H.M.S. WARRIOR
According to the Admiralty records at Greenwich, Dent No. 2459 was issued to H.M.S.
Warrior on 18
th
September, 1861. It was the first chronometer to be issued to the Royal
Navy’s most powerful and most important battleship of the era.
H.M.S. Warrior was the ultimate deterrent, but she never fired a shot in anger. At the
time she represented Pax Britannica at its zenith. Warrior began active service most
inauspiciously. She froze to the slipway when she was launched on December 29th 1860
during the coldest winter for 50 years. Frozen snow covered the dockyard and Thames
braziers blazed down the ship’s sides, but when Sir John Pakington, First Lord of the
Admiralty, came to do the honours, she refused to budge. Extra tugs and hydraulic rams
pulled her while hundreds of men ran from side to side on her upper deck, trying to rock
her free. After 20 minutes, she finally gave way. Sir John smashed a bottle of wine over her
bow with the words “God speed the Warrior”. The Hon Arthur Cochrane, son of the Earl
of Dundonald, became her captain after her commission on August 1st 1861. The ship
underwent minor modifications after a sea trial. In June 1862, she started active service in
the Channel Squadron, patrolling coastal waters and sailing to Lisbon and Gibraltar.
Warrior as she was first built
Britannia ruled the waves when Queen Victoria came to the throne. Wooden sailing ships
were on the decline, making way for new maritime innovations like the paddle steamer,
Great Western, and the iron hulled, screw-driven SS Great Britain. The Admiralty had,
however, grown complacent about Britain’s command of the seas.
Steam engines had been installed in some wooden ships of the line, and smaller vessels
had been constructed with the new types of propulsion or iron hulls, but it was a shock
when in 1858 the French started building La Gloire, the first armoured wooden-hulled
ship.
The original intention of the French was to replace their whole fleet with iron hulls, but
French industrial capacity proved incapable of delivering enough iron. Instead, almost
all ships had wooden hulls clad with iron up to five inches thick above the waterline.
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