Figureheads are the carved wooden figures that decorated the bows of almost all large ships until the end of the 19thcentury and into the early 20thcentury. The origin of a ship’s figurehead, however, dates from ancient times and the religious beliefs held by early mariners. Steve Conway, conservator at The Box in south-west England, explains.
14 historical ships figureheads will be on display at The Box from spring 2020.
Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover in 1520. There is commentary on the picture in this article.
The custom of decorating ships bows can be found in Egyptian rock drawings over 5,000 years old, which show oar-powered boats with high prows on which the head of a horned animal has been placed. Heads of sacrificial animals such as deer, antelope and bulls also decorate a series of bronze ship models from Sardinia dated 700 BC, while sheep fleeces are depicted on fishing boats painted by Luis Borassa in 1411 at St Mary’s church in Tarrassa near Barcelona.
The animal’s head or fleece decoration may have served to appease the gods and ensure a safe journey for the ship and crew, or it may indicate that the ship itself was considered a living being with a head and tail.
The serpent or dragon became a recurring theme for the Viking ships of Norway, and the Oseberg Ship from 800 AD, which was excavated in 1900, depicts imaginary beasts entwined and spiraling up both stern and prow. Archaeological and literary sources in the form of Nordic sagas, show that the serpent’s role was both as a protective guardian and a threat to enemies.
16thcentury figureheads
The galleons of the 16thcentury were the culmination of a period of profound development in the art of shipbuilding and in England, Henry VIII took a great interest in founding the Royal Navy by opening dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford and by formally constituting the Navy Board in 1546.
Exploration and trade were accompanied by the increased protection of the merchant fleet and master shipwrights met this need by designing ships which sat lower in the water and were therefore able to carry heavier ordnance, and the scope for greater decoration was increased with a longer prow and a stern gallery.
Heraldic shields were an important decorative feature of ships during this period and are shown in a painting of the embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover in 1520 (above – also at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London). This painting also shows the King’s ship with a dragon’s head carving at the prow.
Dragon heads are known to have been popular at this time and, although no examples exist, evidence in the form of manuscripts, paintings and decorated fine metalwork, all suggest the dragon was as much a symbol of power and protection for Renaissance sailors as it was for the Vikings.
Figureheads in the 17thcentury
By the end of the 16thcentury dragon carvings began to disappear and were replaced by lions. James I was responsible for placing the royal crown on the head of a lion at the same time ship design developed so that the lion itself was carved into the framework timbers of the ship’s head, instead of projecting clear of the prow. It was also James I, however, who introduced the idea of submitting a special figurehead for the lion on certain ships, by allowing a regal figure on horseback to be carved on the bows of the Prince Royal, launched in 1610. This marked the departure from traditional decoration to a much more elaborate system which echoed the architectural design of the period.
The extravagance of decoration seen on the Prince Royal was taken to extremes by Charles I when he ordered the building of Sovereign of The Seas in 1637. This was to be the largest ship built at the time and is said to have finally cost the king his head due to the dissatisfaction that arose with the extra taxes he imposed to finance his naval program. At the time a ship of 40 guns cost about £6,000. The final cost of the 100 gun Sovereign of the Seas was £65,586. Due to her size and firepower it is generally thought that she was 150 years ahead of her time and could quite easily have been included as a First Rate ship of the line in Nelson’s fleet. A contemporary description by Thomas Heywood of the carved and gilded decoration that led to the Sovereign of the Seas being called ‘The Golden Devil’ by the Dutch fleet, is given below:
“I begin at the Beak-head where I desire you to take notice, that upon the stemme-head there is a Cupid, or a Child resembling him, bestriding and bridling a Lyon which importeth, that sufferance may curbe Insolence, and Innocence restrain violence, which alludeth to the great mercy of the King whose Type is a proper Embleme of the great Majesty, whose mercy is above all his Workes”
This description refers to part of the main figurehead which was an equestrian group, like Prince Royal, but which portrayed King Edgar of Wessex on his horse, trampling the seven vassal kings beneath its hooves.
By the time Sovereign of the Seas was launched a strict Rating system for warships was in force. This originally referred to the rates of pay of captains but by the late 17thcentury the Rate was calculated by the number of guns a ship carried. The system in summary was as follows:
1stRate: 100 guns
2ndRate: 90 guns
3rdRate: 80 guns
4thRate: 60 guns
5thRate: 44 guns
6thRate: 28 guns
In accordance with this system, only First Rate ships were allowed to have the highly elaborate and allegorical group figureheads. The other rates almost all had lions.
An interesting account of The Naseby, a 96 gun warship built by Oliver Cromwell, is given in Evelyn’s diary of 1656 where he describes his visit to the dockyard to see the new ship:
“I went to see the greate ship newly built by the Usurper Oliver. In the prow was Oliver on horseback, trampling six Nations underfoot, a Scott, Irishman, Dutchman, Frenchman, Spaniard and English…”
This must have been a direct response to the figurehead of King Edgar on Charles I’s Sovereign. However at the time of the Restoration, the Naseby’s name was changed to the Royal Charles and the original figurehead removed “to be burned on Coronation Night”. The figurehead that replaced it can now be seen in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as the ship was taken as a trophy in the Dutch raid on the Medway in 1667.
The 18thcentury
At the beginning of the 18thcentury, the great cost and weight of group figureheads became a complaint among captains and a cause for concern for the Navy Board. A letter from the Navy Board to the captains at Plymouth Dockyard dated September 2, 1710 gives an indication of their dissatisfaction and heralds the scaling down of decoration which was to become legislation by the end of the century:
“Captain Leake of the Essex, having represented to their Lordships that the Lyon of the said ship’s head, being made of solid Elm, is so very heavy that when she is at sea that he apprehends she will carry all away… and (he proposes) that a Trail Board be placed in the Room of the Lyon or as light a figure as may be…”
The legislation of 1796 ordered the Royal Navy to stop fitting figureheads to new ships and replace them with an abstract scroll or billethead. This order was not strictly adhered to, mainly because a ship without a figurehead was considered unlucky; however the scale was drastically reduced and throughout the 19thcentury, naval figureheads became increasingly isolated pieces of ornament with very limited trailboard decoration. The 19thcentury figurehead is generally more naïve in style than its 18thcentury predecessor. The lions, which dominated the lower rank ships, became unpopular and were replaced by busts of naval or classical heroes and it is these which form the largest part of collections today.
The end
The final decision to rid the Navy of figureheads came in 1894 when they were abolished entirely from new ships. This time the order was easier to enforce due to the lack of suitable space on the new ‘ironclads’.
When no longer seaworthy, the wooden ships were dismantled or ‘broken up’. Useful pieces of timber were recycled for building purposes and the rest was used for garden furniture or firewood. Decay, fire and rot was the fate of many naval figureheads, but well preserved examples from important ships were distributed and displayed in museums and dockyards throughout the world.
Opening Spring 2020, 14 historical ships figureheads (weighing over 20 tonnes collectively) will be on public display for the first time at The Box- the biggest arts & heritage centre in the South West of England.
Conservation at The Box
The Devonport Figureheads, as with other naval figureheads, suffered from years of exposure to the elements. It is clear from an article in the Mariner’s Mirrorof 1914 by Douglas Owen that they were in poor condition even at that time. Archive records note that various material were used in their restoration and maintenance including cement and expanded polyurethane foam, and in the 1960s and 1970s, many were repaired with fibreglass resin. These materials created micro climates promoting further rot and degradation of the historic timber under the repairs, leading to weaknesses in the structure of the figurehead that is not always obvious when viewing the brightly coloured resin surface.
The Box is a major new cultural attraction in Plymouth, UK that is opening in spring 2020 to showcase Plymouth’s visual arts, media, heritage and archives as part of the city’s Mayflower 400 commemorations.
A key element in the new permanent exhibitions is the redisplay of 14 of the Devonport Figureheads. The display design concept suspends the figureheads, weighing 20 tons, within the main entrance hall of The Box in a huge sweep that appears to sail across the glazed façade from left to right. Preparation for the ambitious high-level figurehead display required full conservation, consolidation and restoration of the figureheads alongside innovative design of the mounting systems to facilitate their suspension by steel cables.
The figurehead conservation project has reversed years of decay and is the most significant of its kind in a generation, not only securing the future of the Devonport Figureheads, but identifying The Box as a centre of excellence and innovation for the preservation and display of maritime heritage, with one of the largest collections of naval figureheads in the UK.
