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SOLD SOLD (16/11) WW1 BATTLE OF JUTLAND CONNECTIONS, 1922 Thomas W. Ward Sheffield Brass Battleship Gun Turret Desk Top Ink Well Made From Brass Recovered From Surrendered WW1 Imperial German Dreadnought SMS Helgoland. Sn 16872 - 16872 SMS Helgoland, the lead ship of her class, was a dreadnought battleship of the German Imperial Navy. Helgoland's design represented an incremental improvement over the preceding Nassau class including an increase in the bore diameter of the main guns. Her keel was laid down on 11 November 1908 at the Howaldtswerke shipyards in Kiel. Helgoland was launched on 25 September 1909 and was commissioned on 23 August 1911. SMS Helgoland saw action against Britain's Royal Navy during World War I. The ship participated in several sweeps into the North Sea as the covering force for the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group. She saw duty in the Baltic Sea against the Russian Navy, including serving as part of a support force during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. Helgoland was present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. Helgoland was ceded to Great Britain at the end of the war and broken up for scrap in the early 1920s. A copy of a contemporary photograph of the battleship Helgoland is illustrated in image 2. Thomas. W. Ward Ltd was a Sheffield, Yorkshire, steel, engineering and cement business which began as coal and coke merchants then expanded to recycling metal for Sheffield's steel industry, engineering and the supply of machinery. In 1894 as part of the scrap metal operation Ward's began to set up substantial shipbreaking yards in different parts of England and in Scotland and Wales. By 1953 Thos W Ward employed 11,500 people. This ink well by Thomas W. Ward Sheffield was made in 1922 from brass recovered from Helgoland after she was broken up for scrap. The solid brass ink well represents a ships gun turret modelled on Helgoland’s guns, with 2 barrels. The top of the turret has a hinged compartment which contains 2 white metal ink holders. The inside of the lid is cast “Cast from metal Ex-Surrendered German Battleship ‘Helgoland’ Thos W Ward Ltd Sheffield” & dated “1922”. The turret is bolted to its original solid brass octagonal plinth and the turret swivels 360 degrees on the plinth. From muzzle to rear of turret measures 19.5 cms. The base is 10.6 cms x 10.6 cms and it is 5.5 cms height overall. The ink well is a hefty 1.980 kilos weight. The brass & ink holders are clean and undamaged. The price for this interesting conversation piece includes UK delivery. Sn 16872
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