3-034-615 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Breaking-up H.M.S. Queen at Rotherhithe [on the Thames in London], 1871. 'The death of a ship...is not usually followed by a Christian burial, though a ceremonial in imitation of Christian baptism was performed at her birth...in ninety-nine of a hundred instances, when the mortal frame which has floated so long upon the ocean billows is enfeebled by old age, it is ruthlessly consigned to the "breaker-up," as an old horse is sold to the "knacker." The copper sheathing, the iron plating,...the timbers of teak and oak, are valuable for the materials of a new structure. The ship butchers - if we may so call them - will cut up the aged body with skilful dispatch, wasting not a fragment of useful wood, from figure-head to taffrail, and from gunwale to keelson, dividing the mighty hull into a thousand scattered planks and beams. Such is the end of H.M.S. Queen, formerly a first-rate ship of 110 guns, which was once the Port Admiral's flagship at Portsmouth, and which served in the Russian and Chinese wars, as well as in the squadrons at other times employed on the West Indian and American stations. Peace be with her!...Our Artist has done something, as best he could, to preserve the memory of her decease. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.