From 1848 onwards a series of large two-decker Second Rates were ordered to have steam machinery installed, using engines intended for the iron-hulled frigates Greenock, Vulcan, Megaera and Simoom, whose shortcomings had led to a decision in April 1847 to complete them as troopships with lower-powered engines. Those scheduled for conversion included two 90-gun ships, the Nile and London, The 780hp Napier engine intended for the Simoom was to be fitted into the Nile, while the 700hp Boulton & Watt engine scheduled for the Vulcan was earmarked for the London. The 84-gun Powerful was similarly scheduled to receive the 556hp Fairbairn engine from the Megaera. The Admiralty then approached the Surveyor to seek his opinion on Hay’s proposal to fit these three engines, and in February 1849 the Surveyor signalled his strong opposition – it would be too expensive to do, and would ruin the ships. In the event these conversions were cancelled, leaving the three powerful engines available for other conversions (the engine for the Greenock was not used).

However, the Surveyor was keen to complete a steam three-decker as soon as possible, and in December 1851 sent Isaac Watts, together with his colleague John Abethell, to Pembroke Dock where they carried out an inspection of the suspended 120-gun Windsor Castle. They recommended her as suitable, and on 19 January 1852 it was directed to complete her as a 130-gun First Rate, using the 780nhp Napier engine built for the Simoom; on 30 September 1852 this engine was re-rated at 700nhp; on the next day the new ship was renamed Duke of Wellington. The design was approved for her to be lengthened by a 23ft section amidships to incorporate the machinery, and with a 7½ft section added at the stern to give a finer run aft to improve propeller efficiency. She was then towed to Portsmouth on 9 October, and there she was fitted for sea between 11 October 1852 and 27 November 1853 at a cost of £40,716, making her complete first cost £176,918.

The increased armament for the lengthened ship now comprised ten 8-inch shell guns of 65cwt and twenty-six 32-pounders of 56cwt on the lower deck, six 8-inch shell guns and thirty 32-pounders of the same weights on the middle deck, thirty-eight 32-pounders of 42cwt on the upper deck, and twenty 32-pounders of 25cwt on the quarterdeck and forecastle, with a single 68-pounder gun of 95cwt pivot-mounted on the centreline as a bow-chaser.

On 23 October 1852, directions were issued for the 120-gun Lang-designed ship building at Woolwich, the Royal Albert, to be similarly fitted with a steam engine. She was to receive the 620nhp Seaward & Capel engine originally intended for the wooden-hulled screw frigate Euphrates, which had been cancelled in May 1849. However, on 23 October the Committee decided to use a less powerful engine of 400nhp, although this machinery was later deemed inadequate for the three-decker, and a tender for a new 500nhp engine was accepted from Penn in January 1854.

As the Royal Albert was the only First Rate of the mid-nineteenth century whose design was not derived from the Caledonia class, unsurprisingly she emerged from her conversion with considerable differences. Lang received – and perhaps deserved – some of the criticism for this.

THE Marlborough was intended to be converted like the Duke of Wellington, but she was given an extra 5ft extension of her bow during her conversion on the stocks, compared with the Duke of Wellington. As built, she was broader and actually measured 206ft 3⅝in overall by 61ft 2½in (60ft 4½in for tonnage) by 25ft 10in depth in hold – a massive burthen of 4000 tons. She had cost £203,554 to build, including £107,731 for her hull, £51,120 for her machinery and £28,333 for fitting out. As a crude measure of how the First Rate had grown from its earliest days, this ship sports twenty-two gunports a side on the lower deck (including chase positions) compared with thirteen in the Sovereign of the Seas.
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A midships section, looking aft, of the Duke of Wellington drawn in July 1853 at Portsmouth where she was fitting out. It shows the position of the 780nhp machinery in the hold below the orlop deck, flanked on each side by purpose-built bunkers for coal. The 2-cylinder horizontal single expansion engine had actually been built by Robert Napier & Sons for the unsuccessful iron-hulled frigate Simoom; it developed 1979ihp on trials to give a measured speed of 10.15 knots. Many smaller details are also indicated, including the exact arrangement of spare spars on the gratings, surmounted by two 42ft launches, each with a 32ft boat nested inside (a barge in the starboard and a pinnace in the port launch).
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Two brand new First Rates were ordered in April 1854 – the only First Rates to be designed and built from the start as screw-driven wooden-hulled warships – but before describing these it is necessary to complete the story of the last sailing First Rates converted to steam propulsion. In early 1854 three such ships remained on the stocks in Portsmouth Dockyard: the Royal Frederick (ordered as Royal Sovereign, and under construction since 1841), the Prince of Wales, and the new Royal Sovereign; the Victoria was similarly on the stocks at Pembroke Dock.

A coloured lithograph by Thomas Dutton of the Marlborough as newly completed. She had been scheduled to launch on 1 August 1855, and the ceremony at Portsmouth actually took place on that date, but she stuck on the slipway and it took more than a week before she actually entered the water.
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For the four ships re-ordered as 120-gun ships in 1848 the process of conversion involved lengthening the hull to create a compartment large enough to accommodate the single expansion engine and the associated steam boilers. The lengthening also improved the lines of the ship, raising her speed. Each ship was cut apart amidships, the after part was then sealed and launched separately, and a new midships section was built on. The after section was then dragged onto the slipway and re-attached.

THIS coloured lithograph of the Royal Albert by Charles Lewis Pickering was published in 1852, before the ship was completed. It is a public print rather than an official production, but its dedication ‘with permission’ to Sir Baldwin Walker, the Surveyor of the Navy, suggests access to official information. It is certainly replete with unusual detail, from the landing guns right forward to the admiral’s lady in the great cabin aft.
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The subsequent history of those ships cut down as Second Rates upon conversion to steam has been outlined in the previous chapter, but the later histories of those conversions which became steam-driven three-deckers are given below.

Duke of Wellington

The Duke of Wellington was commissioned in 1853 under Commodore Henry Byam Martin, for the Western Fleet. She carried 1100 men and an armament of 131 guns; the lower deck was provided with ten shell guns of 8-inch/65cwt type and twenty-six solid-shot guns of 32-pounder/55cwt type; the middle deck carried six more shell guns and thirty more 32-pounders of the same weights. There were thirty-eight solid-shot guns of 32-pounder/40cwt type on the upper deck, and twenty ‘gunnades’ (shorter than a long gun but longer than a carronade) of 32-pounder/25cwt type on the quarterdeck. In addition, a single solid-shot gun of 68-pounder/95cwt model was added on a pivot as a bow-chaser.

Marlborough

The Marlborough was commissioned in February 1858 under Captain Lord Frederick Herbert Kerr, as flagship of Vice-Admiral Arthur Fanshawe for the Mediterranean. She initially carried 1100 men and the same armament of 131 guns as the Duke of Wellington, but this was subsequently reduced to 121 guns, similar to that in the new Victoria and Howe. In April 1860 she was under Captain William Fanshawe Martin, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Sydney Colpoys Dacres. In 1864 she paid off into Ordinary at Portsmouth, as a 121-gun ship; by 1870 her armament had been reduced to 98 guns, and in 1875 to 74 guns. She was eventually sold in 1924 for breaking up, but capsized off Brighton while en route to the breaker’s yard.

Royal Albert

The Royal Albert – the only three-decker of the last generation not to have originated as a Queen class design – was launched on 13 May 1854, departing the next day for Sheerness, where she completed fitting for sea on 19 November. Her hull had cost £111,865 to build, and her (Penn) machinery £31,983; altogether her building and fitting totalled £174,345. Over the following week, she completed fitting for troops at Portsmouth.

A detailed draught of the Victori shows the location of the single expansion engine and the eight boilers in the ship’s hold. As a consequence of this the foot of the main mast could not be sited in the hold, as was the case in the pure sailing vessels, but was stepped on orlop deck above. There are sixteen ports along the broadside on each the three principal decks, plus chas ports. The two ships built to this design were the last three-deckers to be built and the only class designee from the start to have steam propulsion. In April 1861 the Howe of Commons adopted a motion ending the construction of woodenhulled capital ships. It marked the end for the three-decker and closed an era that began over 250 years earlier.
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AS the nineteenth century progressed, the pace of change increased and as each ship became ever more different from its predecessor, so the builders required more information. There were more and more innovations to be represented on draughts, and this led to more complicated plans, with the greater use of multi-coloured inks. This plan of the orlop for the Trafalgar of 1841 is dated 1845 and shows the exact fittings below the waterline as actually completed. Not only are more details represented, but they are also heavily labelled and annotated, suggesting that items on a draught like this would not necessarily be self-evident, even to professionals.
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Commissioned initially under Captain Thomas Sabine Pasley, with the Channel Fleet, but in November 1854 she was under Captain William Robert Mends, for the Black Sea squadron, where she became the flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons in February 1855. She took part in the Anglo-French attack on the fortress of Kinburn (at the mouth of the Dnieper) on 17 October 1855. On returning to the UK, she became the command of Captain Henry James Lacon, as flagship of Sir Charles Howe Fremantle in July 1858 in the Channel She paid off at Plymouth on 20 December 1860, and remained there (as a 107-gun ship) until she was sold to Messrs Castle in September 1884 for breaking up.

Royal Sovereign

Prince of Wales

Building the Prince of Wales as a sailing vessel had cost £47,116. Her conversion to a screw battleship brought the total up to £116,847, but, again, this ship was never to see active service. On 3 March 1869 she was renamed Britannia, to serve as a boys’ training ship in the River Dart. She was commissioned in August 1874 under Captain William Graham. In August 1877 she was commanded by Henry Fairfax, then from 1880 by Richard Wells. In September 1889 she recommissioned under Captain Noel Stephen Fox Digby, then again in February 1900 under Captain Michael Pelham O’Callaghan. In 1904 she was at the Royal Naval College. She was hulked in 1909, and sold to Garnham for breaking up in November 1914; they re-sold her to shipbreakers Hughes Bolckow, and she arrived in July 1916 at Blyth to break up.

THE 1854 NEWBUILDING PROGRAMME – THE VICTORIA (1859) AND HOWE (1860)

THIS model of the Howe of 1860 shows the two-funnel arrangement of the uptakes from her eight boilers, four forwards and four aft of the Penn 1000nhp machinery. On trials at Plymouth, this produced 4564ihp to give her a speed of over 13.5 knots – making her the fastest First Rate of all time. The model clearly shows the open galleries at the stern, and below them the single screw. The hull is shown pierced for 140 guns – 70 on each side (not counting the pivot-mounted 68-pounder in the bows). There are twenty gunports on the lower deck, eighteen on the middle deck and eighteen on the third tier (now ‘main deck’). In practice each of the class was established with just 94 guns on these three decks. On the model the quarterdeck has eight pairs of gunports (the Victoria’s draught shows a ninth pair, not visible on the model) and the forecastle five for the lightweight (42cwt) 32-pounders on this level.
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The armament was to follow the previous pattern. The lower deck was provided with thirty-two shell guns of 8inch/65cwt type, with thirty more of the same calibre on the middle deck. There were thirty-two solid-shot guns of 32-pounder/58cwt model on the main deck, and twenty-six more 32-pounder/42cwt guns on the upper deck. In addition, a single solid-shot 68-pounder/95cwt, fitted on a pivot mounting on the forecastle, was added as a bow-chaser.

The Victoria, following her launch, was fitted for Reserve, completing as such on 20 April 1860. She was commissioned in April 1863 as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Robert Smart for the Mediterranean. Captain James Graham Goodenough assumed command in November 1864. In 1866 command passed to Captain Alan Gardner, as flagship of Vice-Admiral Lord Clarence Edward Paget, still in the Mediterranean. In 1867 she was at the 17 July Review at Spithead, now with the flag of Admiral Sir Thomas Sabine Pasley. The Victoria remained at Portsmouth from 1870 to, and was finally sold for dismantling in May 1893.

After launch at Pembroke, the Howe was moved on 4 April 1860 to Devonport, where she completed fitting machinery on 16 August, at a cost of £62,500. She then remained at Plymouth for nearly thirty years, being renamed Bulwark on 3 December 1885 (the name Howe was re-assigned to a new battleship of the ‘Admiral’ class), when she was adapted for harbour service as a training ship for boys at Plymouth; on 27 September 1886 she was further renamed Impregnable, and remained in this role until the end of the First World War. On 1 December 1919 she resumed the name Bulwark, but was sold to Garnham to break up on 18 February 1921.

On 24 January 1860 the Admiralty made its last alterations to the definition of the various Rates. They wrote to the Surveyor instructing him that (among changes to other Rates) the First Rate was to comprise all ships carrying 110 guns and upwards, or the complements of which consisted of 1000 men and upwards.

The Duke of Wellington Class (131 guns) – construction history

The Duke of Wellington Class (131 guns) – dimensions in feet and inches

FROM the beginning to the end of their history, First Rates were unhandy, demanding the highest standards of seamanship and skill: this shows sail drill in the Marlborough, one of the last (completed in 1858) and actually a screw-driven steamer, although, like the rest of her kind, most time at sea was spent under canvas. Wash drawing by Eduardo de Martino.
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The Victoria Class (121 guns) – construction history

The Victoria Class (121 guns) – dimensions in feet and inches