Alan Villiers - Later Years

Later Years

Married in 1940 to his second wife Nancie, Villiers settled in Oxford, England, and continued to be active in sailing and writing. He was the Captain of the Mayflower II in her 1957 maiden voyage across the Atlantic, 337 years after the original Mayflower, and beating her predecessor's time of 67 days by 13 days. He has been involved in almost every large historical sailing ship still in existence including the Balclutha, the USCGC Eagle, the Falls of Clyde, the Gazela, the Sagres II, and would also prove instrumental in the restoration of the Star of India. Cadets at the Outward Bound Sea School in Wales remember him as skipper of their training ship Warspite. He was also involved in the creation of the replica of the HM Bark Endeavour and advised on the 1962 MGM movie Mutiny on the Bounty. Villiers was a regular contributor to the National Geographic Magazine throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Villiers served as Chairman of the Society for Nautical Research, a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum, and Governor of the Cutty Sark Preservation Society. He died on 3 March 1982. Alan Villers, made a travel, lecture film, "Last Of The Great Seadogs", it ran at the Dorothy Chandler pavilion in 1976. There is a recording of the performance with an audio track. Delta Productions with Getty Images are in the process of the restoration.

In 2010, the Society for Nautical Research, the Naval Review, and the Britannia Naval Research Association jointly established the annual Alan Villiers Memorial Lecture at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.