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HMS Warrior
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The iron
clad frigate HMS Warrior, launched in 1860, was built for the
Royal Navy as one of it’s first ‘Warrior
Class’ steam powered iron clad vessels.
Along with her sister ship HMS Black Prince,
HMS Warrior
was built in response to
Queen Victoria's
concern that the Royal Navy lacked the ships
to counter the threat of the ships that
France was building, which included
the world’s first deep sea
ironclad ship ‘La Goire’ and her two sister
ships.
HMS
Warrior Service
When built, HMS Warrior was so advanced that
all other warships, including La Goire, were
effectively obsolete, however, HMS Warrior
was seen as a deterrent and never fired her
guns in anger. HMS Warrior spent much of her
later service as a coastguard ship before
ending her ocean going service when it was
discovered that her masts were rotten and
uneconomical to repair.
HMS
Warrior Later Years
She served as a floating school for the navy
before being converted into an oil pontoon.
In 1979 HMS Warrior was handed over to
Maritime Trust for restoration and in 1987
returned to Portsmouth as a fully restored
ship. HMS Warrior is currently on display in
the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Why
Was HMS Warrior built?
In the middle of the 19th century the
French shipbuilding programme had risen to
an aggressive level and, as a part of this
programme, French naval architect Stanislas
Charles Henri Dupuy de Lome had designed the
world’s first iron-clad warship ‘La Gloire'.
The First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir John
Somerset Pakington, responded by
commissioning a design for a ship that would be
far superior and deter the French from
challenging Britain at sea.
This ship would be HMS Warrior.
HMS Warrior Design
The radical design of HMS Warrior was
conceived by the Chief Constructor to the
Navy, Isaac Watts, and Chief Engineer Thomas
Lloyd. The centre of their design was an
armored box or citadel inside which the
engine, boiler and main guns would be
accommodated. The walls of this box consist
of 18 inches of teak clad with 4½ inches of
wrought iron plate, and would gain
additional protection from the hull.
HMS Warrior Hull Design
In an effort to reduce time and
risk, the hull of HMS Warrior,
designed by Isaac Watts and Chief
Engineer Thomas Lloyd, was copied
from the hull design of the existing
wooden frigate HMS Mersey. Ships
with this configuration of guns and
armor are classified as Broadside
Ironclads.
HMS Warrior Hull
Construction
The hull of HMS Warrior consisted of 1 inch
thick plates of wrought iron and,
for the first ever time in a
warship, contained watertight
compartments to restrict the spread
of water inside the vessel. HMS
Warrior also had a double bottom
beneath the boiler and engine rooms.
Where was HMS Warrior built?
With the Royal Dockyards at
Chatham and Portsmouth being ill
equipped to deal with the
construction of iron hulls, the work
went out to tender. The contract to
construct HMS Warrior was won by the
Thames Iron Works in Blackwall,
London. HMS Warrior was laid down in
the summer of 1859.
Difficulties During the Build of
HMS Warrior
The original completion
timescale for HMS Warrior was
estimated to be nine months, however
progress was hampered by delays and
one of the coldest winters in 50
years. The cost of building
HMS Warrior was £357,000, which
would have taken Thames Iron Works
into bankruptcy had the Government
not awarded them the additional
amount of £50,000.
When was HMS Warrior Launched?
HMS Warrior was finally
launched on December 29, 1860, and
named by Sir John Pakington. The
launch hadn’t been without it’s
problems as, despite braziers being
lit the previous night, HMS Warrior
had frozen to the slipway. Tugs,
hydraulic rams, and rocking by
hundreds of men eventually freed the
ship to the cheers of the
spectators.
Where was HMS Warrior Fitted Out?
After her launch, HMS Warrior
was taken to Victoria Docks to be
fitted out with 202 armor plates
weighing in at 960 tons. She was
also fitted with her masts and
rigging, including 25 miles of rope,
all of which had been transported
from Chatham Dockyard where it had
been made.
HMS Warrior at Greenhithe
A week after being commissioned,
on August 1, 1861, HMS Warrior left
Victoria Docks under her own power
and moved along the Thames to
Greenhithe, where she continued to
be fitted and received her armament.
HMS Warrior was famously visited by
the author
Charles Dickens while
docked at Greenhithe.
HMS Warrior Armament
There were two types of gun
aboard HMS Warrior. Twenty six
Whitworth smoothbore 68
pound muzzle loading guns weighing 6
tons each (including the elm
carriage), ten Armstrong 110 pound breech
loading guns weighing 4.1 tons each,
and four 40 pound guns.
Both the 68 and 110 pounders required a team of
18 men. With the fitting out complete,
HMS Warrior left the River Thames on
September 19, 1861, and headed for
Portsmouth. The first Captain of HMS
Warrior was
the Honorable Arthur Cochrane.
HMS Warrior Shells
The shells used in the guns
aboard HMS Warrior would be filled
with various materials including
grape shot (small shot), larger
metal pieces (shrapnel) and molten
metal which would be produced from a
furnace in the boiler room.
Use of Martin Shells on HMS
Warrior
Where
molten metal shells were used, they
would be fired into a ship's wooden
hull with enough power to lodge them
in the wood. After a while, the
molten metal would melt the shell
casing and pour onto the wood
setting the ship alight. These
liquid metal shells were known as
'Martin Shells' and would only have
been fired by the four guns on the
battery deck next to the forward
bulkhead.
HMS Warrior Trials and First
Commission
At the time of her completion,
HMS Warrior was the fastest and most
powerful warship in the world, her
advanced design making all other
warships obsolete. Following initial
sea trials, several minor
modifications were made and HMS
Warrior with her crew of 706
commenced service with the Channel
Squadron. Her early duties included
making voyages to Gibraltar and
Lisbon as well as patrolling coastal
waters.
Noteworthy Crew on HMS Warrior
John Arbuthnot 'Jacky' Fisher was
appointed Gunnery Lieutenant to HMS
Warrior in March 1863. In 1904,
Jacky Fisher became First Sea Lord,
and in 1905 he chaired the Committee
on Designs which produced the basic
design for the first modern
battleship, HMS Dreadnought.
HMS Warrior 1864 Refit
When her initial commission
ended in 1864, HMS Warrior spent two
years in dock being refitted. Part
of this refit included the
replacement of the Armstrong 110 pound guns
which has been found to overheat
leading to the possibility of the
breech block being blown out of the
barrel. Most of the replaced
Armstrong guns were sold to the
Confederate Americans for use
against the Union in the American
Civil War.
Queen Victoria Visits HMS Warrior
Towards the end of 1867, HMS Warrior
was posted to Osborne Bay, on the
north east coast of the Isle of
Wight, to guard Queen Victoria at
Osborne House. Intelligence had been
received suggesting that, while the
Fenian Rising against British Rule
in Ireland was in progress, Queen
Victoria may be under threat from
Irish Nationalists. During this
period of guard duty, Queen Victoria
made an informal visit to HMS
Warrior.
HMS Warrior 1871 Refit
HMS Warrior spent another four
years with the Channel Squadron
before requiring a
second refit in 1871. This time she spent
four years in port and underwent
some major changes including renewal
of her boilers, installation of a
steam capstan, the addition of a
poop deck. Her masts, decks and
rigging had also been renewed. By
this time she was becoming obsolete
as her design had been copied and
improved over the ten years since
her introduction.
HMS Warrior at Portland Harbour
HMS Warrior went back into
service in 1874, and having been
passed over as flagship of the
Admiral commanding the Mediterranean
squadron, she spent much of the
following six years moored at
Portland Harbour. By the middle of
1881, HMS Warrior was based at
Greenock, Scotland, where she
remained until 1883 when her sea
going service was ended by the
discovery of rot in her main and
foremasts.
HMS Warrior as Vernon III
With her masts and armament
removed, HMS Warrior deteriorated in
a part of Portsmouth known as
’Rotten Row’. She was renamed Vernon
III and served the Navy’s HMS Vernon
torpedo
training school, supplying steam and
electricity to other nearby hulks.
HMS Warrior was put up for sale in
1924.
HMS Warrior as Oil Fuel Hulk C77
HMS Warrior wasn’t purchased so,
in 1929, the Royal Navy took her to
Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven in
Wales, where she was renamed Oil
Fuel Hulk C77 and used as a floating
oil jetty for fifty years. During
this period, HMS Warrior was
regularly maintained and her hull
kept intact.
HMS Warrior Transfer of Ownership
In 1978 it was announced that
HMS Warrior would no longer be
needed as the oil depot was closing.
In 1979 HMS Warrior was handed over
to the Maritime Trust with the
agreement that the Manifold Trust
would provide the estimated £4M to
£8M necessary to restore her.
HMS Warrior is Towed to
Hartlepool
In August 1979, HMS Warrior was
towed to Hartlepool’s Coal Dock
where restoration commenced on one
of the largest maritime restoration
projects ever undertaken. It was
decided to restore HMS Warrior to as
near her 1862 condition as was
possible.
Removal of Additions to HMS
Warrior
The first couple of years of the
restoration were devoted to the
removal of items that had been added
since 1862, including the poop deck
and around 200 tons of concrete
decking.
Restoration of HMS Warrior
Following intensive research,
HMS Warrior was gradually restored
using drawings, documents and
physical evidence to position the
restored items.
HMS Warrior Replica Items
Some items on HMS Warrior proved to
costly to restore or replace
so replicas were made. These
included
fiberglass replica guns, molded
from originals obtained from the
Woolwich Rotunda Artillery Museum
and the State of Jersey, and replica engines,
boilers and other machinery.
HMS Warrior Replacement Masts
It wasn't practical to replace the
lower masts of HMS Warrior in wood,
so they were replaced with masts
made from cut and shaped steel tube.
A ladder was built inside each one
to allow for access to the mast
platforms.
The Figurehead of HMS Warrior
The replacement figurehead was
carved using photographs of the
original, and appeared at the 1982
London International Boat Show while
still being carved. It was completed
in in 1983 and appeared on BBC’s
Blue Peter before being displayed at
the main gate of Portsmouth Royal
Dockyard. On February 6, 1985, it
was finally put in place on HMS
Warrior.
Return of HMS Warrior to
Portsmouth
Leaving Hartlepool on June 12, 1987,
HMS Warrior returned to Portsmouth
where she arrived on June 16. HMS
Warrior entered her permanent birth
that evening and is now displayed as
one of the ships of Portsmouth
Historic Dockyard. Other ships
exhibited include HMS Victory and
King Henry VIII’s Mary Rose. HMS
Warrior is the sole survivor of the
45 iron hulls (known as the 'Black
Battlefleet') to be built for the
Royal Navy.
HMS Warrior Specifications:
Class and Type: Warrior Class
Armoured Frigate
Complement: 706
Displacement: 9,137 tons Length: 420ft (128m)
Beam: 58ft 4ins (17.8m) Draft: 26ft 10ins (8.2m)
Power: 5,772 ihp, 10 boilers
Propulsion: 1 trunk steam
engine, 1 shaft Speed: 14 knots
Range: 2100 nautical miles
Armament:
26 x 68 pound muzzle loading
guns -
10 x Armstrong 110 pound breech loading guns
-
4 x 40 pound guns
Armour:
Belt 4½ins (114m) -
Bulkheads 4½ins (114m)
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