A small steam vessel of the type widely requisitioned from Britain's fishing fleet for Royal Navy minesweeping and coastal patrol duty during the First World War, seen moored on a sheltered English waterway. Thousands of civilian trawlers and drifters were pressed into auxiliary naval service between 1914 and 1918, their crews often retained as naval reservists to operate them. This photograph, drawn from a WWI-era England negative collection, captures the modest, workaday character of these converted craft against a backdrop of grand Edwardian shoreline architecture. Project: 218363