Neptune's wooden angels

Carved figureheads, always adorned with eyes, often female and sometimes in a compromising pose, were cherished by their crews as protection from the perils faced at sea, finds Harry Pearson

- Harry Pearson

FEARSOME dragons, swift swans and leaping dolphins have decorated the prows of ships since antiquity. They embodied the spirit of the vessel, kept her safe in stormy weather and guided her home through rain and fog. The same held true across Britain, but it would be the Admiralty's decision in the early 17th century to allow the use of carved images of people, not only animals, that would see the flowering of the great age of the British naval figurehead.

In 1637, HMS Sovereign of the Seas was launched, featuring the largest and most costly figurehead in the history of the Royal Navy. A huge gilded figure of the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar mounted on a leaping horse and surrounded by vassals, it was said to have cost about $7,000 (close to $1 million today). 

It may have appealed to gawking landlubbers, but the monumental figurehead made a less favourable impression on those who commanded the ship in action. Carved from elm or oak, it was incredibly heavy and compromised the seaworthiness of the vessel to the extent that, in 1796, the Admiralty tried to abolish figureheads altogether. However, it quickly became apparent that sailors regarded a ship without a figurehead as a lost and luckless craft and so a compromise was struck-henceforth, figureheads were carved from lighter timber, in particular yellow pine.

The size of the figurehead was conditioned by the tonnage of the ship and the sweep of the prow. Some were carved from one solid block, others from several blocks dowelled and glued together. In merchant craft, it was common to base a figurehead on a member of the owner's family or some important contemporary, such as William Gladstone or Benjamin Disraeli. In the Royal Navy, figures from classical literature-often, but not exclusively female-were a popular choice.