FRANK MORGAN GILES: DESIGNER BUILDER RACER
JANE SHADDICK
On the 19 March 1964, after a full life and a good year’s racing the previous year, Frank Morgan Giles died. Here is his biography by his granddaughter Jane Shaddick, previously author of the charming Ivy’s Journal about her grandmother Ivy Morgan Giles, which was long overdue.
Frank started life in Tiverton, a pretty town in the heart of the Devon countryside, but the family, under some financial duress, soon moved to Shaldon on the coast, where Frank learned to sail and won his first local Shaldon regatta in a boat he had built. It was in Shaldon that he met Harry May from Exeter and also his future wife, Ivy Carus-Wilson, who was competing in rowing and sailing races. In 1909, Frank joined up with Harry May to form their partnership, Morgan Giles & May, Naval Architects and Builders, for the building of fast sailing boats to Frank’s designs in a yard under London’s Hammersmith Bridge. They soon needed bigger premises, so they
