Roland G. Barker

b. 1905

British

Born in 1905 into a family of seafarers, Roland Barker would become a sailor in his own right and write four books about seafaring: Windjammer Boy (1939), Middle Passage (1939), Jonah's Ark (1940), and Tusitala (1959). Roland Barker was the son of Captain James Platt Barker (1875-1946), who was famous as the master of the tall ship Tusitala, one of the last American-flagged commercial square-rigged ships. 

A 1961 article in the Westfield Leader describes Roland Barker as a "painter of maritime pictures" and recounts his early life with his siblings, including voyages made as a family around Cape Horn, accompanying his father.