Scale: 1:96. Full hull model of HMS 'Centurion' (1892), a second-class 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 ‘Hood’ (SLR1219) and HMS 'Royal Sovereign' (SLR1216) 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’. These two second-class battleships were similar to their larger, first-class sisters in design but smaller, faster, and less heavily armed and armoured, sporting four 10-inch guns and ten 4.7-inch guns. Their barbettes had armoured hoods more-or-less equivalent to flat-sided turrets, though comparatively thin. Although considerably rebuilt in 1903, HMS ‘Centurion’ was not in service for long. Built at Portsmouth dockyard, and launched in 1892, she was sold in 1910 – a relic of a bygone age in a world of rapidly changing technology.