Object data
iron, bronze, brass, lead and wood
shell: height 11.3 cm × width 65.8 cm × depth 22.6 cm
box: height 22 cm × width 70.5 cm × depth 32 cm
W.G. Armstrong & Co
23-cm Shrapnel Shell in a Wooden Box
1868
Inscriptions
- inscription, on the lock of the box: John Shaw & Sons / Wolverhampton / Safety patent lever lock.
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-1285
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
One half of a 23-cm pointed shrapnel shell, cut lengthwise, in a wooden box.
The shell is 65.8 cm long and has a 226 mm calibre. It has studs for a rifled barrel with six grooves. The nose is filled with wood and has a fuse hole, and from there a channel to the powder charge in the bottom of the shell; the shrapnel charge, consisting of lead balls with a 24 mm diameter, is situated between the wooden nose and the powder charge and is separated from the powder charge by an iron ring.
This shell is a Boxer Shrapnel Mk II 9-inch RML, which W.G. Armstrong & Co of Newcastle started producing in 1868. It was used for muzzle-loading rifled ordnance. The Dutch Navy used 23-cm Armstrong ordnance from 1867 onwards, but, as far as is known, these particular shells were never used in the Netherlands.
Literature
C. Orde Brown, Ammunition: A Descriptive Treatise on the Different Projectiles, Charges, Fuzes, Rockets etc. at Present in Use for Land and Sea Service and on Other War Stores Manufactured in the Royal Laboratory, 2 vols., London (1870), vol. 2, pp. 75 ff.; J.H. Haakman, Handboek over de zee-artillerie voor konstabels en matrozen-kanonniers, 4 vols., Nieuwediep, 1871-72, vol. 2, pp. 120 ff.; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1285
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'W.G. Armstrong & Co, 23-cm Shrapnel Shell in a Wooden Box, 1868', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245097
(accessed 23 November 2024 19:14:28).