The Yellow in Royal Navy colour schemes 1870-1880

[wefalck]

Pictorial and archival records for the early years of the Imperial German Navy between 1871 and 1880 are rather patchy. While we know the general colour schemes of different types of vessels due to published orders in this respect, the hue of the yellow used to paint funnels, ventilators, mast etc. is not really documented for that period.

 

In those early, pre-William II, years the budding Imperial Navy often followed RN examples and until the mid-1870s many ships were ordered from British yards. Therefore, there is a certain possibility that also the yellow colour hue was copied from that used by the RN at that time.

 

My question is now, whether anyone knows about sources by which the hue of the yellow in the RN for the period 1870 to 1880 can be determined. These could be archival materials such as orders as to the composition of the paint used, perhaps paintings (though one has to consider artistic liberty), artefacts bearing traces of the respective paint, or models that are likely still carrying the original paint.

 

Any hints and tips in that direction are welcome.

[grsjax]

I suspect that there was at least some variation in the color from ship to ship.  Not having the technology to produce exactly the same color from batch to batch the eye of the person mixing the paint determined the exact hue.  I think that researching the pigments and mixing formula for paint in Royal dockyards will give you about as much information as you are going to find on the subject.  The primary determinant of color was the pigment used. 

[uss frolick]

HMS Gannet survives from that period. Her restoration may be of help:

 

https://thedockyard.co.uk/explore/three-historic-warships/hms-gannet/

 

 

 

[wefalck]

@uss frolick Thank you. I have been well aware of HMS GANNET and created a photo-essay on her some ten years ago, while she was still undergoing some restoration: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/chatham/chatham.html. It is not clear (to me) to what state of her life she actually was restored to, but I believe it is definitely a post-1880 stage. It may be still worthwhile to talk to Chatham about their restoration decisions.

 

@grsjaxOf course, I am well aware of the difficulties around recreating colours, even if you know the recipes and the pigments for the paint used. This is why in Germany in the time between the wars the 'Reichsausschuß für Lieferbedingungen' (RAL, roughly National Committee for Supply Specifications) was set up. One of its tasks was the standardisation of colours, which led to the RAL colour charts still in use today.

The respective paint most likely contained natural ochre, lead-white and lineseed-oil as the main ingredients, perhaps in addition chalk as cheaper pigment then lead-white. However, there are rather wide variations in the hue of natural ochre, ranging from a pale yellow to almost red, depending on its chemical and mineralogical composition.

 

For these reasons I have been hoping to identify artefacts that show original paint or the impression artists had of the original hue.

[shipman]

I share your interest with what always seemed to be referred to as 'ochre', a nebulous term as the pigment can be found as a 'sandy' colour and varying through to a definite red.

A small point is that in the steam era, the 'yellow' was usually adopted on vessels serving in hot climates. If the normal white's and light grey's were used, the harsh tropical sunlight would have been hard on the eyes of the crew.

[wefalck]

As a matter of fact, we do have a fairly detailed picture of the paint schemes to be applied on the basis of the ordinances published in the respective offcial gazette. Up to 1895 the black-white-yellow scheme was valid that seems to have been the predominant scheme in virtually all navies around the world. After that grey, with initially hulls in a darker grey, was adopted. The hulls of ships at foreign (tropical) stations were painted white after 1890, reflecting the need to protect the crews below deck from heat stress due to hulls painted black - there was virtually no forced ventilation at that time. After 1895 the yellow for funnels, ventilators etc. was replaced by grey for ships at foreign station, but the hulls remained white. The yellow used after about the 1880s seems to have become darker and more orangy.

 

The exact hue of that yellow used by the different nations varied from nation to nation and also over time, perhaps also as a matter of fashion. It appears that up to the third quarter of the 19th century the yellow was comparatively pale and then became darker. The French used a decidedly 'murky' yellow although they have one of the classical sources of yellow and red ochre in the Roussilon area that supplied much of the artistic world.