Jack Spurling (Spurling variant)
Jack Spurling (1870–1933) was an English marine painter known for his paintings of clipper ships and his covers for The Blue Peter magazine.
Sourcing: strong 1 reference
Variant spelling: this person bears the related surname Spurling, not Spurlin.
John Robert Charles "Jack" Spurling (12 December 1870 – 31 May 1933) was an English painter of nautical subjects, especially sailing ships of the 19th and early 20th centuries.[1]
Life at sea
Spurling grew up near the London docks and sketched as a boy. At sixteen he went to sea as an apprentice on the Astoria, where a fall from the rigging put him in hospital in Singapore for six months.[1] He later earned a second mate's certificate on Devitt & Moore's sail-training ships while teaching himself watercolour.[1]
Painting career
After a short attempt at acting, Spurling met Frederick Arthur Hook, editor of the sailing magazine The Blue Peter, in 1921. Hook commissioned his work, and his first cover for the magazine appeared in March 1923.[1] His paintings were collected, with text by Basil Lubbock, in three volumes titled Sail: The Romance of the Clipper Ships (1923, 1929, 1933). A fourth collection, Spurling Sail and Steam, was published in 1980.[1]
See also
- Notable Spurlins · People strong
An index of notable people surnamed Spurlin, with related Spurling-surname figures listed separately as variants. - Spurlin on Wikimedia Commons · Culture strong
Freely licensed images on Wikimedia Commons that relate to the Spurlin name, including portraits of Ashley Spurlin and Mary Jane Spurlin. - Spurling (surname) · The Surname strong
Spurling is the fuller spelling from which Spurlin derives. Unlike Spurlin, it is well established in England, Australia and especially Bermuda as well as the United States. - The Spurlin name outside the United States · Culture strong
Spurlin is an overwhelmingly American surname today, with about 98% of bearers in the United States. The spelling is older than American settlement: English archives record Spurlins in Middlesex and Bristol between 1670 and 1717, and 18th-century leases name a field called 'Spurlins' in Hertfordshire. Outside the U.S. the related form Spurling is far more common.
References
Last reviewed 2026-09-24.