Scale: 1:48. An exceptional model of the Chilean torpedo gunboat 'Almirante Simpson' (1896), no less than what one would expect of the modelmaking shop of the shipbuilder Lairds, who designed and built the actual vessel. It comes with a wealth of elaborate detail such as the signalling lamp with an actual glass lens, neat rows of shells, and fine decoration at the bow and stern. The port side davits have been turned out, as though the boats are in the process of being launched, and the starboard torpedo tube has been set in its launch position.

The model is housed in an understated, slim-pillared, late-Victorian display case with acanthus decoration and acorn finials, and mounted on four tall pillar supports. We can also see on the model that the vessel herself had a ram bow, a bow-mounted torpedo tube, a raised forecastle and poop, two masts, and two funnels set very close together.

One of the last of the torpedo gunboats, which had already been superseded by destroyers such as ‘Whiting’, the steel-hulled ‘Almirante Simpson’ was laid down in 1895 and completed a year later. There was one inch steel plating protecting the engine and boiler rooms and, in some respects, she was very similar the Royal Navy’s ‘Dryad’ class. She was 240 feet in length, 858 displacement tons, and her operational speed was 21 knots. She was armed with two 4.7-inch Armstrong quick-firing guns, four 3-pounder guns, and three 18-inch torpedo tubes. She was sold to Ecuador in 1907, renamed ‘Libertador Bolivar’ and remained in that country’s service until 1935.