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1884.54.44

Model of an 18th century Fourth Rate 52 gun Royal Navy warship on a pull out launch slipway, possibly made by George Stockwell. [ZM 7/4/2017]

1884.54.44

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

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Collection type
Object
Description
Model of an 18th century Fourth Rate 52 gun Royal Navy warship on a pull out launch slipway, possibly made by George Stockwell. [ZM 7/4/2017]
Cultural groups
English
Date / Period
Date made: Circa 1840?, uncertain
Date collected
?Prior to 1875
Acquisition information
Donated: 1884
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Process Carved
Dimensions
Length: max 1140 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1884.54.44 PR Cat other PR nos: 2360 PR no.: Ag 2913
Research and responses

This was one of the ship models Phil Johnson examined in November 1939. In his typed 'Report on the Ship Models of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, and their Restoration' Johnson lists this particular model as: '(7) Model of fourth-rate on launching ways.' At the end of the report Johnson notes he did not have an opportunity to do any restoration work on this model. (See the related documents file for 1884.54.44 for the full report Phil Johnson sent to the Museum's Curator T.K. Penniman and his estimate dated 13 January 1940 for the cost of further restoration work.) [ZM 7/4/2017]

In July 1987 Richard Toporoski from the University of Toronto, Canada, noted, although this ship model is dated 1740 at launching (information included on the old display label) the Union flags are post 1801 and the royal banner on the model is that of 1801-1815 (see related documents file for the old display label and Toporoski's notes). [ZM 7/4/2017]

In the related documents file there is correspondence spanning 1992 to 1995 discussing the ships this model might be of and whether or not it was made by George Stockwell (this includes a folder with background information about George Stockwell, a shipwright at Sheerness Dockyard from 1751 to 1804, who died in 1841). [ZM 7/4/2017]

Associated publications
Published in detail with six black and white photographs (plates 120-125) and one line drawing (figure 110) as '24. Fourth Rate of 52 guns c1740' on pages 165-8 of Navy Board Ship Models, 1650-1750, by John Franklin (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1989) (photocopy of relevant pages in RDF). The author believes that the model agrees in dimensions, guns, ports, details and general appearance with the existing draughts of the Portland class Fourth Rates built between 1770 and 1790. One of these was the Leopard 1790 and judging by the number of leopards on this model this is almost certainly a model of that ship. (Details of the Leopard are then given.) Scale of model 1 to 48. The author states that the model may have been built in Portsmouth in the early 1770s or before. If this is so the flags are anachronistic as they date after 1801. [JC 10 12 2010]

Search terms: Navigation, Model, Boat

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