Dockyard model.....what's inside?

There's no simple answer to this one, because the standard practice among the modelers (to the extent that there was any standard practice) changed so much over time.  As we established earlier, the frames of most dockyard models aren't literal representations of reality (though they got closer to being scale representations as the decades went by).  The deck beams generally do seem to have been represented more-or-less accurately in terms of dimensions and spacing, as do the carlings and ledges - though, again, they seem to have gotten more literally accurate as time went by.  I think I recall seeing lodging knees on quite a few such models; I'm not sure about hanging knees.

A few years ago the Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis did an interesting exercise with some of the wonderful dockyard models in the Rogers Collection.  One of the curators borrowed a cystoscope from the medical center at Johns Hopkins University.  (I'd prefer not to elaborate on the normal use of the cystosope - having had one use on me several times.)  He shoved the business end of the thing down the hatches of the models and used it to take photos of what was inside.  (The museum sells a video cassette that contains several of those images.)  In several cases the revelations were surprising.  Such things  as capstans, pumps, bitts, etc. were there in all their glory - even if they were invisible to the observer outside the model.  Several maritime museums have used x-ray photographs to find out similar things about their models. 

One category of fitting is (with some notable exceptions) usually absent from dockyard models:  only a handful of them have guns.  And if they do have guns, they're usually on a far lower standard of detail than the rest of the model.

One source that anybody attempting such a model really needs to consult is John Franklin's book, Navy Board Ship Models.  (I may have garbled the title slightly.)  It's the most systematic study of the subject that I've encountered.

Those wonderful old models continue to be a source of fascination and frustration.  Just why they were built the way they were, and why the conventions changed so much over time, probably will never be known.

Bryan:

I am glad I was able to help. I agree with John's general assessment of what is and is not found in those old models. I have a copy of Franklin's book. If you would like me to scan some things for you to get a better idea of some details, email me at rus3466@yahoo.com and I will do so.

At your scale, it is possible to include many things, depending on how much you want to do. I would think the guns would be something that could be left off since you are going for that Navy Board model look. At your scale, I do not know how much you want to get into lodging and hanging knees though. They would be about 5/32" long on each arm, give or take, and about 1/32" thick. The ledges would be very thin as well, probably less than 1/64" square.

Well, let me know if I can help further.

Russ

Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for your replies.

Russ, I've send you an email.

Wow. Didn't realize I'd been away so long. It may be obvious but the Board models (Admiralty models, Dockyard models) typically lacked furniture (anything above the deck; masts, for instance) as the sail and mast plan was fairly standard and the Board needed to easily evaluate the hull construction without having masts, shrouds, etc. in the way.  Indeed one reliable source says the models "never displayed masts or furniture.."  and if they exist on an authentic contemporary model they were added after Board review.  Well, whether you'll add them, then, would depend on whether you'll depict the ship on the way to the Admiralty Board review or at a later stage.  Personally, it sounds like an excellent excuse to legitimately avoid the time-consuming and frustrating process of rigging!

BNest,

Ron

Welcome back, Ron.  I was beginning to wonder if you'd abandoned us. 

I'd be curious to know what source asserts that those models "never displayed masts or furniture."  That simply isn't true.  Most of those that are still around do indeed lack masts (and probably never had them), but a fair number have survived with their original, remarkably detailed spars and rigging intact.  The Naval Academy at Annapolis has a couple of original, early- to mid-eighteenth-century cases that clearly were designed for models with complete top hamper.  And a few years ago that same museum did an interesting study with a cystoscope (borrowed from Johns Hopkins) and x-ray photography, which established that some of those models have furnishings below decks that are completely invisible from outside.

One form of fitting that's quite rare on such models is armament.  Only a few of the surviving models have guns, and if they do exist they're usually quite crude - not up to the standard of the rest of the model.

The truth of the matter seems to be that nobody's quite sure why those wonderful old models were built.  Most modern historians have abandoned the old story that they were intended to show ignorant Admiralty (or Navy Board) members what the ships were going to look like.  The stylized arrangement of the frames in the typical Board Room model is not an accurate reproduction of how a real ship was built.  (Caveat:  as time went on, the typical frame arrangement of the models came to resemble reality more closely, and a few models from fairly late in the eighteenth century obviously are intended to represent the framing arrangement accurately.)  Logically, it just wouldn't make sense to pay somebody (even at the low wages model makers undoubtedly got paid) to spend such a huge amount of time building a model for a purpose that could just as well be served by a drawing or painting - or, for that matter, a simple solid-hull model.  Even if several guys worked on one of those plank-on-frame models full-time, they'd hold up the design and construction process for weeks.  And those magnificently detailed carved decorations would serve no practical purpose whatever - except, conceivably, as an advance model for the guys who were going to carve the real thing (and it seems more likely that they'd work from drawings).  And what would happen if their Lordships chose to reject the design depicted by the model?  English bureaucrats in those days were, if anything, more parsimonious than their modern counterparts; it's extremely unlikely that they'd pay for a huge, detailed model of a ship without having decided whether or not to build the real thing.

The reliable contemporary documentation about the models is tantalizingly sketchy; beyond occasional references to when they were delivered and paid for, they're scarcely ever mentioned in the Admiralty records.  (So far as I know, the minutes of the Navy Board contain no references to a bunch of gentlemen sitting around a table studying a model of a proposed ship.)  We may never know exactly why they were built.  The best guess - which I happen to agree with - seems to be that they were intended for precisely the purpose they are in fact serving:  to maintain a record of how the ships looked for posterity, and at the same time to serve as magnificent decorations.  Samuel Pepys, in his diary, mentions having a couple of them in his house; it's clear from the context that they're there mainly because he likes them.  There's also a handful of letters from George III, at about the time of the American Revolution, in which he enthuses over a series of paintings of Board Room-style models that he's ordered hung in Windsor Castle.  (The paintings in question have survived; they show a set of models of various representative warship types - with no guns and no masts.)

On another subject - I heard last week through the grapevine that the Mariners' Museum has hired a new director - with credentials as an attorney and a university professor, but none in maritime history or museum work.  True?

Afternoon, John.  I'll get a couple of details tomorrow and send the name but I believe it was Mr Woodman who said "never."  It's a term I avoid rigorously!  I also have some info that indicates that the Admiralty Board seemed to mandate models from the designers or shipwrights.  More on that, also.  Now to Mr. Hightower's successor... I'd like to talk one-on-one about his rather early departure (December first) but that's a matter for a later private correspondence.  His successor is none other than Mr Timothy Sullivan, late of William and Mary.  Sullivan's stock is very high roundabouts and I have great hopes for his success in this new world.  Remember the Monitor Center opens next March.  ALSO OF NOTE>>> you lamented the fact in an earlier email that you had labeled Crabtree's brig incorrectly as it is a snow.  Last week I was at the Peabody-Essex (Salem-Peabody or whatever) and took special note of a vessel named Rising States, a privateer from Massachussetts.  You may know it from late 18C. Captured by HMS Terrible in 1777.  The estimable museum calls it a brigantine.  It is clearly a snow and the trysail mast is quite heavy on this model.  Even has footropes on the main yard (cro'jack?).  Thought this would interest you, Doctor.

Best, as ever,

Ron

Is that Harry Woodman, Ron?  If so, I fear he's out of his depth.  He's one of the finest aircraft modelers around, and his twentieth-century warships are beautiful, but I'm not aware that he's ever gotten seriously involved in sailing ship models.  In any case, you're quite right:  "never" is a dangerous word, and certainly wrong in this particular case.

There's no doubt whatever that the Royal Navy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was in the habit of buying ship models.  The question is:  why?  The best, most knowledgeable discussion of the topic I've encountered is in the book Ship Models:  Their Purpose and Development From 1650 to the Present, by Brian Lavery and Simon Stephens (London:  Zwemmer, 1995).  Both authors work at the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich, the former as Curator of Ship Technology and the latter as Curator of the Ship Model Collection.  Here are a few quotes:

pp.11-12:  "It used to be assumed that the superbly constructed 'Navy Board' style models of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries...were used in the design and building of ships.  According to Geoffrey Callender 'once a model of this kind had received the seal of royal approval, nothing more was necessary than to muliply every measurement by sume such figure as 48 or 54; and the result was a Royal Prince or a Sovereign of the Seas exacting from the mirror of the ocean the reflected homage of gilded majesty.'  The impression has been reinforced by the well-known model in the Science Museum showing Charles II and the Admiralty Board inspecting a model of a three-decker, and by John Seymour Lucas's painting A New Whip for the Dutch showing the Navy Board engaged in a similar activity.  But these are products of modern imagination....[Point of clarification:  the Admiralty Board was in charge of such things as officer promotions and the movements of the fleet; the Navy Board was in charge of materiel, including ships.]

"...we must ask how long the models might have taken to build and whether they would really be useful at a time when layout and features were standard.  In both 1677 and 1706 no radical changes were proposed, beyond a small increase in breadth, compeared with shps already built.  A Navy Board model would be an expensive, slow and ineffective way of making this point.  Such a model probably took several years to make and no-one could afford to wait as long as that before beginning the ship.  Despite Pepys's extensive records of discussions on the 1677 ships no mention of models has been found, nor is there any in connection with the 1706 establishment of dimensions.

"It has also been suggested that a model would have been made at the same pace as the shiop itsef, allowing officials to inspect the model and make plans for the next stage.  This is an interesting theory and it might explain why there is so much internal detail in some models, but otherwise no evidence has been discovered so far...."

p. 13:  "It is not always easy to establish why models were made, particularly in the case of  'Navy Board' models.  If we discount the theory that they were made for consideration of the design, we are left with the conclusion that they were largely decorative.  Indeed, it is necessary to consider whether they were made for the Navy Board at all.  In 1848 the Somerset House collection, assembled partly from the models that must have filled cupboards or decorated offices in the Admiralty or Navy Board, contained only three true Navy Board models.  There is evidence that some Navy Board models were commissioned for presentation to captains or were made as semi-private ventures by shipbuilders.  Many found their way into the private colelcgtions of retired politicians and officials, such as Pepys, Sergison and the Earl of Pembroke, but there is no proof that they were commissioned by the Navy itself...."

pp. 94-95:  "By an order of June 1716, when a ship was taken in hand for building or rebulding the Master Shipwright was to send a plan and 'a solid or model, shaped exactly by the same, with the load waterline, the height of the decks and wales, the channels, ports, galleries, &c. marked thereon.'  The use of the term 'marked' implies a block model with details painted on rather than a Navy Board model where these features were actually constructed." 

The book contains some photos of such models - which apparently are fairly common, though rarely exhibited in museums.  (I suspect the reason is that they're just not very attractive.)  They're extremely basic - sometimes downright primitive.  Sometimes, oddly enough, their solid hulls are painted with vertical black stripes to represent the stylized framing of the Navy Board models from earlier generations.  (The authors explain that they use the term "Navy Board model" because it's in such common use; they aren't convinced that the models actually had much, if anything, to do with the Navy Board.)

I think Lavery and Stephens may have overstated their case just a bit when they emphasized how long it took to build a Navy Board model.  If several people were working on it simultaneously, and working full-time, I suspect they could finish it in a matter of months - especially if it wasn't rigged.  But I think the authors' basic point is sound:  the idea of those old models being used as "previews" of real ships for the benefit of semi-literate bureaucrats is a myth.  (That quotation from Callender, to the effect that the shipwrights built the real ships by scaling up components of a model, is ridiculous.  That system just plain wouldn't work.) 

I wish the MM's new director the best of luck.  I was a bit surprised that anybody would think a lawyer/academic was an appropriate person to run such a place, but I guess I'm the only one who thinks maritime historians ought to run maritime museums.  I will of course reserve judgment until Mr. Sullivan has time to make his imprint on the place.  For the moment I continue to avoid the premises.  The bad associations may go away some day, but not yet.

Sounds like the Peabody-Essex Museum has gotten careless with its labels.  One of my students did her term paper about that institution a few years ago.  It's a great museum, but I have the impression that in recent years it's been emphasizing its art and anthropological collections, to the detriment, at least to some extent, of the maritime history section.  That's most unfortunate.  But the maritime collection there is still one of the best in the U.S.

The goof in the "Lexington" label was entirely my fault and there was no good excuse for it.  I was so happy that the higher ups were letting me take the name "Lexington" off the model that I rushed through the label copy and sent it off to be printed (or, in this case, engraved) without bothering to go out to the gallery and take a careful look at the model.  I hope the museum sees fit to fix the mistake. 

Morning, John.  The author I refer to is Richard Woodman, a notable maritime historian from the U.K. but it might not be him.  While I can picture the word "never" and the page it is on I can't recall the book or author so I'm continuing my search by trial-and-error.  Note, I don't hold to this "never", simply quoted it as one researcher's viewpoint.  A source more recent, The Model Ship, Her Role in History, by Norman Napier Boyd, a descendant of the Napier engine folks of Clydeside, copyright 2000, says "It was rare for Navy Board models to have rigging from the start, and some were rigged later."  He also quotes Phineas Pett's writing about his building the "...curious model for the Prince my master, most part whereof I wrought with my own hands..." and continues the evolution of Board models to 1649 when "...the Admiralty Committee issued an order that all Admiralty ship designs were to be submitted with an accompanying model."  Absent true and clear contemporary documentation, we rely on opinions and conjecture and interpolation.  I would sooner respect your opinion than the current writings of a lot of authors but I like the idea of the presentation of a three dimensional model to explain the niceties of a proposed capital ship's design so I'm kind of holding on to that.  You mentioned the Rogers collection; I was privileged to spend about an hour in the gallery a couple of years ago with Scott Harmon.  It was one of the most educational and interesting gallery tours I've enjoyed.  One of the models had a hammer hanging from a peg in the maintop with which to drive home the fid to secure the topmast!  I would certainly have missed that without Dr Harmon along.   As to the 19th century brig formerly known as Lexington, I was closely involved with developing the new label copy for the exhibit which re-opened in May and I believe I took care of that; but I still hold that "brig" was okay, "snow" being somewhat more okay.  You and I probably agree that the last "appropriate" president of Mariners' was the Naval Officer from over twenty years back, I can't recall his name.  I believe the museum is looking at strength in capital campaign solicitation now and, in that respect, Tim Sullivan is an ideal choice.  Now, if we could acquire a deputy director with just a modicum of experience with the sea.............

Best,

Ron   

Ron,

The only Richard Woodman I know about is a novelist - though he may have done some non-fiction work as well.  I can't comment on anything he's written beyond that.

I don't disagree with the first quote from Mr. Boyd; Lavery and Stephenson use similar language about the rarity of rigged "Navy Board" models, and it certainly is possible - even likely - that some of those that currently have spars and rigging got them long after - well, after the models performed whatever function they were supposed to perform.  I have big reservations about the Boyd book in general though.  It is in fact the second one he's written on the history of ship models.  The first, which I reviewed for the American Neptune quite a few years back, was, to put it bluntly, utter junk.  The newer, larger one, which you quoted, is much, much better; the author obviously learned a great deal in the intervening years.  But he comes at the subject from the standpoint of a collector, not an historian (or, so far as I can tell, a modeler).  He seems to have swallowed the old image of the Admiralty Board studying models before ships were built, on the basis of the usual secondary sources that Lavery and Stephens (accurately, in my opinion) describe as "products of modern imagination."  I don't suggest that everything in Mr. Boyd's book is wrong; I do suggest that anything questionable in it should be viewed with skepticism unless it can be confirmed elsewhere.

His quote about an Admiralty order in 1649 is suspiciously similar to the one Lavery and Stephens cite - but they give the date 1716 for it.  It's hard for me to believe that they would have missed such a key document, if indeed such a thing was written in 1649.  (The term "the Admiralty Committee" looks like sloppy terminology; the correct term is "Admiralty Board," short for "Board of Commissioners for Executing the Office of the Lord High Admiral" - and it's highly unlikely that it had anything to do with ship models.  That was Navy Board business.)  In any case, the quote doesn't really establish anything about the actual use of such models; just that they existed.  There's obviously no doubt about that.

The strongest argument Lavery and Stephens advance is the simple lack of evidence to support the old theory about the use of those models.  I've never read the minutes of the Navy Board, but I did have to go through the minutes of the Admiralty Board for every day between 1774 and 1783.   Those people were obsessed with keeping thorough records.  Those documents, now in the Public Record Office at Kew, are a gold mine of trivia - from the medical complaints of officers asking for transfers, to the quantities of foodstuffs each ship in the fleet had in her hold on a given date, to the names of midshipmen who (gawd help them) had misplaced their journals.  I'm pretty sure the earlier documents and correspondence of the Navy Board are just about as thorough.  If discussions of ship models prior to the approval of designs had been part of the Navy Board's, or the Admiralty's, routine - and if Charles II had actually come down to study a model of a proposed ship of the line - the records surely would show it.  And they don't.

There's room in the literature for a good, well-researched, generalized study of the history of ship models.  Quite a few "picture-book-type" works on the subject have appeared over the years, but on close examination their texts turn out to be pretty thin and poorly researched.  The Lavery/Stephens book comes closest of anything currently available to being a genuine work of scholarship on the history of the ship model, but it's mighty Anglo-centric in its focus.  It's best regarded, I think, as a book about the collection in the National Maritime Museum, with some additional, generalized comments about models that happen to be elsewhere.  Chapter 8, entitled "Other Collections of Models," occupies seven of the book's 256 pages.  It devotes one paragraph to models in the U.S. - including "an interesting American style...to be found in the models made by Augustus Crabtree in the Mariners' Museum at Newport News, Virginia."  (Note the failure to acknowledge that the MM has any other models that are worth looking at.)  And on p.56 is a photo of "The Ship Models Gallery at the U.S. Naval College [aaarrrggghhh], Annapolis."  I certainly wouldn't promote that book as a definitive study of the ship model.  But when it comes to such things as the actual use of Navy Board models, I think Lavery and Stephens are to be trusted.  They're certainly the best we've got.

Maybe describing the ex-"Lexington" (we called it the "Exington") as a brig rather than a snow isn't a major sin, in the grand scheme of things.  I honestly don't remember exactly what verbiage I used on the label for the model.  My bigger flub was the caption in the book on the Crabtree models, in which I spent a paragraph explaining exactly what a brig was - including an emphatic statement that its gaff and boom were secured directly to the mainmast.  That caption appeared, of course, right beside Ray Foster's glorious color photo of the model, with its snow mast in plain view.  Oh, well....

Mr. Sullivan certainly has my best wishes.  Maybe in the next few years we'll see some changes in the policies that, by my definition, have seriously damaged the MM's reputation in the maritime museum profession. 

Morning, John.  Here's the source for the "never" quote.  It's not the verbatim but my notes indicate that the quote I cited was lifted from this source.  James Dodds and James Moore wrote Building the Wooden Fighting Ship in 1984.  While their credentials may not be as solid as, for instance, Messrs. Chapelle, Landstrom, Villiers, they did very thorough research in this book (for the time, twenty-two years ago), even so far as printing a quarterly pay list from Woolwich in March 1759 which reveals that the rat killer, John Edwards, received one pound per quarter!  In any event, the quote is on page 54: "Builder's models were never rigged at the time they were made, there being standard rigs for each rate."  We have agreed that the term "never" is absolute and to be viewed with suspicion and, in this case is short of truth.  The book, however, is a great read and is one of my favorites.  It is well documented and filled with contemporary lists and schedules as well as drawings and plans. 

Bryan, I hope we haven't gone too far afield here.  You mentioned Kensington and I wonder if you've seen the wonderful examples of models displayed there and Trinity House (I have not seen them "live".)  These, and others in similar museums and institutions, are without doubt the best sources of info to rely upon in your project.  Befriending a curator is also valuable!

Best,

Ron   

I've got the Dodds and Moore book; it's an excellent one.  That word "never" clearly is a mistake.  But it's a minor one; I certainly wouldn't condemn the book on the basis of it. 

Dodds and Moore concentrated on a relatively late period in the history of the "Navy Board model."  I don't have any numbers regarding this point, but I have the general impression that the number of rigged "Navy Board models with masts and rigging - never a high percentage - got even lower as the years went by.  Rigged models from the period D&M are talking about probably were more scarce than those from a hundred years earlier.  (Caveat:  I don't know that for sure.  But it seems like the majority of the rigged ones come from the late seventeenth and very early eighteenth centuries.) 

In any case, that word "never" just doesn't apply in this context. 

I sure wish somebody would write a definitive, scholarly study that would lay all these issues about "Navy Board models" to rest.  Mr. Franklin's book on the subject is excellent as far as it goes, but it stops a little short of answering some big questions.  Maybe we should accept that some, at least, of those questions simply can't be answered.

Ron Mariner wrote:

Bryan, I hope we haven't gone too far afield here.  You mentioned Kensington and I wonder if you've seen the wonderful examples of models displayed there and Trinity House (I have not seen them "live").

Oh no, please continue. That's the nice thing about these kind of threads; they evolve.

Unfortunately I haven't visited either of the museums you mentioned. Some day I will however.

regards,

I have the impression that the Trinity House ship model collection is no longer there.  (It's not mentioned in the Lavery and Stephens book, which gives pretty thorough coverage to ship model collections in the UK.)  I may be mistaken about that, though; perhaps a British member of the Forum can correct me. 

Bryan - some time back you made me drool a bit by attempting to entice me on a Baltic cruise, so I'll return the favor.  If you're ever in the position to do some ship-model-related travel, and can make it to the United States, don't miss the Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis.  It contains the Rogers Collection, arguably the second best collection of "Navy Board" models in the world (after Greenwich).  I don't know what the actual count is, but I suspect Annapolis may have more "Navy Board" models than the Science Museum in South Kensington does.  A few years ago the Naval Academy built a new, state-of-the-art gallery especially to accommodate the Rogers models.  When a ship modeler gets into that room, it's difficult to get him out.  (My wife will confirm that statement.)  And next door is the U.S. Naval Institute Press bookstore, where you can easily spend so much money that you won't have enough left to get home.

Contrary to what's implied in the Lavery and Stephens book, there are quite a few fine American destinations for traveling ship model enthusiasts.  Others that I'd put on a short list would include Mystic Seaport (in Connecticut), the San Diego Maritime Museum, the Navy Museum in Washington, and the Smithsonian.  (Potential travelers should be warned about the latter, though:  the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian building where the ship models are exhibited, is currently closed for a massive renovation that's scheduled to take several years.)  And my former employer, the Mariners' Museum (Newport News, Virginia), has one of the world's largest and best ship model collections.  It goes far beyond the Crabtree gallery.

John, thanks for the plug!  Bryan, the Rogers collection is the one I referred to earlier.  Dr J Scott Harmon is the curator of that museum and is very generous with his time.  If you do happen to be in the area of The Mariners' Museum in Virginia, let me know in advance.  As Dr. Tilley said, the collection of models is overwhelming but about 90% of them are now behind the walls. They are periodically rotated in and out of changing exhibits, but not nearly often enough.  I'd be more then happy to show them to you.  McNarry and McCaffery are represented as well as some unknowns and some long-deceased.  Dr. Tilley, incidentally, was responsible for this magnificent collection for some years and, without doubt, knows it from stem to stern.

Best,

Ron

Ron and prof. Tilley, thank you for your invitations and recommendations. Visiting the United States is certainly on my wish list. It will however most likely not happen in the foreseeable future.

When I do make it over there I will indeed focus on the east coast, New York, Washington D.C. and Boston in particular. It must be awesome to see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, the USS Constitution, The White House, the Capitol, the Washington Monument or the Pentagon for real after seeing them soo many times on TV.

Visiting the museums you mentioned would off course be part of the trip but I’m afraid there are so many other things worth while seeing that it would probably take quite a few weeks to get a good impression of America. The bad image the US has among many Europeans is mainly because of its politics, not its people. You are indeed a great nation.