The Wardroom Bell

The Wardroom bell began life on battleship, HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913). One of the men who sailed from the UK to the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 was a Scotsman called John MacDougal Wilkie. He was injured in the conflict but survived to tell the tale and even serve again in the home guard during World War 2.

The battleship, on the other hand, was not so lucky. It was decommissioned and broken up in 1947. Wilkie was at the braker’s yard where he found out about his history with the vessel and mentioned it to the yard manager.

A few weeks later, Wilkie found a crate on his office desk. Inside the was a bell the yard manager had saved from the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Wilkie kept the bell in his home, and eventually passed it down to his daughter and his son-in-law (my paternal grandparents); they both used it as a dinner bell in the household for many years, until one day, in 2023, they decided to give the bell back to the Royal Navy.

They phoned the Navy and were invited onboard the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, where the bell was handed back over to the Navy in Scotland.  This modern HMS Queen Elizabeth was featured on the BBC’s The Warship: Tour of Duty.

This painting is dedicated to the bell, that has seen both World Wars and service in the family dining room as the dinner bell. Now, it is back in service with the Royal Navy, carrying the legacy of the ship that sailed to Gallipoli over a century ago and our family connections with it out to sea.