Object data
iron, bronze, brass, lead and wood
shell: height 11.3 cm × width 67.3 cm × depth 22.7 cm
box: height 21.5 cm × width 72 cm × depth 32.5 cm
weight 59 kg
W.G. Armstrong & Co
23-cm 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-1286
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
One half of a pointed 23-cm shell, cut lengthwise, in a wooden box.
The shell is 67.3 cm long and has a 227 mm calibre. It has studs for a rifled barrel with six grooves and is hollow for the powder charge; in the nose it has a hole for the fuse. It has shallow indentations in the top for the ammunition crane.
This shell is a Common shell MK IV 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.
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. 66 ff., esp. p. 71; J.H. Haakman, Handboek over de zee-artillerie voor konstabels en matrozen-kanonniers, 4 vols., Nieuwediep, 1871-72, vol. 2, pp. 116 ff., vol. 3, pp. 125, 130; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1286
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'W.G. Armstrong & Co, 23-cm 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.245098
(accessed 24 April 2024 01:15:40).