PRISONER OF WAR MODELS
During the period 1775-1825 as many as 122,000 prisoners of war spent varying periods of time in British prisons. In general, the prisoners were kept in the dreaded Hulks, in prisons ashore (some of them especially built for prisoners of war) and, among the higher ranks, parolees who enjoyed relative freedom to move about during the day. A great many nationalities were represented in the prison populations but the greatest number of prisoners were French. Since the French met their military manpower needs with universal conscription, the prisoners of war had a wide variety of backgrounds and skills. Faced with years of confinement and boredom, it was natural that hobbies and crafts should be pursued as a pastime and a source of funds.
Ship models were only a small part of a much larger genre of handicrafts produced in the British prisons during the Napoleonic wars. However, for the purposes of the Maritime Museum, they can be conveniently classified as a separate family of prisoner-of-war artifacts. The models were generally made of bone or wood or a combination of the two. As the production of, and the market for, the models increased and became more institutionalized, an increasing variety of materials, such as baleen, thread and even tools were brought in from the outside. Even fine pieces of wood were brought to specific prisoners to be fashioned into a special project.
In general, the models were small, usually thirty to forty inches long, although the sized ranged from two inches to seven feet. The models were built without benefit of drawings; generally guided by the modeler’s memory or imagination. This frequently led to technical errors in detail in the case of specific ships, mainly in the direction of over-rigging and over-decoration.
In spite of popular opinion, these models are rare but the quality varies widely and, like all examples of skill and craftsmanship, excellent quality models are rare.
Our collection is the second largest in the United States. Annapolis has a collection of over 50 models.
References:
- R.W. Cunningham Prisoner of War Models, VCMM Training Report,
January 31, 1992
- Freeston, E.G. Prisoner of War Models, “Prisoner of War Models, 1775-1825” U.S. Naval Institute,