Charles Sparrow

Charles E. Sparrow was born in England in 1906. His father who Charles referred always to as “The Major” when I spoke to him in 1994, was in the British Royal Navy but retired from it after World War I and later joined the Royal Australian Navy. The Sparrow family came to Australia via New Zealand Charles said. In Sydney the family lived at Rose Bay and Charles’ father “The Major” was occupied in his Navy work on the training ship ‘Tingira’ which was anchored permanently in Rose Bay at this time.

In 1922 or 1923 Charles finished school in Sydney and accepted a job as shipwright at the Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney Harbour near Drummoyne. His apprenticeship finished in 1928 and Charles worked at different jobs until 1931 when he was unemployed at the time Sil Rohu asked him to design the VJ.

In 1933 Charles accepted a job in Papua New Guinea as technical instructor and left Australia for approx 5 years, returning in 1937 . In 1936 Sil Rohu wrote and asked Charles to design the Vaucluse Senior. Fortunately the VJ Association has in its possession copies of 4 letters between Sil and Charles which were written from 1933 to 1936, in one of these letters Sil discusses the idea of the larger VS (please see letters below)

Charles returned to Australia to work as a ship’s draughtsman in the Navy base at Garden Island in Sydney.

At the beginning of World War II Charles moved to Brisbane to become Naval Overseer at the Evans Deakin Shipyard which constructed corvettes and frigates and repaired war damaged ships. After WWII Charles returned to Garden Island in the position of Chief Draughtsman and Senior Naval Architect in change of the drawing office.

Charles retired from the Navy in 1960 due to problems with cataracts in his eyes, and he and his wife Grace moved from Eastwood in Sydney to Tuggerah on the NSW Central Coast. He continued to design boats and to do technical drawings for new houses.

For many years in their later life Charles and Grace Sparrow lived at Wyoming on the Central Coast near the Tuggerah Lakes. In 2000 Charles Sparrow was awarded the Order Of Australia for his services to sailing.

Charles died in 2004 aged nearly 98.

(text by Greg Fryer)

Photos of Charles Sparrow from 3rd January 1999 taken at Saratoga on the Brisbane Water, Central Coast, NSW:

Charles Sparrow and John Arens

From left to right: Graeme Andrews, Alan Mimmo, Irene Arens, Les Simmons, Charles Sparrow, Wyn Andrews, Margaret Mimmo, June Simmons

The VJ and VS classes held a sail-past in honour of designer Charles Sparrow on this day 3rd January 1999

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The VS website has a very good article (reproduced below) about Charles Sparrow, with information provided by marine historian Graeme Andrews:

Please also see: http://www.vs.asn.au/vs-history.html

Charles Sparrow – VS Designer – RIP

Charles Sparrow was born in the United Kingdom in 1906 but completed his  schooling in Sydney after a short period in New Zealand. His coming of age roughly coincided with the Great Depression, when work for trainee  and  qualified naval draughtsmen were hard to come by. When not struggling to  make a living around Sydney during which time he worked in the Drafting Office  at Cockatoo Dock, helping prepare drawings for such ships that were still  being built, to working on the Captain Cook at Morts Dock and producing drawings for mudguards for Holden bodies pre-war, Charles Sparrow, was a keen sailor of small yachts.

“I occasionally sailed in the open 12 footers of the Vaucluse  Sailing Club with Mr Sil Rohu. He owned a gun ship in Castlereagh Street in the city and lived on the waterfront at Vaucluse.  He knew how water sports appealed to young lads and wondered if there might  not be a need for a safe and exciting, easily sailed small yacht,  that could be built at home by, perhaps, a boy and his father. Such a boat might be skippered by one lad with another as forward hand and it would need to be unsinkable and be able to be righted by the crew without help”.

Sil Rohu suggested to Charles Sparrow that he might be the person to design such a craft and Sparrow soon produced a preliminary design of a boat which was  completely decked in except for a small well, big enough for  two pairs of boys feet. The plan gave the size and shape of seven frames and the tuck and the  shape of the stern, and a jig frame. The jig frame was built from  6in by 1.5in planks, slotted at the position of each frame. The slots were cut at different  depths so that when the made frames were placed in their allotted spaces, the  shape of the hull was automatically fixed and was ready for attaching the keel,  chines, planking and so on.

“The first boat built was Splinter and she was built by the  members of the newly formed Vaucluse Amateur Sailing Club and was then  thoroughly tested. A few minor adjustments were made and final drawings were  then prepared for sale. The first boat built to the modified plans was ‘Chum’ and  she was owned by Sil Rohu and was launched in August 1931. Chum is now in the keeping of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

“We showed off the VJ ‘Sparrow’ at the first Aquatic Show in 1933  in Sydney which was held by Nock and Kirby’s and I still have the  small leaflet which we handed out at the show. It was a very successful exercise, even in a  Depression.

Complete details were furnished with each set of plans sold, together with a list of materials covering every single piece of timber in the boat, including fastenings and fittings. At that time the completed boat was  expected to cost five pounds  seventeen shillings and sixpence and the sails about three pounds five shillings! I donated the plans and the specifications to the Vaucluse Junior Amateur Sailing Club for their use, with any revenue earned to go the Club’s future development of the class (this was at a time when Sparrow was desperately trying to earn enough money to keep himself and his wife Grace afloat and was unemployed at the time – Graeme Andrews).We had hoped that boys once they reached the age of 18 would go  onto sailing the larger, open boats, that were so popular on the harbour, in all sorts of sizes. We eventually found that this wasn’t happening so, in 1936, I designed an adult version of the VJ.

This was known as the VS or Vaucluse Senior. She was designed upon the same lines as the VJ but was three foot six inches longer and had a cockpit that was big enough to allow two lads to sleep in it, using the sail over the boom to make a tent.
The VS quickly caught on. Soon after the war 100 of them were built in Sydney and were shipped to Japan for use by the Australian Occupation Forces. With the growth of the two classes a need arose for a new clubhouse and larger facilities.

A site was found in Marine Parade, Watsons Bay, which is where the Vaucluse Yacht Club now stands. The new club was officially opened by Sir Eric Harrison (then Postmaster General) on 28 October 1939.