Admiral: That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.

– Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Symbols are one of the most enduring and important features of life on Earth, that is to say, for humans, as no other species has created objects that are representative of something else. Written language, a distinguishing characteristic of the human species in the last few millennia of its evolution, is nothing but a collection of symbols that may represent simple objects or complex ideas, when combined into words and sentences. Of course, one must be literate in order to "read" (using the symbols that mark quotations or suspect words), or interpret, the combinations of the symbols of the alphabet, in the case of some, but not all languages.

For the illiterate, symbols are pictorial, but are often so for the literate as well, who may become illiterate when crossing national borders. Thus many traffic signs throughout the world tend towards an international idiom of symbols, a pictorial language hopefully understood by most motorists universally. At sea, buoys of differing shapes, colours and lighting also tend towards an international pictorial dictionary to mark the highways of the ocean, called channels, where water meets land.

One of the most enduring symbols of the seas, primarily during the Age of Sail, was the "figurehead" on the prow, or head, of a ship. From the 1500s to the 1800s, the figureheads were often full-length figures representing people, the gods, such as King Neptune of the ocean, or representations of animals. One of the last British warships to carry a figurehead was HMS Warrior, which visited Bermuda in 1869, towing the great flocking dock. Appropriately, the figurehead of the world's first iron-hulled, armour-plated warship was that of a warrior, Greek in this instance, perhaps a hero of Sparta.

It is possible that vessels built in these islands had figureheads, but so little is known of the details of the fabled Bermuda sloop, for example, that we cannot be sure. Of Bermuda cedar schooners and larger vessels, information is also lacking, but surely some of the locally built ships must have had figureheads carved by Bermudian artists, for such symbols of the nature of a ship were a distinct form of sculpture in wood.

For a period, Bermuda was home to a number of figureheads from vessels of the Royal Navy, though none are now extant on these shores. The last, "King Neptune", from the prow of HMS Irresistible (built 1860, 80 guns), was sent to its birthplace, the Chatham Dockyard, for restoration and indoor exhibition. It was replaced at the National Museum by a full-sized replica in Indiana limestone (for permanent outdoor exhibition as the "figurehead" of the Museum), the original being, figuratively speaking, rotten to the core from over a century of exposure to the Bermuda elements. Previously "King Neptune", after removal from the Irresistible, presided over Clarence Cove, the bathing spot of Admiralty House in Pembroke, for some 80 years, after the ship was sold out of service in 1891.

The other five figureheads were at the Bermuda Dockyard and came from the Conqueror, Forward, Imaum, Terror and Urgent: two were female images and three male.

Appropriately (perhaps), the figurehead from HMS Conqueror was that of a man, who stared at the horizon from the prow of a first-rate ship of the line, massing 101 guns to ensure the outcome of its name. Unfortunately, due to a navigation error, the figurehead had a fatal meeting with a reef off Rum Key in The Bahamas in December, 1861.

Whether this occurred after an issue of grog (rum) to the crew remains as much of a mystery as does whereabouts of the body of the figurehead, for only the head of the "conqueror" survives. For some years, "his" head apparently presided over the entrance to the Commissioner's House at the Dockyard, and is now in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic at Halifax.

HMS Forward was a gunboat, launched in 1877, which saw several years of service at the Cape of Good Hope Station, South Africa, before arriving in Bermuda in 1883. The vessel was paid off in 1891 and served as a coal hulk until broken up in 1903. Built in the era that brought the phrase "gunboat diplomacy" into the English language, the figurehead looks like a diplomat or politician and stood for some decades by the western corner of the Commissioner's House. The "statue" is now at the Maritime Command Museum, Admiralty House, Canadian Forces Base Halifax (Stadacona).

The third gentleman was the figurehead of HMS Terror, a floating battery of 16 guns, built in 1856 and sent to Bermuda the following year. As a guard and later, receiving ship, Terror, languishing at anchor for some 40 years off the Spar Yard, never had a chance to live up to its name, which in these Bin Laden days would have been a most inappropriate appellation. After the full demise of the ship in 1903, the figurehead, looking like a king with crown, stood for many years by the King's Wharf (William IV, that is) at Dockyard. The ultimate whereabouts and fate of the presumably terrifying king is unknown.

The two female figureheads at Bermuda come from HMS Imaum and HMS Urgent, the first ship built at Bombay in 1826 for the Imaum of Muscat, who later presented it as a gift to William IV. The second ship was launched in 1855 as a troopship and ended its days at Jamaica in 1903. Full-bodied figureheads, the ladies were transferred from Bermuda to Halifax in 1952, along with the gentlemen from Conqueror and Forward. That from Imaum is beautifully restored at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, while that from Urgent has apparently succumbed to too many years of exterior exposure.

Situated near the centre of the Bermuda Dockyard round the Boat Slip, the two ladies were known to sailors as "Yes, please" (Imaum) and "No, thank you" (Urgent). The question for those answers is another unknown in this story about figuring out the figureheads once at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda.

Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum of Bermuda, incorporating the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments may be made to director@bmm.bm or 704-5480.