Surprising new chapter for HMS Trincomalee logbook unearthed in North Yorkshire antiques shop by Hartlepool born academic

Dr Lois Burke came across the 150-year-old logbook for HMS Trincomalee – now a key town visitor attraction – in an antiques shop in Osmotherley, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

While the first few pages were as expected for a naval ship’s log, the rest of it had been turned into a scrapbook by children from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The discovery of the book must have been fate as Lois, who was born and grew up in Hartlepool, specialises in children’s history as an assistant professor at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands.

She said: "I thought it was so beautiful and my parents bought it for me as a gift.

“The opening page is dated 1871, and it has been filled in as intended, with information about wind speed and tides.

"The rest of the book, however, was turned into a colourful and densely-populated scrapbook. It looks like there were perhaps two generations of children who used this as their play thing.”

Lois was able to determine a number of cuttings from the late 1870s were by a girl called Margaret Annie Kirton and depict young girls’ fashions and representations of grown-up romantic relationships.

Other children named Rowland Moores Allen and Audrey and Jean Broadbent filled its pages in the mid 1930s.

Lois says: “I don’t know if these two generations of children knew each other.

"There are some mysteries that still remain. But I suppose that’s part of the joy looking at this manuscript material, you need some detective work.”

She said the children were aware of the book being something that spanned across time as shown in a short verse written by an Annie Hougham ending with the line “This Book will tell my name although I am quite forgotten.”

Lois, whose uncle Stewart Burke works at the National Museum of the Royal Navy Hartlepool where the Trincomalee is berthed, added: “I think it’s a one-off for having this multi-layered history. It makes it quite special.”

She has written a detailed blog about the logbook published online for the Society for the History of Childhood.

The society was founded in 2001 to promote the history of children and youth.