The Emergence of the Modern Warship
The first Victorian naval ships were much the same as Nelson’s Victory; by the end of the century, writes Derek Lawrence, armour, fire-power and methods of propulsion had totally changed.
Among the events celebrating the sixty years of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1897 was the great Jubilee Naval Review at Spithead. Without taking a single ship from the Mediterranean, from the China seas, from Australasia, or from North America, Britain put on display before the watching world on June 26th fifty-nine Battleships and Cruisers, thirty-eight third-class Cruisers, Gun vessels and Torpedo Gunboats, forty-eight Destroyers and Cruisers, and twenty Torpedo Gunboats.
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