Winchester College possesses the Napoleonic ship model below. Watch this short video to learn about the object. Beneath the video I give a more complete description of it, an account of how it would have been made, and its provenance.
The above ship model was made during the Napoleonic Wars, and can be viewed in the Treasury at Winchester College. It was gifted to the College at the beginning of the 20th century. It was made by prisoners of war in Southampton Harbour from bone.
The model is not of any specific ship, and is a melting pot of both French and British design features. Lifeboats would not have been found on ships of this period, particularly naval ones. The boats hanging in the rigging of this model are purely fictional, although the boat beneath them might have been used by the captain as a tender to get ashore. The gun ports are spring-loaded and are operated by pulling the cord at the stern, the back of the ship. The model is 90 centimetres long, 70 centimetres high, and 30 centimetres wide.
French sailors were been provided with a daily ration of half a pound of beef or mutton on the bone by the British, if they were captured during the Napoleonic Wars. In order to earn money, and to soothe their boredom, the prisoners often used the bones to make objects to sell, including models of naval vessels such as this one. The model was probably made on a prison ship in Southampton Harbour towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
The ship model originally belonged to William Finch (1784-1827), a naval officer. It was inherited by his great nephew, the Revd Robert Finch (1829-1910), a Wykehamist in the 1840s, in whose memory it was gifted to Winchester College.
Winchester College Collections: winchestercollections.co.uk/collection/napoleonic-ship-model
Winchester College Treasury: treasury.winchestercollege.org
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