This achromatic telescope has a leather-covered barrel and silvered-brass fittings, including a single draw tube, a pivoted eyepiece cover, a sliding sun shade and an objective lens cap. It is typical of the type of telescope used for making general observations on board ship, but appears also to have been used as a gun-sighting telescope for a 4.7-inch gun.

The maker’s name is inscribed on the draw tube as is the name of the original owner, J.S. Wilde R.N. There is a third faint inscription on the draw tube that may be for Callaghan & Co., 23 Bond Street. An inscription on the sliding sun shade reads: ‘H.M.S. "TERRIBLE" NAVAL BRIGADE SOUTH AFRICA 1899-1900 N.o 1. 4-7 GUNSIGHT COLENSO SPION KOP VAAL KRANTZ TUGELA HEIGHTS RELIEF OF LADYSMITH LAINGS NEK’. HMS ‘Terrible’ was a cruiser launched in 1895. With her sister ship, HMS ‘Powerful’, she landed naval brigades in South Africa to assist in the Relief of Ladysmith during the Boer War. She was employed as a troopship during World War I and then as an accommodation ship until 1920, when she became the training ship ‘Fisgard III’.