Scale: not calculated. SS ‘St Lawrence’ (1910) was built to the orders of the Admiralty and owned by them, and this superb model was, in fact, given to the NMM by the Admiralty Works Department. The ship was built by William Simons & Co., of Renfrew, Scotland, and launched on 6 September, 1910. A cutter dredger, she was 2121 gross registered tons, 280 feet in length, and could dredge 1800 tons an hour at a depth of up to 65 feet.

Dredgers are self-propelled vessels, fitted with mechanical means for deepening harbours or river estuaries by excavating and removing part of the river bottom or seabed. The commonest form of dredger is fitted with an endless chain of buckets that scoop up the silt of the area being dredged and discharging the contents into lighters or hoppers secured alongside. However the type depicted here is a suction dredger that cuts a channel in the bed and sucks up the silt, by means of a vacuum pipe. This process is used when the area to be dredged is soft silt or mud.

The dredging equipment has been fitted into the ‘St Lawrence’s’ forward end, in a well, and its angle of operation controlled from a large derrick that overhangs the bow. The two-tier flying bridge enabled the crew to monitor the silt discharging into lighters moored alongside and we can see the discharge pipes amidships. The model retains its distinctive display case of black-painted wood, with gold-painted decoration, surmounted by a pair of carved swan’s-neck cornices.