Lewin of Greenwich Naval History & Forum

Early ships of the line in the Royal Navy were usually adorned with figureheads and gilded carvings. The cost of these adornments quite often proved to be very expensive and an early Admiralty directive in the 18th Century restricted the amount that could be spent on such adornments, and eventually banned them altogether.
Ships badges first appeared from around 1850 and were originally used on ships stationery and then to adorn the ships boats. Aat the end of the First World War the curator of the Imperial War Museum, Charles Ffoulkes, was asked by the Captain of HMS Tower to design a badge for the ship. He did that and was inundated with requests from other ships to design a badge for them. Ffoulkes was later appointed as the Admiralty advisor on Ships Heraldry and a Ships Badge Committee was formed to regulate the badges.
In 1919 the badges were standardized as four basic shapes: Circular for Battleships & Battle Cruisers, Pentagonal for Cruisers, Shield for Destroyers and Diamond for all other types and shore establishments.
Due to wartime shortages, the shapes were standardised to a round shape in 1940.
Post war the Pentagonal badge was assigned to Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels and Commissioned Shore Bases were assigned the Diamond shape.
Prior to the Second World War, Commonwealth navy ships had their badges assigned by the Ships Badge Committee, but this function was passed on to the individual navies.

A typical ships badge (HMS Ulysses)

a few for the collection; Ashanti's original crest is now in the Loch Ewe museum although I still have her boat badge, same crest but no crown.
Wizard's crest comes with a section of her boat-rope and was a gift to TTL when he left the F17 in 1963, he was often wigging them about trailing their boatrope in the oggin.
Tenby's deck plate, although not a crest, is included as I presented this to the RNLI station in Tenby, South Wales.
The Last Witness crest we cast from the steel salved from the old masts of Belfast after the new Russian masts were placed. I made 100 off, this is one of the last.
Corunna's crest speaks for itself, lots of pictures in the Battle Class thread.

And all put to good use Tim , well done and thanks for the update ......

here is Urchin's crest on the life buoy for the top of the brow (see for sale items) TTL had this on a stand he made himself, he loved woodwork and was very good at it, beside the swimming pool at his house nr Woodbridge, fortunately it never proved necessary to throw it into the water.

Just as well Tim as the chlorine would have ruined it , so glad you resisted throwing it in

H.M.S. Prince of Wales

Now that the ship has her badge affixed to her aft island there is discussion and speculation as to why Their Lordships have not stayed true to previous PoW badges. A pity we do not have access to the excellent information and images on the old WNSF site or do we?
Perhaps someone can kindly post a true copy of the previous ship's badge.
Attached is an image of the present one.
Possibly the problem is/was being similar to the Red Cross flag?

I haven't seen the one that you refer to on the Prince of Wales aft island, but this is the one on the bow. I believe the attached crest was posted on the old Forum. Do you have an example of the one on the island?

Jim

P.o.W.'s badge

Apols Jim, my previous was misleading and the image was the same as used for publicity on the front of the ski slope. Please see attached showing the after island. As far as I can see the 'red cross' has been removed presumably for perhaps legal requirements. i.e. confusion with the Red Cross flag. Perhaps a member with the necessary equipment and expertise can enlarge an appropriate section of the attached image.
Even better a local member can provide a close up of the badge.

Seen on Twitter a few moments ago ... Note the comments!!!


NavyLookout Retweeted

Seb H
‏ @sebh1981

Ohhhh @HMSPWLS is taking shape. Dare I say I prefer her crest on the island?!?!

@UKDefJournal @NavyLookout

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Seems like the badge of the Prince of Wales was lifted from the centre of St. George Cross in the ship's badge to produce a variation of:-

Well in my opinion which counts for zilch , I think the Welsh crest is more in keeping with the vessel and its name IMHO