Model of an Ironclad Monitor

...; Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, September 1868;¹¹HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 19/9/1868 N38. transferred to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-1238

Polychromed block model of an ironclad monitor, the original base is missing.

The model has a vertical stem rising above the deck, a sharp cruiser stern with a round-bladed rudder, a steering wheel on the poop, and two four-blade propellers. On the main deck aft are two triangular deckhouses, and two very narrow ones at the front, allowing for a maximum field of fire for the two guns in the single turret. All deckhouses are connected by gangways. The railing can be folded down on deck when firing. On the first aft deckhouse just behind the turret the vessel has one funnel. Part of the railing has hammock netting. The model has four boats in davits. The sheer is completely flat, the hull is flat-bottomed and painted a metallic copper colour below the waterline. The rigging is reduced to two pole masts. A Cook’s night lifebuoy has been installed at the stern (NG-MC-1081-A).²²J. van der Vliet, ‘De “night life-buoy” van Thomas Cook. Een opmerkelijk reddingstoestel, Scheepshistorie 13 (2012), pp. 120-25.

Two models, one of Stier and one of the identical monitors Heiligerlee and Krokodil, were built by Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and delivered to the commander of Buffel in 1868. Both Heiligerlee (originally named Panter), length 54 metres, and Krokodil, length 54.08 metres, were built by Laird Brothers in 1867-68. Originally they had two 23-cm guns, which were exchanged for a single 28-cm gun in 1886 and 1884 respectively, with one 7.5-cm gun, two 3.7-cm guns and two 3.7-cm revolving guns. Heiligerlee was decommissioned in 1909 and broken up in Amsterdam in 1910; Krokodil was decommissioned in 1900 and sold for breaking up in 1906.³³A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 109.

B.J. Tideman, Memoriaal van de Marine, bevattende opgaven betrekkelijk de afmetingen, constructie, ... van Nederlandsche oorlogsschepen en omtrent enige havens, dokken, sluizen, werven enz., Amsterdam 1876-80, livret H; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1238; S. de H., ‘De eerste Nederlandsche pantserschepen’, Ons Zeewezen 30 (1931), pp. 306-17, 344-50, 382-87, 420-26 and Ons Zeewezen 31 (1932), pp. 4-9, 42-48, pp. 420-26; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 109; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘De introductie van pantserschepen in Nederland’, Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 4 (1985), no. 1, pp. 23-41, pp. 35-37

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Laird Brothers, Model of an Ironclad Monitor, Birkenhead (Merseyside), 1868', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245050