Model of a Gunboat

...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-1276

Polychromed block model of a ‘Staunch’ type gunboat, mounted on a rectangular wooden base.

A flat-bottomed vessel with a rather prominent keel and two bilge keels. It has a vertical stem, an elliptical stern, a rudder with rounded blade and two four-blade propellers. The main deck is surrounded by a closed railing, separating it from the beakhead platform, on which two davits are set. On the main deck, from aft to forward, is a steering wheel, a binnacle, a small companionway, a skylight, a pole mast (cut off), two parallel deckhouses with a skylight, a ventilation shaft and a funnel, a large companionway in between and a capstan. At the bow is a covered gun emplacement. Against the railing there are several lockers and two shot garlands. To starboard a boat is hung in davits. The roof over the gun emplacement can be taken off, revealing a gun in a Moncrieff gun cradle.

W.G. Armstrong & Co of Newcastle developed its own type of gunboats for inland defence purposes, called ‘Staunch’. The Dutch Navy ordered two of them between 1870 and 1871: Ever (1873), 25.9 metres long, and Hydra (1873), 25.88 metres long,¹¹A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 118. which were equipped with a prototype gun position, an adaptation of the Moncrieff gun cradle (NG-MC-1265), originally designed for use on land.

In reclined position, the gun was supposed to have less negative effect on the stability of the gunboat, but this proved to be untrue. The hydraulic and pneumatic operating system was considered dangerous and was soon removed. The ship’s design was a success, however, and all subsequently built gunboats 2nd class were of the same design, and also the 1st class ones type ‘Wodan’, which were 7.5% larger, however: all these were built by Dutch firms.

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 I; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1276; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 118; I. McNeil, Hydraulic Power, London 1972; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘Stoomkanonneerboot type “Staunch”’, Spiegel Historiael 27 (1992), no. 2, pp. 85-86; A. Preston and J. Major, Send a Gunboat: The Victorian Navy and Supremacy at Sea 1854–1904, London 2007 (rev. ed.)

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'W.G. Armstrong & Co, Model of a Gunboat, Newcastle upon Tyne, c. 1870 - c. 1871', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245088