Voyages of discovery at London’s National Maritime Museum
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to London
Scale models, smaller or larger representations of real-world objects, perform many roles, decorative and functional, and I’ve always been fascinated by them.
The National Maritime Museum in London might be the ideal place to indulge this fascination. Among its more than 2.5mn items, including maps, manuscripts and navigational instruments, is a treasure trove of scale models telling the story of Britain at sea. Below I’ve illustrated some of the most captivating displays on each floor of the Greenwich-based institution.
To start: a confession. Until recently, my interest in scale models hadn’t stretched to an ability to build them very well. Many ham-fisted attempts have ended with amateurish and disappointing facsimiles of aircraft, ships and cars. However, the introduction of 3D modelling in the FT’s visuals department has changed that, so I’ve added a model I made myself — an animation of the inner workings of an engine to the below illustration of Miss Britain III, Hubert Scott-Paine’s gleaming speedboat. In 1933, this vessel was the first single-engined boat to pass 100mph on salt water. It’s on show, along with other large exhibits such as Prince Frederick’s gorgeous 1732 royal barge and an engine from the 1907 paddle tug Reliant in the striking enclosed courtyard around which the museum’s galleries are arranged, called The Square.
A circuit around The Square also takes in the Maritime London gallery telling the story of the trade, industry and ceremony linking the city to the river Thames. Models of Thames-built Portuguese, Russian and Spanish warships point to the global trading route, and a model Thames barge — one of thousands that were once the river’s workhorses — suggests its scale.
The Voyagers gallery houses an introduction to the museum’s diverse collection, arranged thematically. For instance, a set of draughtsman’s curves (tools beloved by technical artists like me) illustrate ship design, while firearms and swords represent conflict, and sextants and other instruments highlight scientific aids for sailors.
One floor up is Sea Things, an engaging mix of objects that makes one consider our connections to the water. A particularly varied display of models rubs shoulders with items like divers’ equipment and a boatswain’s whistle. Particularly inspiring to me was the system that, in 2020, allowed sailor Natasha Lambert, who has cerebral palsy, to cross the Atlantic, controlling her boat’s sails by sipping and puffing on a straw.
Next door, in Pacific Encounters, the displays reflect both the ocean’s indigenous peoples and its exploration by Europeans from the 16th century onwards. Mutiny on the Bounty is a favourite film of mine and there’s a fine model of the ship, but, in my opinion, it’s outshone by the indigenous stick chart, the most elegant navigational chart I’ve ever seen.
After crossing from the East Wing to the West, you’ll reach Traders, which focuses on European trade in the Indian Ocean and is dominated by the extraordinary story of the East India Company. Formed in 1600 to trade with Asia, within two hundred years it had become a giant multinational with a huge army twice the size of Britain’s, control over much of India and rich returns for investors. However, the dark side of its success is not overlooked and items also highlight conflict, corruption, brutal rule and trade in slaves and opium.
As European Atlantic crossings increased from the late 15th century, conquest, colonisation and commerce followed. The horrors of the slave trade — the abduction of millions from Africa as forced labour for the new colonies — and the whaling industry are looked at in the Atlantic Worlds gallery, as well as the movement of millions of migrants from Europe to the new world.
Up another floor in the Tudor and Stuart Seafarers gallery, visitors will see improved seamanship in the form of better ships (with some particularly lovely galleon models as illustrations), maps and navigation instruments, and how they enabled longer, more adventurous sea voyages — many of which were lucrative. Francis Drake arrived back from his 1577 circumnavigation of the world with so much loot that Elizabeth I was able to pay off the national debt with her share.
The stories of difficult sea voyages are told throughout the museum, but the examples in the Polar Worlds gallery seemed particularly gruelling to me, especially that of Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew, who were marooned on ice floes in the Antarctic for six months in 1915 after their ship became trapped in ice and slowly crushed. They eventually reached Elephant Island and ultimately South Georgia island, 1,300km away, by lifeboat. Amazingly, everyone survived. A chair that Shackleton slumped into on South Georgia is on show at the museum, as is a wedding dress made from a tent that the bride, Julie Baum, wore at the first Antarctic wedding in 2017, plus a penguin caught by Captain Scott.
I think the first world war at sea tends to be overshadowed by the horrors of the Western Front, and the next gallery, Forgotten Fighters, sheds some light on it. Individual stories add personal and moving touches and the impetus to technology is striking. Models of a K-class submarine, the minesweeper HMS Ludlow, the battleship HMS Iron Duke and a sleek torpedo boat illustrate the lethal advances in weaponry for which the war was a catalyst.
Finally: Nelson, Navy, Nation, which explores maritime warfare from a century earlier as well as paying tribute to Britain’s greatest naval hero. Horatio Nelson was a clever, daring and inspirational admiral whose stellar career culminated in a decisive 1805 defeat of a Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, though it cost him his life. Splendid artefacts illustrate just how much the British adored and revered him. However, warfare in Nelson’s navy was a brutal and bloody business. Many of the items on display, including a gruesome surgeon’s trephination kit, a punishment lash and the combined fork and knife made for Nelson after he lost an arm, all show how it wasn’t a life for the faint-hearted.
If this has inspired you to go and have a look at the models yourself, don’t forget to admire their details: a miniature seaplane on a battleship, tiny scale figures working in rigging, perfectly recreated figureheads. These features are what makes them so extraordinary and are a testament to the skilled hands that created them. rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum
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