Scale: 1:60. A Navy Board full hull model of the ‘Royal William’ (1719), a 100-gun three-decker ship of the line. The model is decked, equipped and rigged. This model, which is one of three full hull models of this vessel in the NMM collection, is probably a preliminary design as it differs from the completed vessel. It was re-rigged in 1925 in the Royal Naval Museum.

The ‘Royal William’ was an early 18th-century three-decker, one of six first rates in the class of the largest warships. It was 175 feet long, with a 50 feet beam and weighed 1918 tons burden. It was launched at Portsmouth in September 1719. It had a nominal complement of 800 men. It would have carried twenty-eight 32-pound guns on its gun deck, twenty-eight 24-pounders on its middle deck, twenty-eight 12-pounders on its upper deck, along with twelve 6-pounders on its quarterdeck and four on its forecastle.

The ‘Royal William’ was never fitted out for sea as a 100-gunner, however, and its active life began when it was reduced to a second rate of 84 guns in 1756. It saw service during the Seven Years War as part of Hawke’s fleet in 1757 and took part in the expedition to Quebec, and carried home the body of General James Wolfe in 1759. The ‘Royal William’ was reduced to a third rate of 80 guns in 1771. During the American Revolutionary War it was involved in the relief of Gibraltar, before becoming a receiving ship at Portsmouth in 1790 and, from 1801, a guardship at Sheerness. It was broken up in 1813.

The ‘Royal William’s’ longevity is sometimes ascribed to George III’s particular fondness for it. A more likely explanation is that it was constructed from charred winter-felled oak. See also SLR0222 and SLR0409.