine ship with a cruiser stern. She was at Columbo, Ceylon, with a cargo bound for New York, but her route was changed to London. Back in England, Mr Dinsdale joined the “City of Florence” to carry Government stores to Australia. At 5 o’clock one morning in the Bay of Biscay the “City of Florence” was struck by three torpedoes from a German submarine. The crew scrambled into the bolts and the ship sank almost immediately. The submarine rose to the surface, and the German commander harangued them in a friendly fashion. He politely told them you would have liked to have given them some food, better yet only a limited supply for himself. After three days of tossing about in the Bay they were picked up by the destroyer “Midge” and taken into Plymouth.

From store carrying Mr Dinsdale had the more dangerous job of troop running through the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia. On the way back, led with a cargo of dates for the trip to Marseille the “Sandon Hall,” in which Mr Dinsdale was then serving was torpedoed and sunk, but the “Spirea” dashed to their rescue. This incident occurred on New Year’s Day 1917.

Home Again

Home again, Mr Dinsdale was drafted to the “City of Brisbane,” a new ship, and the pride of the line. This time the job was conveying troops from New York. Several trips were made without incident will stop heavily,, the “City of Brisbane” left Tilbury at 6 o’clock one morning bound for New York. At 7 o’clock that night she was ashore at Newhaven, with the stem blown away by German torpedo. But Mr Dinsdale was becoming resigned to getting torpedoed by this time.

The war over, Mr Dinsdale made the five months roundabout trips with City and Hull boats, carrying cargo and passengers on this long run in which the ship called at over 50 ports before the Bar Lightship in the mouth of the Mersey flashed its welcome to Wanderers home from the seas.

Then about eight years ago Mr Dinsdale tired of roving, and came down the gangway for the last time.

He has been at Denaby for five years now.