Orders, Decorations and Medals

Worcester Training Ship Medal, frigate with bare masts, ‘Thames Marine Officers Training Ship Worcester’; reverse: engraved, ‘Gunnery Second Prize Walter Vivian Hirst, Presented by H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh, Midsummer 1871’, 36mm., silver, with ‘double dolphin’ suspension, extremely fine £80-100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Training Ship and Prize Medals.

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Collection

Ex Spencer Collection, D.N.W. 6 July 2004, lot 968.

The Thames Marine Officers Training Ship Association was formed in 1862 by London ship-owners in order to provide training for officer cadets. The frigate Worcester was loaned from the Admiralty and used as a training ship, moored firstly on the lower Thames at Erith, Kent, then in 1869 at Southend, Essex, moving upstream to Greenhithe, Kent in 1871. Found to be too small for the numbers being trained, in 1876 the ship was replaced by the larger ship-of-the-line Frederick William which was renamed Worcester. After the Second World War the ship was found to be no longer fit for use as a training ship and the College took over the Exmouth which previously had been a training ship run by the London County Council. Renamed the Worcester, she was moored at Greenhithe, Kent and remained in use until 1968 when the college closed.