After acquiring a camera in the 1850s when photography was still in its infancy, John Gibson, a former merchant sailor, took his first photograph of a shipwreck in 1869. It was the beginning of a family obsession: for more than a century, four generations of Gibsons documented more than 200 wrecks near their home on the Isles of Scilly and off the coast of Cornwall and Devon.
The shipping lanes in the southwest were notorious among sailors for their strong tidal currents, dense fog and submerged rocks. When a ship ran into trouble, a Gibson was often first on the scene. John, a pioneer of photojournalism, became a local news correspondent and taught his trade to his sons, Alexander and Herbert. Shortly after John’s retirement his grandson James took up the camera, and James’s son Frank continued the tradition until his death in 2012.
As well as capturing the eerie wrecks themselves, the dramatic and emotive images documented the rescue efforts of the locals and, on occasion, the bodies of those who could not be saved.
In 2013 the whole Gibson archive was auctioned at Sotheby’s and bought for £122,500 by the Royal Museums Greenwich.
Shipwreck: Gibsons of Scilly is published by Max Ström and distributed by Thames & Hudson at £35
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