A large and impressive half hull model of Lindfield, 1891

A large and impressive half hull model of Lindfield, 1891 This builder’s half hull model of a four-masted barque is made from maple and mahogany.  The hull is finished in natural wood and the topsides are painted black with a white gunport band and faux gunports.  There is a delicate classical female figurehead carved in walnut at the bow and painted acanthus decoration on the trailboards.  The deck has four stump masts, and the details include cat heads, capstan, deck houses, wheel box and railings.  The split back board is half mahogany and half bird’s-eye maple.  The maker’s plate reads “Lindfield” Register Dimensions 277.5 x 42.0 x 24.2, Russell & Co, Shipbuilders, Port Glasgow & Greenock.  Scottish, 1891.

Russell & Co, of Greenock and Port Glasgow, was established by Joseph Russell and his partners Anderson Rodger and William Lithgow who leased the Bay Yard in Port Glasgow from Cunliffe & Dunlop and started trading as Russell & Co. in 1874.  In their first year they turned out 2000 tons of shipping.  Five years later they took over a yard at Greenock and the lease of a dry dock for repairing ships too.  By 1890 their output was a staggering 70,000 tons. 

Lindfield was a four-masted steel barque built in 1891 by Russell & Co., Greenock (yard No 282) for Shaw, Savill & Co., Glasgow.  She was sold in 1911 to A/S Skib Lindfield (H. Jeremiassen), Porsgrund, Norway and sunk on March 17 1916 by the German submarine U 70 some 70 miles SW off Fastnet with a cargo of wheat.  

Lindfield (ship, 1891)