Scale: 1:60. A Navy Board style model of the ‘Royal William’ (1719), a 100-gun, three-decker ship of the line. The model is decked and equipped.

This superb model, unlike SLR0408, depicts the ship as built, and is among those that set the standard for later ship modellers. Typical of the first half of the 18th century, it shows the quality achieved by the model makers in this period. Plank on frame in construction, the ‘Royal William’ demonstrates a high standard of craftsmanship not only in its technical construction but also in the fittings and particularly the decoration. The model shows a particularly elaborate figurehead.

The ‘Royal William’ was an early 18th-century three-decker, one of six first rates in the class of the largest warships. It was 175 feet long, with a 50 feet beam and weighed 1918 tons burden. It was launched at Portsmouth in September 1719. It had a nominal complement of 800 men. It would have carried twenty-eight 32-pound guns on its gun deck, twenty-eight 24-pounders on its middle deck, twenty-eight 12-pounders on its upper deck, along with twelve 6-pounders on its quarterdeck and four on its forecastle.

The ‘Royal William’ was never fitted out for sea as a 100-gunner, however, and its active life began when it was reduced to a second rate of 84 guns in 1756. It saw service during the Seven Years War as part of Hawke’s fleet in 1757 and took part in the expedition to Quebec, and carried home the body of General James Wolfe in 1759. The ‘Royal William’ was reduced to a third rate of 80 guns in 1771. During the American Revolutionary War it was involved in the relief of Gibraltar, before becoming a receiving ship at Portsmouth in 1790 and, from 1801, a guardship at Sheerness. It was broken up in 1813.

The ‘Royal William’s’ longevity is sometimes ascribed to George III’s particular fondness for it. A more likely explanation is that it was constructed from charred winter-felled oak. See also SLR0222 and SLR0408.