15 May 2015
On the 'Tween Deck of Cutty Sark, the Star of India is displayed – a carved wooden emblem originally fitted to the stern of the ship and once owned by John Willis, Cutty Sark’s owner.
It represents the emblem of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India which was established in 1861 by Queen Victoria to reward conspicuous merit and loyalty and was mainly awarded to maharajas and senior military officers working in India. Cutty Sark had no link with the Order but the design was copied from another of Willis’s ships, The Tweed, which was previous owned by the Indian Navy under the name of Punjaub. Even though there is no known connection between the Order and Willis, the Order’s motto, which forms part of the decoration, could not be more fitting for any ship navigating by the sun and the stars: ‘Heaven’s light our guide’. A replica of the Star of India was carved during the 1950s restoration and this replica decorates the stern of the ship today. It is accompanied by the ship’s name and port of registry (London), Willis’s family motto – Where there’s a Willis a way – as well as ornate gilded floral and scroll motifs, the ‘gingerbread’ decoration on the ship.
Hercules Linton, the designer of Cutty Sark, and Frederick Hellyer, the figurehead carver, originally planned a different decorative scheme for the ship. Their scheme represented around the bow and stern characters and scenes from Tam O’Shanter, the poem which provides the namesake for the ship. According to Basil Lubbock, author of The Log of The Cutty Sark, 1924, the decoration however “was too much for the well-known mid-Victorian delicacy in such matters and old ‘White Hat’ had the naked witches removed”. A photograph from 1872 shows us the decoration finally adopted.
Although Cutty Sark was built as a working ship - a ship to generate healthy profits for her owner - great care and attention was paid to the decorative scheme of the vessel. The appearance of a ship was important; to identify it, to promote the ship-owner’s business, to protect his reputation and to make his ship stand out in the busy docks at the vessel’s ports of call.