Object data
wood, brass, iron, rope and flint
height 46.5 cm × width 37.6 cm × depth 22.5 cm
anonymous
Model of a Life Buoy
United Kingdom, United Kingdom, 1820
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-852
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Model of a life-saving apparatus, mounted on a backboard representing an inclined ship’s side.
The buoy consists of two floats connected by a beam, with a vertical round pole in the middle. It is held against the side by two guide poles going through the beam and secured with a chain; the chain can be released by means of a catch, for which a lanyard goes through the side, and the buoy will fall from the guides and float free. The pole has a flat brass pan or flare on top. Before launching, this light is lit by means of a flintlock mounted against the inclined side and encased in a brass container, with a lanyard going through a couple of sheaves and through the side. The pan cover, which protects the flare from getting wet, is fixed to the side and will stay behind after launching. An extension is fitted at the lower end of the pole, which will push out once the buoy is released.
Lieutenant Thomas Cook did not patent his buoy, conforming to the rules of the Society of Arts to which he first presented his invention.1 He was awarded a golden ring by the Dutch government for his invention in 1819. This model was presented to the Dutch Navy by the British Admiralty.2
At least five Dutch ships are known to have carried Cook’s life-saving buoy, the frigates Rupel (1818-43) and Bellona (1819-50), the sloops of war Pallas (1822), Arend (1818-?) and Triton (1822-47). All Cook’s life-saving buoys were removed from Dutch ships in 1843, because they were never used. However, the British made model of the monitors Heiligerlee and Krokodil from 1868 does show a night life buoy fixed to the stern (NG-MC-1238).3
Scale unknown.
Literature
Transactions of the Society of Arts, Agriculture etc., 36 (1818), pp. 121-25; J.C. Rijk, Generaal Rapport Z.M. Pallas, s.l. 1825, manuscript with 6 appendices in HSM, inv. no. NII (03144); B. zu Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenbach, Reise des Herzogs Bernhard zu Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach durch Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1825 und 1826, Weimar 1828, p. 16; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 852; H. Goethe and C. Laban, Die individuellen Rettungsmittel, Herford 1988, pp. 14, 161-63, 196-99; A.A. Lemmers, Techniek op schaal. Modellen en het technologiebeleid van de Marine 1725-1885, Amsterdam 1996, pp. 203-06; A.J. Hoving and J. van der Vliet, ‘A Bespoke Elephant’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 60 (2012), no. 2, pp. 130-43
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Life Buoy, United Kingdom, 1820', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244666
(accessed 28 April 2024 12:21:09).