On 16 August 1914 Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, found he had thousands of naval reservists and no ships to put them in. So he made them into infantry. The Royal Naval Division took its battalion names from admirals — Drake, Nelson, Hood, Anson — kept naval ranks and naval customs on dry land, and went to war with no artillery, no engineers and no medical units of its own. Lightly equipped infantry and nothing else. A handful of regular petty officers were transferred across from the fleet to give the thing a spine. They were at Antwerp by 6 October and at Gallipoli the following spring.

This is what that looked like on a man: navy blue from the cap down, the RN badge still on the peak, and below the waist leather infantry equipment, a holster, breeches and khaki puttees. Half sailor and half soldier, which is exactly what he was. W. Britain catches him doing a petty officer's actual job — pointing, telling somebody where to go. He sits oddly in a British diorama, because almost everything else in the range is 1916–18 and he belongs to the first winter. His company is the Minerva armoured car, built in the city he was sent to defend; the British infantry of 1914 he was standing in for; and the Belgian army that fell back to the Yser when Antwerp went.

W. Britain model 13021. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single standing figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Supplied in a window box.