Scale: 1:48. A contemporary builder’s full hull model of the scout cruiser HMS ‘Forward’ (1904), mounted in its original glazed display case. It is complete with the original builder’s plaque which says the model represents both the ‘Forward’ and ‘Foresight’, although the name on the model itself is ‘Forward’. As is the style and quality of such builder’s models, the deck is complete with numerous fittings including the a full set of boats rigged to davits, the open bridge complete various navigational equipment including a weatherproof chart table, and semaphore signal equipment at the top of the mast.

The ‘Forward’ was one of four pairs of scouts ordered to a general design by the navy, the interpretation of which was largely left up to the individual shipbuilders. She was built by Fairfield on the river Clyde, Scotland, and measured 379 feet in length by 39 feet in the beam and had a displacement of 2860 tons. Her main armament consisted of ten 12-pounder and eight 3-pounder quick-firing guns, and two 18-inch torpedo tubes. The main propulsion was provided by two TE engines, capable of producing a top speed of 25 knots.

The role of these scout cruisers was to work in company with destroyers as scouts, lead torpedo attacks and to back up their flotillas when attacked by enemy destroyers. Her brief career was spent with both the destroyer and light cruiser flotillas off of the Shetland Islands, the Humber, the Mediterranean in 1915, and the Aegean in 1916. She was eventually sold for scrap in 1921.

Unfortunately, these scouts shared a common deficiency of poor endurance within the other group of scouts, as they were designed at a time when it was envisaged that destroyer operations would be much closer to their base, which turned out not be the case.