Scale: 1:96. Full hull model of HMS 'Hood' (1891), a turret ship (battleship).

An example of a 19th-century exhibition model originally displayed in, and possibly made for, the Royal Naval College Museum, Greenwich. There is just enough detail to provide a good idea of the design, layout, and type of armament. For comparison, it is one of a set of three models made of warships of the period – HMS 'Royal Sovereign' (SLR1216) and HMS ‘Centurion’ (SLR1227) being the others – that are stylistically very similar, and obviously made by the same hand. They were all on display together at the Museum, side by side, in the ‘Victory Room‘. The red painted outline detailing on the black upperworks is a curious, though well executed, feature. Much of the model has been poorly repainted, with an unsympathetic choice of colours, at some stage in its life. It has also been re-rigged.

The Naval Defence Act of 1889 authorized the construction of eight first-class battleships and two second-class ones. The ships thus built were the seven sisters of the ‘Royal Sovereign’ class, the ‘Hood’ of closely related design and the smaller ‘Centurion’ and ‘Barfleur’. The ‘Hood’ had exactly the same dimensions and armament as those of the ‘Royal Sovereign’ class but carried her four big 13.5-inch guns in a pair of turrets instead of open barbettes. HMS ‘Hood’ was built at Chatham and launched in 1891. She was sunk as a ’blockship’ at Portland in 1914, a relic of a bygone age in a world of rapidly changing technology.