OTDIH 29 Dec 1860 Royal Navy ironclad frigate HMS Warrior launched

On this day in history, 29th December 1860, the Royal Navy armoured frigate HMS Warrior was launched at the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co., Blackwall, London.

A contemporary full hull model of the HMS ‘Warrior’ (1860), a single-screw, broadside ironclad battleship. In collection of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Paid off in 1883, Warrior wound up hulked at Pembroke Dock as floating oil jetty. Towed to Hartlepool in 1979 for restoration, she finally made her way to Portsmouth in 1987 where she remains as a museum ship to this day.

Tinted lithograph of the three-masted armoured frigate, HMS Warrior (1860) on a starboard tack running through strong waves before a good wind. In collection of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

The Painted Hall, Greenwich

Photographer: LA(PHOT) Keith Morgan.

Three hundred members of the Fleet Air Arm celebrate the centenary of Naval Aviation in the Painted Hall, Grennwich Old Naval College, London in 2009.

The guests of honour for the dinner were HRH Prince Charles, HRH Prince Andrew, HRH Princess Anne and HRH Prince Michael of Kent.

King William Court is famous for its baroque Painted Hall, which was painted by Sir James Thornhill in honour of King William III and Queen Mary II (the ceiling of the Lower Hall), of Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark (the ceiling of the Upper Hall) and George I (the north wall of the Upper Hall). The Painted Hall was deemed too magnificent for the pensioned seamen’s refectory, and was never regularly used. It became a tourist destination, opened for viewing. In 1824 a ‘National Gallery of Naval Art’ was created in the Painted Hall, where it remained until 1936, when the collection was transferred to the National Maritime Museum newly established in the Queen’s House and adjacent buildings.

On 5 January 1806, Lord Nelson’s body lay in state in the Painted Hall of the Greenwich Hospital before being taken up the river Thames to St Paul’s Cathedral for a state funeral.

Clipper Round the World Yachts in St Katherines Dock

Isle of Dogs Life

In the picturesque setting of St Katherine’s Dock sit the twelve 70 foot racing yachts due to take part in the Clipper 2013-2014 Round the World race.

The race itself starts on September 1st from London Bridge and will be the first time in 40 years that the Thames staged a round the world sailing event.

Sunday 1 September:

1000 – Official departure ceremony starts

1300 – 1330: Parade of Sail on the Thames

The fleet will not return until July 2014 after 670 crew race 40,000 miles and visit 16 ports on six continents, in the world’s longest ocean race.

The first leg of the Clipper Race ends in Marina da Gloria, Rio de Janeiro, the destination for the 2016 Olympic sailing events. They then continue on via South Africa, Western Australia, Sydney (including the world-famous Sydney-Hobart Race), Singapore, China, San Francisco, Panama, Jamaica, New York, Derry Londonderry and the…

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Paintings of the London Docks 1939 – 1945

Isle of Dogs Life

The Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts Canteen Concert, Isle of Dogs, London, E14 by Kenneth Rowntree – IWM (Imperial War Museums) 1941

At the beginning of  the Second World War, the War Artists Advisory Committee was created to look at ways that Art could be used to support the war effort.

The Committee was led by Sir Kenneth Clark , Director of the National Gallery  with the remit of documenting the conflict, raising morale and promoting national culture.

It was recognised that the original war artist scheme in the First World War had played an important role and Clark bought together a number of well known artists and commissioned work at home and aboard.

Artist such as Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer produced works,however there was a large number of artists who used the conflict to record the day to day existence of ordinary…

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Overview of the Baltic Exchange

Officer of the Watch

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Sacré bleu! An insult to Nelson?

Yes, yes… giant cock… double entendres… all highly amusing…

HOWEVER…

The cockerel, blue or not, is the symbol of France. To place this statue in Trafalgar Square is an insult to the memory of Nelson, an insult to the men who fought and died at Trafalgar, an insult to the men who fought and died at Jutland (yes, that’s what the Lutyens fountains commemorate), and an insult to Britain.

Boris Johnson, you colossal arse.

Blue cockerel takes roost on Fourth Plinth

The sculpture has been described as a “domestic cockerel with a twist”

The new artwork for the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, a bright blue cockerel symbolising regeneration and strength, has been unveiled.

Titled Hahn/Cock, the 4.72m high piece is by German artist Katharina Fritsch and will be on display for 18 months.

Saturated in intense ultramarine blue, the sculpture was unveiled by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, on Thursday.

It replaces a 4.1m high bronze of a boy on a rocking horse that had been on the plinth since February 2012.

The public sculpture, said Mr Johnson, “doesn’t just show that we’re the sporting capital, but we are also the artistic and cultural capital of the world”.

He also said he would try and avoid any double entendres when talking about the cockerel.

“It is a ginormous blue Hahn Cock, as it’s called,” he told BBC London.

“I think if you tried to Google it in the future, the Prime Minister would stop you from finding it” – a reference to David Cameron’s proposals to have internet pornography blocked by internet providers.
‘Totally inappropriate’

One London-based conservation group had tried to stop the cockerel – a traditional emblem of France – from being displayed.

Trafalgar Square takes its name from the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, one of Britain’s most significant naval victories in the Napoleonic Wars.

The Thorney Island Society wrote to Westminster Council in protest, branding the sculpture “totally inappropriate”.

But Justin Simons, director of the Fourth Plinth programme, said she was confident it would be a popular addition.

“We really love the striking vivid blue colour and also the character is really interesting,” she told BBC London.

“It’s an everyday kind of object – this regular domestic cockerel with a twist. The artist has supersized it.

“It will be as big as a London bus and she’s made it this striking blue colour, so it will be familiar but also quite surreal.”

Many leading artists have bid to have their work displayed on the Fourth Plinth over the last seven years.

The first sculpture to occupy it was Mark Wallinger’s Ecce Homo, a marble sculpture of a human-scale Jesus.

Others have included a statue of a naked, pregnant woman with no arms and Antony Gormley’s One & Other, where members of the public occupied the plinth for an hour at a time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23448832

1909 photograph of Royal Navy submarines in the River Thames

A view looking west from Victoria Embankment towards Waterloo Bridge. Three C Class submarines are berthed alongside Temple Stairs, with two torpedo boats moored in Kings Reach at the time of the Thames Naval Review. The photograph was taken at 1100 hours. Date made: 23 July 1909.