Frank George Griffith Carr

Frank George Griffith Carr (23 April 1903 – 9 July 1991) was director of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England from 1947 to 1966 and was responsible for restoring and preserving a large number of ships such as the Cutty Sark and Gypsy Moth IV. After retirement he was involved in the creation of the Maritime Trust and World Ship Trust for preserving old ships.

Life

Frank Carr fell in love with sailing barges as a boy of 10. He was educated at The Perse School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.^[1] While he was studying for his law degree at Cambridge, his first job was on a barge travelling between Ipswich and Antwerp in 1928.^[2] On graduation, he became assistant librarian at the House of Lords Library. He began research for his first book, Sailing Barges, published in 1931.

He continued sailing and his book A Yachtsman's log tells of voyages made to the Baltic, Spain and the British coastline in his Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Cariad.

After serving in the RNVR during the Second World War, he was appointed director of the National Maritime Museum in 1946 where he supervised its growth incorporating a number of other historic parts of Greenwich.

Publications

• Sailing Barges (1931, 5th edition 1989)
• Vanishing craft (1934)
• A Yachtsman's log (1935)

References