HMS Hercules At War And On Display

At the time of Hercules' launch, dreadnought designs were evolving rapidly as naval architects sought to improve new ships' speed, firepower, and protection. In firepower, for example, Hercules' 12-inch guns would soon be outgunned by the 13.5-inch guns of the Orion class, and then by the even larger 15-inch guns of 1915's Queen Elizabeth class.

Like all battleships, Hercules' role was to form part of a battle fleet, using its heavy guns to bombard and sink enemy ships. After being commissioned into the Royal Navy, Hercules joined the First Battle Squadron, a unit of eight battleships, as part of the Grand Fleet. With the outbreak of war, the Grand Fleet's primary adversary would be Germany's High Seas Fleet.

Like many ships of the Grand Fleet, Hercules drew its name from classical mythology. In the Greek myths, Herakles, known to the Romans as Hercules, was a hero of legendary strength who overpowered and outwitted his enemies. Some ships' names, like Hercules, evoked legendary figures known for their combat prowess or martial qualities. Examples include the battleships Bellerophon and Orion, the slayer of monsters and the huntsman respectively, or the light cruiser Bellona, the Roman goddess of war. Others ships took names that suggested perhaps surprising qualities for warships – the light cruisers Comus and Callioperemembered in their names the drunken god of wild partying, and the goddess muse of poetry and eloquence.

HMS Hercules at war

During the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, Hercules fought under the command of its Captain, Lewis Clinton-Baker. As the Grand Fleet deployed its ships and entered the battle, a salvo of German heavy shells fell nearby, straddling Hercules' forecastle. These very near misses threw up towering columns of water which fell on Hercules' conning tower and bridge. Personnel on the bridge, including Russian naval observer Count Schoultz, were soaked. Schoultz, apparently lacking confidence in his use of English swearing, turned to Captain Clinton-Baker and reportedly remarked 'How you say..."bugger!"'

At 6.20pm Hercules opened fire at a German cruiser, and at about this time witnessed the British cruiser HMS Defence explode after coming under fire from five German ships. None of Defence's 903-man crew survived. Soon after, Hercules fired at German battleships, but like many other ships her gunnery was frustrated by hazy weather. Around 7.10pm Hercules fired at enemy battlecruisers at the relatively short range of 9,000 yards (8.2 kilometres), claiming two hits. In total, Hercules fired 98 rounds from its 12-inch guns during the battle.

Just before 7pm, Hercules passed the destroyer Acasta, adrift having been severely damaged in a battle between British and German destroyers. On deck, Acasta's crew cheered as each British battleship steamed past.

About half an hour later, Hercules passed a more distressing sight. After being hit by German shells the British battlecruiser Invincible suffered a massive explosion that broke the ship in two and killed almost its entire crew. In shallow water, the two parts of the ship settled on the seabed, with the bow and stern sections standing high out of the water, like a grotesque monument. Some of Hercules' crew saw this wreckage and, thinking that the wreck was German, cheered. Captain Clinton-Baker is reported to have called out 'Stop that cheering — that's one of our ships!'

Following the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918, Herculesbecame part of the Allied naval force that sailed into the German harbour at Kiel as part of the Allied Naval Armistice Commission. Under the terms of the Armistice, most of the German Navy’s warships were disarmed and interned at Scapa Flow. On 21 November 1918, Hercules sailed as part of a gigantic Allied fleet, 370 ships strong, which escorted the German ships into internment. This spectacular show of force marked the final and complete victory at sea for the Royal Navy and its French and American allies.

With the end of the war, Hercules' career was not to last long. In January 1919 the ship was reduced to Reserve Fleet status, and in 1921 was sold for scrap metal. Perhaps ironically, Hercules was sold to a scrapping company in Kiel, the same German port that Hercules had entered in very different circumstances in 1918.

HMS Hercules on display

Despite ending its days as scrap, something of HMS Hercules lived on in the form of its builders' model. The Imperial War Museum opened at the Crystal Palace, in south London in summer 1920 and in November that year Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company donated their model of Hercules to the museum.

As an activity, ship or boat modelling can be traced back to antiquity – the British Museum holds examples of models dating to the third millennium BC. For twentieth-century shipbuilders, ship models were a way of recording the ships they had built in a tangible form. Particularly large and detailed models could be a source of corporate prestige. The navy used ship models as a training aid, while modelling ships from scrap or spare materials was a common hobby among sailors. For the IWM, models were an effective way of illustrating different types of warship, and the events of the war that they had been involved in. The IWM's displays at the Crystal Palace included a large model of RMS Lusitania, the sinking of which by a German U-boat in May 1915 prompted outrage around the world.

After the IWM moved to Lambeth Road in 1936, the Hercules model was displayed in the museum's Naval Gallery. Three years later, in September 1939, war broke again between Britain and Germany. From September 1940 German aircraft launched a devastating bombing campaign, known as the Blitz, against British cities. On Friday 31 January 1941, a group of workmen were in the museum's Naval Gallery repairing blast damage from earlier air raids. Around midday the men stopped work for lunch, and shortly after a German bomber dropped five bombs that fell close to the museum. One bomb scored a direct hit on the Naval Gallery. Had the bombs fallen a few minutes earlier, the workmen may have been killed. Fortunately the bomb caused no injuries. The worst affected was a museum clerk who, it being a Friday, had been counting out the men's pay in a nearby office. The explosion scattered the money and left the clerk dazed.

The bomb wrecked the Naval Gallery. The most significant damage was to a seaplane that had flown at the Battle of Jutland, the only aircraft from either side to take part in the battle. Six showcases of ships' badges had their contents blasted clean out of the building – some were later found in the park and others on the museum's roof. The museum's ship models were also badly damaged. The bomb blast shattered the Hercules model's glass showcase, and turned the ship's masts and other fittings into a mass of tangled wreckage. As museum staff began clearing up the mess, the model was crated and consigned to storage.

A new lease of life

The damaged model might have remained in storage but in 2010, a century after Hercules'  launch, IWM began developing its new First World War Galleries. To tell the story of Britain's pre-war maritime and naval power, on which its empire rested, the Galleries needed large and dramatic objects that could reflect that power. Ship models seemed obvious candidates.

A search of the museum's collections discovered the Hercules model, but its severe damage made it an unlikely candidate for display. Fortunately, a generous donor was willing to support the cost of restoring the model back to display condition. The painstaking work of bringing this piece of naval history back to life could now begin.

It was a daunting task. When the model's crate was opened for the first time, the ship was covered in a thick layer of dust, mixed with broken or powdered glass from its bomb-shattered showcase. Over the years its storage crate had exuded small quantities of gas that had corroded some of the model's metal elements. Made of solid pieces of beech wood, shrinkage over the years had caused cracks to appear in the hull. Many of the model's fittings were either missing, broken or hopelessly tangled together. The model's varnish had discoloured, turning the once sleek grey hull a sickly green-brown colour. Among the wreckage was found a badly discoloured 1920s-vintage caption board, which devoted most of its space to describing the eleven previous ships, dating back to the sixteenth century, that had borne the name Hercules. Moving the model was a major undertaking; weighing 300kg, it took eight men to carry the model from a van to a specialist conservator's workshop.

After a detailed survey, work could begin. Numerous small and broken pieces were set aside and assessed for possible reuse. The whole model was gently cleaned. Parts were dismantled, treated, and reassembled. New gun barrels were made out of solid pieces of brass. Miles of fine chain encircled the deck to become the ship's guard rails. Sagging and broken decks on the forward superstructure were repaired. The ship's bridge regained its proper fittings, such as its wheel and binnacle. Secondary 4-inch guns sprouted fore and aft. New ship's boats were carved to replace the model’s missing whalers and barges. As the model's mast regained its full height, the ship's rigging returned in the form of long strands of copper and cotton. Discoloured varnish and flaking paint was removed, original paint stabilised, and areas repainted with traditional oil paints and shellac varnish. Little by little, the model started to look like the battle-ready warship it had once been.

The model returned to IWM in late 2013, at a time when building work and fit-out of the new First World War Galleries was underway. In June 2014, the time came to install the model in its showcase. The model, on a wheeled trolley, was gently rolled through the exhibition space to its showcase. Then a team of art handlers had to lift the model from its trolley, manoeuvre it into the showcase and fix it to its new mount, all under the watchful eyes of museum conservators, curators and exhibition designers.

The model was joined in its showcase by two smaller model ships. The first was of the 1911-launched passenger and mail liner RMS Gloucester Castle. Ships like Gloucester Castle bound Britain's empire together by facilitating the emigration of British people overseas and by carrying letters and other mail that were vital to imperial commerce. The other model is of SS Nonsuch, a merchant vessel built in Sunderland in 1906. Britain's economy depended on cargo vessels like Nonsuch as they carried raw materials and food to Britain, and exported manufactured goods to overseas markets. As a pair, these two civilian ships represent the maritime links that were the purpose and foundation of the British Empire and, together with the model of HMS Hercules, the importance of maritime power in the years leading up to the First World War.

With this showcase complete, the Hercules model now occupied pride of place as the first object in IWM London's First World War Galleries. The model's massive size, enhanced by a difference in scale with the two other models, makes it an impressive opening object. Over the course of its life the model has had many roles – a source of corporate pride, a museum exhibit, a victim of air attack, a conservation project.

It might also be interpreted as a symbol of the vast sums of money spent on armaments in the run-up to 1914. At £1.73 million, Hercules cost the equivalent in 2015 prices of £187 million, a price tag similar to that of some large passenger jet aircraft. Even more than that, Hercules was only one of 32 dreadnought battleships, many of them much more expensive than Hercules, ordered for the Royal Navy before the outbreak of war. Whether for battleships in the 1910s, bomber aircraft in the 1930s, or nuclear weapons from 1945 (including present-day arguments about Britain's Trident system) the politics of military spending provide enduringly interesting case studies in how societies set their political, military, economic and social priorities.

Ultimately, however, the Hercules model stands on display as a symbol of the pre-First World War Royal Navy, and its role as the guardian of Britain's security at home, and the shield of its maritime empire.