File:Contemporary model of HMS Spiteful (1899).jpg

English: A model of HMS Spiteful, a Royal Navy torpedo-boat destroyer that was launched on 11 January 1899 and could steam at over 30 knots. The model is identified by embossed metal name-plates fixed to each side of the bow. It is in private ownership, and was believed by the model-maker's son to have been built in about 1904. That it was built before September 1905 is suggested by the presence of a pair of torpedo tubes located on deck on a rotating mount towards the stern: by September 1905 the ship had a single torpedo tube in that position, and another mounted on deck forward of the rear funnel.[1] An early date is also indirectly indicated by Manning, T.D., The British Destroyer, 1961, p. 39, according to which "[m]any of [the "thirty-knotter" torpedo-boat destroyers] were completed with short funnels which were heightened soon afterwards": the model shows Spiteful with short funnels, whereas photographs of the ship show her with longer ones. That the model was made before about 1916 is indicated by the fact that it is all in black: Manning also writes (p. 34) that, "[i]n their early days, destroyers at home [as Spiteful was] had black hulls ... [but she was] (about 1916) painted grey with pendant numbers on [her] bows."

An extension that can be seen on the bottom of the hull is one of two lead weights that were added by the model-maker's son in the 1970s, to make it float correctly. He recalled that the model was originally fitted with an electric motor powered by an "accumulator", or rechargeable battery. Addition of the weights and a new electric motor and battery in the 1970s – the originals had long since disappeared – made it functional. The model-maker's son also recalled that the funnels were made from mustard tins – whereas the model has three, the ship had four, of which the central two were "closely grouped [and] thinner" (Lyon, D. (2005), The First Destroyers, p. 80); and that the hull was made from 'an old clothes post'. The original for the model had two propellers. The model is missing a ship's wheel that was located behind the shelter at the stern, and a third boat and davits, which were located on the starboard side, ahead of the remaining lifeboats