HMS Warrior (1860) - Design and Construction

Design and Construction

News of the designs for the Gloire reached the British Admiralty in May 1858. The close co-operation that had existed between France and Britain during the Crimean War had disappeared quickly, and all details of Gloire and her sister ships were treated with great secrecy in France. The new Government under Lord Derby did not begin to take the threat of a new building programme within France seriously until August 1858, when it became apparent that France would soon gain parity with the Royal Navy in terms of steam-powered ships, and utterly outclass the British in terms of ironclads.

After strong representations by Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake-Walker, the Surveyor of the Navy, and Henry Corry, the Parliamentary under-secretary to the Admiralty, the Board of Admiralty was moved on 22 November 1858 to call for designs for a wooden-hulled, armour-plated warship, whose dimensions were approximately equal to those of Gloire.

It does not appear that Wake-Walker or his chief constructor – Isaac Watts – ever seriously considered wood as a building material. Wooden ships had reached their maximum size, and some of the largest were beginning to show signs of fatigue. When coupled with the tremendous problems of timber supply, and the need for the ship to be built quickly – iron ships were far quicker to build than wooden – the only choice was for an iron-hulled ship. Given that armour plating precluded a design with several gun-decks, a broadside of 17 guns with 15 feet between guns on a single deck gave a central battery of great length. With an appropriate bow and stern, the design called for a ship some 380 feet (116 m) long, or 100 ft (30 m) longer than any warship built prior to this point.

Warrior was called "the first modern battleship" by W. Brownlee, and her innovative features were described by the same author in an article in Scientific American.

The Admiralty design was approved at the end of December 1858. Having no experience with iron hulls, the Board of Admiralty called for designs from the country's most prominent iron shipbuilders. These designs were received in April 1859, but Isaac Watts felt that none of them met the criteria, and so the tender to build the new iron-cased frigate to the Admiralty design was awarded to the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in London. The contract called for a launch date 11 months after the date of the contract – an optimistic timescale that was not met.

Warrior froze to the slipway when she was launched on 29 December 1860, during the coldest winter for 50 years, and six tugs were required to haul her into the river. Costing £357,291 (equivalent to £23M in 2006), she was completed 24 October 1861 and entered service just 35 months from when the need for the ship was established in November 1858.

Warrior had a similar area of sail to contemporary line-of-battle ships, but her larger size meant she was slower in ordinary weather and had to use steam to keep up. However, her iron construction and the stability it imparted to the ship meant she could carry more sail in a strong wind and was then as fast as the rest. Her longer, finer hull gave her great power in a seaway, so that she could take the windward position sailing against wooden rivals in bad weather. Although sails continued to feature on later designs of warship, on each one they became increasingly ineffectual as the ships' sizes increased. George Tryon, her first commander (second in command) reported that in trials with her sister ship HMS Black Prince off Gibraltar in November 1862, Warrior was the faster. Warrior retained the fine looks of the sailing ships and was considered one of the handsomest ironclads ever built.