Sheet Music cover; 'Les Petits Matelots, Characteristic Rondo, In which is introduced My Sea Girt Home, Performed by the Band of The Royal Naval Asylum, Greenwich'

A music cover showing a 'divisions ceremony' at the Greenwich Hospital School after 1843, probably on the occasion of a royal visit. The viewpoint is from the Queen's House looking towards the Thames and Greenwich Hospital, past the school drill ship, with her yards manned and flying the Royal Standard at the main: the VIP visitor, possibly one of the royal dukes, is presumably one of the small group on the stern. The School band plays in the foreground, with the boys drawn up flanking the ship in salute. The print shows the safety nets stretched below the manned yards and the flanking walled area then around the ship but later removed. This had been the segregated garden play area for the girls accommodated in the Queen's House after it became part of the Royal Naval Asylum in 1806, but they only continued to be part of the Greenwich Hospital School (with which the Asylum formally merged in 1825) until 1841. The name lingered informally for a long time, however, as indicated by 'The Royal Naval Asylum' erroneously printed on this music cover. The ship shown is that of 1842/3, the first of three which occupied the same spot until the School left Greenwich in 1933, when the last ('Fame') was broken up. She was intended to be called 'Princess Royal' but 'the ship' seems to have been more usual.

Object Details

ID: PAI8017
Collection: Fine art
Type: Print
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Brandard, John; Hanhart, Michael Hanhart, Nicholas
Places: Greenwich Hospital School
Date made: circa 1850
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Sheet: 338 x 233 mm
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