Scale: 1:64. A contemporary sailor-made full hull model of a paddle steamer (1830), fully rigged and mounted on its original wooden display crutches. The hull has been carved from a solid piece of wood, with the paddle boxes and bulwarks added afterwards, whilst deck fittings include a cutter on davits, wheel and binnacle, and a skylight for the accommodation aft. At this scale, the model represents a vessel measuring 107 feet in length by 24 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 140 gross.

The schooner rig is typical of the early steamships engaged in short sea trades, and the tall funnel ensured an adequate natural draught for the boiler furnaces. Another point of interest is the early depiction of an open bridge, a walkway connecting the two paddle boxes, from which the vessel was conned (steered or piloted) when entering and leaving port. Orders had to be shouted to the helmsman who steered the vessel from aft.

The name ‘Citizen’ has been associated with this model in the past, although it has not been possible to identify it with an actual ship of that name, and it is almost certainly not a man-of-war as they were two-masted. The number of steam vessels over 15 tons, registered in the UK, had risen from only two with a total tonnage of 456 in 1814, to 347 vessels of 37,445 tons in 1831.