This item comprises a damaged bronze or copper sculptural 'flagstaff' (of folded sheet metal) and a bag of fragments from the top of the monument to Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Boulden Thompson (1766?-1828), which stands just outside the NMM west railings in the grounds of Devonport House (the former Greenwich Hospital burial ground). Thompson is buried in the adjacent Mausoleum. The staff, set on the top into a fallen flag carved in stone, blew off in a winter storm in the 1980s or early 1990s when DH was still a semi-abandoned nurses' home. We retrieved it and the related bits for safekeeping against any future restoration work, though probably as a pattern rather than for direct replacement given its condition. The monument is technically the property of Greenwich Hospital but there is probably no other record covering the fact NMM is holding this item, which it does solely for the eventuality outlined here. [PvdM 3/07]