Hulk of an Old Man-of-War

John Lumsden Propert

John Lumsden Propert, like Francis Seymour Haden was a physician who also worked as an etcher. Also, like Haden did with his famous "Breaking Up of the Agamemnon" in 1870, Propert selects as his subject a decommissioned wooden hulled warship in the process of being dismantled. The "Man of War" battleships, were in the process of being replaced by the British Royal Navy with the dreadnoughts.

'Man-of-war'. "A phrase applied to a line of battle ship, contrary to the usual rule in the English language by which all ships are feminine. It probably arose in the following manner: 'Men of war' were heavily armed soldiers. A ship full of them would be called a 'man-of-war ship.' In process of time the word 'ship' was discarded as unnecessary and there remained the phrase 'a man-of-war.'" — Edmond Talbot, as quoted in Henry Fredrick Reddall's Fact, fancy, and fable, 1892, p. 340.