Joseph T Rowland was born in 1876 in Runcorn, Cheshire, England. He was the son of Thomas Rowland and Elizabeth Hignett. In the 1890s they lived at Surrey Street, Runcorn along with Joseph's older sister Harriett and younger sister and brother Frances and Hugh.
Runcorn grew up on the banks of the River Mersey. The Mersey flows along the original boundary between Cheshire and Lancashire and widens beyond 'the Runcorn Gap' to form a broad estuary leading out to sea at Liverpool. By the 1890s Runcorn's prosperity had grown with trade along the Bridgewater and Manchester Ship Canals and other converging waterways. The canals carried raw materials and products such as salt, clay, coal and locally quarried Cheshire sandstone. Docks at Runcorn and nearby Weston grew to serve the shipping attracted by the growing industrial developments.
In later years Joseph would find work as a Lock Gate Man and, family tradition has it, he eventually operated a tug on the local canals. One way or another he worked on the Cheshire waterways for much of his life. However, as a young man Joseph set out on an adventure that was to take him far from the small, industrial Merseyside town of his birth.
In 1897 Joseph, aged 21, joined the crew of a sailing ship which took him to South America, the United States and South Africa. Some years after his return, Joseph completed an account of his journey. That story is told on these pages. It provides a first hand account, from a not so ordinary seaman, of life on board ship in the last days of commercial sail: A way of life that would soon disappear as steam-powered vessels began to dominate trade in the early 20th century.