Scale: 1:256. The model was formerly in the collection of the Royal United Services Institute Museum in Whitehall. Not over-embellished, it is detailed to a level entirely commensurate with its small scale. The scale illustrates just how massive these ships were; the fourteen ship’s boats are tiny in comparison with the five huge turrets and their 13.5-inch guns.

Built at Portsmouth Dockyard, ‘Iron Duke’ was laid down January 1912 and completed March 1914, at a cost of £1,945,824. First of its class, three sisters followed suit, ‘Marlborough’, ‘Benbow’ and ‘Emperor of India’. The class was anachronistic in some respects, but modern in others. For example, it was the last group of British battleships to be coal-burning, although ‘Iron Duke’ was also the first British battleship to be armed with anti-aircraft guns when, in 1914, two 12-pounder guns were fitted.

From August 1914 to the beginning of 1917 it was the flagship of the Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe (and then Sir David Beatty). It was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, firing 90 rounds from her big guns but receiving no damage. Reduced to a training ship between the wars the so-called ‘Tin Duck’ served as a depot ship at Scapa Flow in the Second World War. It was sold for scrap in 1946.