Shaping the Royal Navy: Technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830–1906 9781526111876

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Shaping the Royal Navy provides the first cultural history of technology, authority and the Royal Navy in the years of Pax Britannica. It places the story firmly within the currents of British history to reconstruct the controversial and high-profile nature of naval architecture. Ship design entailed far more than technical knowledge and skills: politicians battled for power and control over naval policy and expenditure; naval officers grew anxious over losing control of the ship to engineers in both the dockyard and engine room; engineers struggled for authority over the design process; and scientists sought to find a role within industrial society. The technological transformation of the Navy dominated the British government and engineering communities. This book explores its history, revealing how ship design became a modern science, the ways that actors competed for authority within the British state and why the nature of naval power changed. Shaping the Royal Navy offers a novel study of the social, cultural and political construction of military technology. ‘Britannia and the Admiralty’ from Punch magazine. Courtesy of the University of Kent Don Leggett is Assistant Professor in the History of Science and Technology at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

Shaping the Royal Navy

The nineteenth-century Royal Navy was transformed from a fleet of sailing wooden walls into a steam powered machine. Britain’s warships were her first line of defence, and their transformation dominated political, engineering and scientific discussions. They were the products of engineering ingenuity, political controversies, naval ideologies and the fight for authority in nineteenth-century Britain.

LE G G E TT

Technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830–1906

Technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830–1906

Shaping the Royal Navy

Shaping the Royal Navy T ec h no lo gy , a ut h o r i t y a nd na v a l a r c h i t ec t ur e, c. 1 83 0 –1 9 0 6

DON L EGGETT

Shaping the Royal Navy

Shaping the Royal Navy Technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830 –1906

Don Leggett

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Don Leggett 2015 The right of Don Leggett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN  978 0 7190 9028 8  hardback First published 2015 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset 10/12pt Arno Pro by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction

page vi viii xi 1

1 Authority, judgement and the sailor-designer 2 Steam and the management of naval architecture 3 Iron experiments and guaranteeing naval power 4 The Captain catastrophe and the politics of authority 5 A scientific problem of the highest order 6 The politics of management and design 7  Re-engineering naval power

26 59 89 126 165 197 235

Conclusion

271

Select bibliography Index

280 293

Figures

1.1 William Symonds, by Edward Morton (1850), D13184, © National Portrait Gallery 1.2 Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, in the Royal Yacht proceeding to Spithead, July 15th 1845, at the departure of the experimental squadron, by J.M. Gilbert and L. Haghe (1846), PAF4884, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London 3.1 HMS Warrior, artist unknown (1872), PAD6222, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London 4.1 HMS Captain (c.1870), BHC3771, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London 4.2 Sir Edward James Reed, by Wooyeno (1879), x128749, © National Portrait Gallery 4.3 ‘Raft in the Sea of Azoff ’, Illustrated London News (11 August 1855), 165 5.1 HM Turret Ship Devastation at Spithead on the Occasion of the Naval Review in Honour of the Shah of Persia, 23rd June 1873, by Edward Cooke, NMM BHC3287, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London 5.2 Diagram of Froude’s model rolling experiment, 14 May 1871. Henry Marc Brunel, Engineering notebook, 1869 –1882, University of Bristol Brunel Collection DM1307/2/4, by courtesy of the Brunel Institute, a collaboration of the SS Great Britain Trust and the University of Bristol 6.1 ‘The “phantom board” ’, Punch (3 February 1872), 48 6.2 HMS Royal Sovereign 1st Class Battleship, by W. Fred Mitchell, PAD0309, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

page 31

38 90 128 132 142

166

180 204 226

Figures 7.1 ‘The First Photographs of the Model for the World’s Navies’, Illustrated London News (6 October 1906), 468 7.2 Photograph of Philip Watts, Charles Parsons and William H. White in Alan A. Campbell Swinton, Autobiographical and Other Writings (London, 1930)

vii 236 244

Acknowledgements

Books are a lot like ships, especially the ones that are described in the following pages. They are conceived on paper, meticulously planned out until every dimension and variable is ascertained. When construction begins the designer anxiously watches the work take shape, agonising over whether the pieces will come together as intended. After years of labour the work draws near to completion, and it is time to test it in a series of trial runs. If changes are required, they are made in the hopes of improving performance. Like ships, books are also the work of many hands. Admiral John ‘Jacky’ Fisher, long associated with HMS Dreadnought and the naval reforms of the first decade of the twentieth century, may have declared ‘Alone I did it’, but in truth his position was akin to that of an author: the first name on the book perhaps, but by no means the only one. To continue the metaphor, I count myself fortunate and thankful to have received my apprenticeship under the master shipwright Crosbie Smith. He introduced me to the cultural history of technology on an undergraduate course on the ‘Tools of Empire’ and a subsequent stint as a researcher on the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) ‘Ocean Steam Ship’ project. Since the start of my doctoral work in 2006 I have found his generous support, intellectual curiosity and constructive engagement with my ideas invaluable. This book originated with my doctoral thesis on naval architecture in midVictorian Britain, undertaken at the University of Kent and supported, initially, by a Maurice Crosland Scholarship in the Centre for the History of the Sciences and a Colyer-Fergusson Research Grant, and then an AHRC studentship (Doctoral Scheme Award 2007/135185). In many ways the book no longer resembles the thesis. I am grateful for the research fellowship in the School of History at the University of Kent which provided me with the time to reflect on the comments provided by my thesis examiners, Peter Mandler and Graeme Gooday. They added fresh perspective and valuable critique, and I thank them for the con­ structive way they engaged with my thesis in order to take it toward publication.

Acknowledgements

ix

In the two years after submitting the PhD thesis I undertook further research, produced new chapters that extend the period covered, restructured the book around the ships that connect different fields of history and reframed the narrative. I had cause to doubt this course of action when, shortly after submitting the manuscript to the publisher for review, I was awarded the Young Scholar Prize of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science for the original thesis. Hopefully this book captures the best of that work, but also presents the activities of naval architects, engineers, craftsmen, physicists, naval officers and politicians in a wider context where their work was central to the making of naval power, technical authority and professional status in the nineteenth century. This had always been my ambition, and I thank Stefan Goebel for keeping me on course with his generous insights and ongoing interest in my work, from the start of the PhD to the present day. In the course of undertaking research for this book I had the fortunate experience of passing through a number of institutions that have influenced my ideas. An AHRC/ESRC fellowship at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in the final year of my PhD helped me widen my perspective on my research and approach (Kluge Fellowship award LOC57). I am indebted to Carolyn Brown, Mary Lou Reker and the many library specialists and scholars who made my time in Washington, DC so stimulating and productive. Similarly, a Caird Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum provided the ideal opportunity to grapple with the naval dimension of the research and engage with specialists who were equally interested in finding new ways of writing the history of ships and other maritime subjects. I am grateful to John McAleer, Robert Blyth, Quintin Colville and Nigel Rigby for their interest in my research. James Davey’s interest in naval expertise helped fuel my own, and Richard Dunn taught me much as we worked on the publication of an edited volume on the re-invention of the ship in the long nineteenth century. The British Society for the History of Science has also played a formative part in my ongoing education, and the constant stream of criticisms and suggestions on papers presented at the annual meetings down the years has been greatly appreciated, and I am particularly grateful to Hermione Giffard, Jeff Hughes, Ben Marsden and Sam Robinson. I also count myself fortunate to have had a supportive base at Kent throughout these years. Colleagues, past and present, and friends in the School of History and Centre for the History of the Sciences have provided intellectual support and companionship throughout, including James Baker, Mike Brown, Neil Calver, Oliver Carpenter, Pratik Chakrabarti, Mark Connelly, Kenneth Fincham, Tim Keward, Joydeep Sen, Charlotte Sleigh, Joe Street, Jackie Waller and Alice White.

x Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the dedication and help of archivists and librarians at the numerous institutions where I undertook research, including the Templeman Library, Canterbury; Canterbury Cathedral Archives; Library of Congress; Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; the National Archives, Kew; the British Library Manuscripts and Rare Book reading rooms; the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; the Science Museum, London and Swindon; the Manuscripts, Rare Rooks and Official Publications reading rooms of the University of Cambridge; Churchill College, Cambridge; St John’s College Cambridge; the Rare Book and Manuscript Reading Room at Bristol University; the Borthwick Institute, University of York; the manuscript reading room at the National Archives of Scotland; Glasgow University Archive Services; Glasgow University manuscripts reading room; and the Scottish National Maritime Museum at Dumbarton. I am also grateful to Andrew Lambert, who, as well as shedding light on the politics of naval architecture in a number of conversations, helped me to examine the Baldwin Walker papers; and Larrie Ferreiro, whose knowledge of naval architecture and intellectual generosity I have been fortunate to experience. I also thank Emma Brennan, Lianne Slavin and Judith Oppenheimer at Manchester University Press, for their patience, support and expertise in bringing this book to press, along with the anonymous readers of the manuscript for their helpful comments. A year studying early modern history at Cambridge may not have resulted in a career in ecclesiastical history, but the experience and friends remain. While in Canterbury I thank my friends who draw me away from work, and Chloë, who has offered constant and kind-hearted support, encouragement and, when necessary, distraction. Finally, I wish to thank my family, without whom all the academic endeavours that have gone into this book would not have been possible. Their love and commitment not only gave me the opportunities I have enjoyed, but continue to support me, driving me forward and providing the happy world which sustains this intellectual one. To them I dedicate this book.

Abbreviations

BAAS cat. Chambers’s DNC DoD INA Reports RSNA RUSI RYC SNA Transactions

British Association for the Advancement of Science catalogue page Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts Director of Naval Construction Director of Dockyards Institution of Naval Architects Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Royal School of Naval Architecture Royal United Service Institution Royal Yacht Club School of Naval Architecture Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects

Introduction

Now it is well known by anybody who has at all turned his mind to the matter, that there is, perhaps, no problem in science – no problem in mathematics – more difficult than to determine what is the best construction of a ship destined for the purposes of war. First of all, it is not very easy, on strict mathematical principles, to say beforehand what form of a solid body is best adapted to go rapidly through a fluid. It is not very easy to say how the best floating line of a ship when fully rigged, manned and equipped for sea is to be secured, and what construction of the hull will give the greatest steadiness. But all those are qualities which a man of war should have. It is not very easy to say beforehand where the centre of gravity will be, nor where will be the verrick centre, or centre of impulse which lies somewhere in the rigging; and yet these are points just as important in their bearing upon the sailing qualities of a ship as the adaptation of the hull to making its progress rapidly through the water. Your practical man cannot tell this. He may give you the results of his experience of this ship or that. He may say the ship you submit to him resembles some good sailer he is acquainted with, and seems therefore to possess what, in his view, are the requisites of good sailing; but he cannot tell you beforehand on what principle its sailing qualities depend. Again, the man of science, though he may tell you on scientific principles how he can obtain the qualities which you require; yet if not assisted by the practical sailor as to the amount and manner of stowage, and its effect on the sailing qualities of the ship, he will not be able to give you a safe model on which to ground your building system. Viscount Palmerston exhibits his knowledge of hydrodynamics in an 1845 speech in the House of Commons.1

To many readers, Viscount Palmerston’s speech on the problems that faced Britain’s warship designers will be as surprising as the Victorian Prime Minister was informed. It should not be so. Naval construction and ship design were frequently the subjects of parliamentary speeches, newspaper articles and periodical 1 ‘Supply – the Navy estimates’, Hansard 78 (31 March 1845), 1290 –1.

2

Shaping the Royal Navy

essays. Shipwrights and naval officers were the groups most immediately connected to the problems of naval architecture, but the connection between ship design and British naval strength was such that the topic excited interest from across the political, naval, engineering, scientific and press communities. Levels of knowledge differed widely, together with the types of knowledge that communities privileged, i.e. that derived from experience, experiment or mathematical analysis. The questions they sought to answer, however, were much the same: what types of ships ought to be built for the Navy? How should the success of those ships be judged? Who would be entrusted by the state to undertake design work? Responses to these questions gave rise to controversies throughout the nineteenth century. John Henry Briggs, a secretary to the Board of Admiralty, believed that there was ‘no subject more difficult to deal with than the construction of vessels for the Royal Navy or one upon which more mistakes have been made, more party spirit enlisted, or public money wasted’.2 Similarly James Graham, who co-drafted the Great Reform Act and served as First Lord of the Admiralty for the Whig Party on two separate occasions in the 1830s and 1850s, quipped that ‘except religion, he knew no subject that excited so much bitter controversy’.3 Between 1831 and 1906 the British government spent over £935,000,000 on the Navy. In 1831, the £5,300,000 gross naval spending was 10.21% of the total public expenditure. In 1850 the £6,200,000 represented 11.17%, in 1875 the £10,500,000 represented 14.38%, and in 1906, the year HMS Dreadnought was launched, the outlay of £33,300,000 represented 22.65%.4 There were also one-off outlays for warship building, most notably the £21,500,000 guaranteed by the 1889 Naval Defence Act. The British government did not spend such large amounts of public money without taking a great interest in the design, construction and behaviour of its warships. The Royal Navy was Britain’s foremost military institution, supported by an extensive engineering infrastructure of dockyards. Palmerston was evidently informed about the limits of knowledge concerning ship design, the difficulties involved in a purely mathematical analysis of hull form and the tensions that existed between practical shipwrights

2 J.H. Briggs, Naval administration, 1827–1892: the experience of 66 Years (London, 1897), 23. 3 ‘Memoirs of the life and services of Rear-Admiral Sir William Symonds, K.C.B., Surveyor of the Navy from 1832 to 1847’, Athenaeum, 1578 (23 January 1858) 106. 4 Figures from B.R. Mitchell & P. Deane, Abstract of British historical statistics (Cambridge, 1962), 396 – 9.

Introduction

3

and those highly educated in mathematics and hydrodynamic theory – not to mention naval officers and men of science. In the nineteenth century the Royal Navy was transformed from a fleet of sailing wooden walls into a complex machine: a system of mechanical technologies controlling propulsion, navigation and firepower. The 1840s saw the first steam warships, the 1860s the first made of iron and in the 1870s the first without masts. As the century drew to a close the size of warships substantially increased, as did their offensive power and speed. These were highly contested and controversial changes to the fabric of Britain’s naval defence. They became topics in popular politics, due in part to the public interest in the Navy during the nineteenth century.5 In Birth of the Battleship (2001), John Beeler ascribes a great deal of power to politicians and senior naval officers in the direction of ship design without illuminating the ways in which speeches in the House of Commons were linked to work in the dockyards.6 A lot of naval history has failed to complicate this relationship, preferring instead to treat technology as a factor. This book places the actors, institutions and practices involved in ship design into the contexts which made the Navy’s ships so ripe for political, naval and engineering debate. It challenges our understanding of technological change and maps the authority of different approaches to ship design.7 This book examines these reconstructions of the Navy, restoring them to the flows and currents of nineteenth-century history without treating them as simple products of contemporary politics and strategy. A surface-level investigation of technological change can yield only a weak analysis in which the Navy simply exploited technologies as they became available. In Robert L. Connell’s study of the rise of the battleship, the screw propeller ‘presented itself ’ as a solution to employing steam at sea, while ‘the enormous advant­ age to be gained by substituting ferrous metals for trees quickly silenced 5 For the Navy as a topic in popular politics see Robert Blyth, Andrew Lambert & Jan Rüger (eds.), The Dreadnought and the Edwardian age (Farnham, 2011); Jan Rüger, The great naval game: Britain and Germany in the age of empire (Cambridge, 2007); Paul Kennedy, The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860 –1914 (London, 1987), 410 –31; W. Mark Hamilton, The nation and the Navy: methods and organisation of navalist propaganda, 1889 –1914 (London, 1986). 6 John Beeler, Birth of the battleship: British capital ship design, 1870 –1881 (Chatham, 2001). 7 There are important exceptions in the history of the United States Navy, including David A. Mindell, War, technology, and experience aboard the USS Monitor (Baltimore, MD, 2000); William M. McBride, Technological change and the United States Navy, 1865 –1945 (Baltimore, MD, 2000).

4

Shaping the Royal Navy

conservative opposition’ to iron warships.8 Underpinning his analysis is a peculiar and unquestioned model of the ‘evolution of technology’. Such a model is to be found in much naval history, and nineteenth-century British history generally.9 It has become convenient for British historians to leave unexamined the role of human actors in technological change. It is not uncommon to read about how railways changed the perception of time, how cheap newspaper presses forged national consciousness and how telegraphy made the world a smaller place. So far as naval technology goes, the act of removing matériel from the sites of its conception and construction – or paying only cursory attention to conventional narratives – will skip over a great deal of historical context and contingency.10 New forms of propulsion, building materials and weaponry required extensive and careful experimentation, trials and deployment. Examining the history of these processes involves more than emphasising the role of inventors. It is about how large institutions deal with technological questions: how do they manage a vast engineering enterprise? What authority do they give to engineers? What are the agreed-upon processes whereby a new technology is deemed credible?11 Even technical histories of the Navy, so called by naval historians, with their descriptive narratives of technologies and reforms to engineering practices, fail to engage with these wider contexts that shaped   8 Robert L. Connell, Sacred vessels: the cult of the battleship and the rise of the U.S. Navy (Oxford, 1991), 40, 45.   9 For example, Beeler, Birth of the battleship; Duncan Redford, The submarine: a cultural history from the Great War to nuclear combat (London, 2010); Norman Friedman, U.S. battleships: an illustrated design history (Annapolis, MD, 1985). For a critique of the evolutionary model of technology change in naval history see Don Leggett & Richard Dunn, ‘Introduction: re-inventing the ship in the long nineteenth century’, in Leggett & Dunn, Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800 –1918 (Farnham, 2012), 1– 8, esp. 5 – 6. 10 Examples of such removal include Michael J. Bastable, Arms and the state: Sir William Armstrong and the remaking of British naval power, 1854 –1914 (Aldershot, 2004); Beeler, Birth of the battleship; John Beeler, British naval policy in the Gladstone– Disraeli era, 1866 –1880 (Stanford, CA, 1997); Jon Tetsumo Sumida, In defence of naval supremacy: finance, technology and British naval policy, 1889 –1914 (Boston, 1989); J.P. Baxter, The introduction of the ironclad warship (Cambridge, MA, 1933). 11 Such questions are posed in studies of other industrial-military enterprises, see William M. McBride, Technological change and the United States Navy, 1865 –1945 (Baltimore, MD, 2000); Ken Alder, Engineering the revolution: arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763–1815 (Princeton, NJ, 1997); Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry armory and new technology: the challenge of change (Ithaca, NY, 1977).

Introduction

5

technological change.12 Technologies, as understood by many historians, may conveniently appear ready for application, but this book deals with technologies in the making, which involve networks of actors negotiating risk, speculation, anxiety, fragile credibility and competing interest groups.13 The other side of the coin, so to speak, is technological determinism. If the notion of ‘evolution’ is an unsatisfactory means for understanding technological changes, technological determinism is its companion for understanding the ways technologies affect the course of human history. Reducing technology to a ‘factor’ that explains events is problematic. Sticking to the example of the screw propeller, Eric Grove writes in his history of the Royal Navy that ‘[w]ithout this, steam could never be more than an auxiliary to the main fighting fleet’.14 The same conceptual issue applies as before: there is an absence of human actors in this analysis. Historians of technology have sought to reveal the extent of technological determinism in history.15 While many historians are simply unaware, or uninterested in opening the mechanical boxes in the histories they research, in military history technological determinism has become a positive explanatory tool. Jeremy Black writes that ‘[m]uch of the scholarly work on military history has adopted an explanatory model of change that centres on the impact of new military technology’ as ‘a method that can be used both to cover the entire world and to explain shifts in the relationship between different parts of the world.’16 The purpose of an actor-driven history of technology is not to question the importance of technologies like the screw propeller, but to reveal the 12 David K. Brown, Before the ironclad: the development of ship design, propulsion and armament in the Royal Navy, 1815 –1860 (London, 1990); David K. Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought: warship development, 1860 –1905 (Chatham, 1997); Larrie Ferreiro, Ships and science: the birth of naval architecture in the scientific revolution (Cambridge, MA, 2007). 13 I allude here to Bruno Latour’s Janus faces of science and the social construction of technology notion of the black box. See Bruno Latour, Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society (Cambridge, MA, 1987); Donald MacKenzie & Judy Wajcman (eds.), The social shaping of technology (Buckingham, 1985, 2nd edn 1999). 14 Eric J. Grove, The Royal Navy (Basingstoke, 2005), 23. 15 Merritt Roe Smith & Leo Marx (eds.), Does technology drive history? The dilemma of technological determinism (Cambridge, MA, 1994); Ben Marsden & Crosbie Smith, Engineering empires: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain (Basingstoke, 2005). 16 Jeremy Black, ‘Military organisations and military change in historical perspective’, Journal of Military History 62 (1998), 871– 92.

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Shaping the Royal Navy

contingencies on which their success or failure depended.17 With the ground cleared of technological evolution and determinism, interesting human his­ tories are given space to flourish. In this study the matériel transformation of the Navy is shown to take place through networks of shipwrights (and naval architects), naval officers, administrators and other diverse groups.18 These actors used naval spectacles, debates at learned societies and fierce pamphlet controversies to project and defend their work. These activities were intimately connected to their work and status as they shaped the Royal Navy. All this activity had two themes in common: the making of claims about techniques and technologies, and the competition between actors for authority. Politicians exerted power and control over naval policy and expenditure. Naval officers grew anxious over losing control of the ship to engineers, both in the dockyard and at sea. Shipwrights struggled for influence in the design process, and then faced a challenge from more highly educated colleagues who referred to themselves as naval architects. Men of science sought a role within the fiscal-military state. And finally, a British public became increasingly concerned by the naval threats reported in the newspapers. With all these concerns, the difficulties facing those who shaped the ships of the Royal Navy were manifold, involving questions far more complex and wide ranging than what type of iron armour or boiler to fit in a new ship. Tracing a network of actors, exploring their concerns and dealing with the contingencies of technological change produces a fresh approach to the history of naval technology. Since the 1990s naval historians have made a concerted effort to re-evaluate the claim that the Navy remained conservative in the face of technical innovations. The initial presumption of technological conservatism, 17 For actor-centred histories of the ship, naval or merchant, see Don Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800 –1918 (Farnham, 2012); Crosbie Smith and Anne Scott, ‘ “Trust in providence”: building confidence into the Cunard line of steamers’, Technology and Culture, 48 (2007), 471– 96; Crosbie Smith, Ian Higginson & Phillip Wolstenholme, ‘ “Imitations of God’s own works”: making trustworthy the ocean steamship’, History of Science, 41 (2003), 1– 48. For the contingencies of technological success and failure see Ben Marsden, ‘Blowing hot and cold: reports and retorts on the status of the air-engine as success or failure, 1830 –1855’, History of Science 36 (1998), 373– 420; John M. Staudenmaier, Technology’s storytellers: reweaving the human fabric (Cambridge, MA, 1985). 18 On a point of sensitivity to actors’ categories, this book uses the term matériel rather than technology where appropriate. The latter was rarely used by actors, and thus their own terminology must be reconstructed. For technology and actors’ categories see Marsden & Smith, Engineering empires, 3– 4.

Introduction

7

argue Roger Morriss and Andrew Lambert, can be traced back to the memoirs of naval administrators and engineers who saw countless inventions and petitions for Admiralty support rejected.19 For example, Admiralty secretary John Henry Briggs described the Admiralty Board of the early 1830s as financially and professionally loath ‘to introduce those changes which scientific progress has rendered imperatively necessary’.20 Morriss’s response has been to examine closely dockyard practices, from which he has argued that the Admiralty encouraged ‘attempts to improve sailing-ship design’ and ‘introduce the latest technology into the navy’s steamships’. Therefore the problem was not in how the Admiralty approached technology, but with the technology itself: ‘[p]rogress was inevitably hesitant . . . [and] it was natural and necessary to adhere to what was known to be effective’.21 Historians are doubtless right to question the reliability of nineteenth-century memoirs, but it may be time to move the parameters of this historiographical debate away from the extent to which the Admiralty was ‘conservative’ toward technological change. Reducing the relationship between the Navy and technology to a dichotomy of attitudes, either conservative or progressive, is immensely restrictive. It conveys a sense that there was a baseline pace for technological innovation in the nineteenth century. This is very much in line with the evolutionary model of technological change, in which technical specialists are treated as a monolithic group who could either be sped up or slowed down according to the level of support shown to them by an institution. Morris is not alone in this treatment. C.I. Hamilton assigns ‘conservative’ and ‘forward looking’ attitudes to specific actors in the Navy in order to understand their management of technology.22 Roger Parkinson writes that technological changes repeatedly posed the Navy with challenges and problems, especially in the last decades of the century when ‘accelerating changes in naval technology helped feed national anxiety’.23 The main weakness of this approach is that ‘technology’ is treated as somehow external to the Navy, changing at its own pace. This is a major misconception that has developed within naval historiography (and British historiography 19 Roger Morriss, Cockburn and the British Navy in the transition: Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772–1853 (Exeter, 1997), 237– 8; Andrew Lambert, ‘Responding to the nineteenth century: the Royal Navy and the introduction of the screw propeller’, History of Technology 21 (1999), 1–28, esp. 1–3. 20 Briggs, Naval administration, 24. 21 Morriss, Cockburn, 237– 8. 22 C.I. Hamilton, Anglo-French naval rivalry, 1840 –1870 (Oxford, 1993), 47– 8, 91, 220. 23 Roger Parkinson, The late Victorian navy: the pre-Dreadnought era and the origins of the First World War (Woodbridge, 2008), 240.

8

Shaping the Royal Navy

generally), rendering an analysis of technology that deals in impacts and effects that seem to drive history by forcing historical actors to respond.24 We need only remind ourselves that the naval dockyards were among the largest sites of engineering activity in the British Isles. The work that went on there was deeply connected to the Royal Navy, its administration, operations and concerns. A more productive way of understanding the relationship between the Navy and technology would be to place greater emphasis on how actors linked to the production of ships operated within the naval state, ranging from the ways shipwrights made knowledge and how they sought to establish its credibility, to the frameworks within which naval officers judged a ship’s qualities and shaped design priorities. The Navy shaped technology on many levels, from the members of the Board of Admiralty and dockyard superintendents who set shipbuilding policy and managed the day-to-day work of shipwrights, to the naval officers who championed specific technologies and naval architects who produced ship designs.25 With such a variegated relationship with techno­ logy, we need a better model than we presently have. Instead of a reductionist explanatory focus on conservative and progressive attitudes to technology within the Navy, we can treat the Navy as a site of extensive technical action that simultaneously shaped naval architecture, naval power and the status of engineering professionals. The state of the art New perspectives become possible by reconstructing how scientific and engin­ eering activity was deeply embedded in the work of the Navy. For example, instead of focusing on the acceptance of new technologies by the Admiralty we might instead examine the Admiralty as an agent in the changing relationship between craft and science in nineteenth-century engineering and ship design. This relationship has generally been understood as a source of tension, 24 For the conceptual critique of ‘normative’ models of technological change see MacKenzie & Wajcman (eds.), Social shaping of technology. Key examples of the social construction approach to technology include Marsden & Smith, Engineering empires; Eric Schatzberg, Wings of wood, wings of metal: culture and technical choice in American airplane materials, 1914 –1945 (Princeton, NJ, 1999); Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of power: electrification in western society, 1880 –1930 (Baltimore, MD, 1983). 25 Shipwrights receive some attention in Roger Morriss’s analysis of administrative culture, government and naval power, see Roger Morriss, Naval power and British culture, 1760 –1850: public trust and government ideology (Aldershot, 2004).

Introduction

9

controversy and opportunity for campaigning. Within the scientific community there were many critics of craftwork, or rules of thumb. T.H. Huxley considered them to be the ‘idol’ that practical men worshipped. His criticism had more to do with the estrangement of theory and practice in some arts and manufactures. Such estrangement was not reconciled by the dichotomous tone that writers like Huxley took, claiming that the perception in arts and manufactures was that ‘science is speculative rubbish; that theory and practice have nothing to do with one another; and that scientific habit is an impediment, rather than an aid, in the conduct of ordinary affairs’.26 Writing about naval architecture in 1863, the natural philosopher William Snow Harris, made a similar criticism: It was contended, for example, that the sailing and other qualities of a ship were not reducible to any known laws of form, or the resistance of fluids, to any dependable kind of science; that naval architecture is not to be pursued successfully by means of any sort of systematic education; but that the whole sort should be trusted entirely to persons having a practised eye and a sort of intuitive power, by which they are enabled to construct ships without regard to any general knowledge of physics . . .27

Harris had strong scientific credentials as a member of the Royal Society, and had worked closely with the Navy on lightning rods and the collection of meteorological data.28 His essay conveyed a sense that within the Admiralty and Navy there was little faith that science was of use in ship design. In recent historiography there has been an effort to reclaim the importance of artistry within scientific practice, and craft skills in the design of technologies. The former area has seen fruitful examination of the labour, instruments and routines involved in performing experiments;29 the latter a reconsideration 26 T.H. Huxley, ‘Science and culture’ (1880), in Science and education: essays (New York, 1893), 137. 27 William Snow Harris, Our dockyards. Past and present state of naval construction in the government service. Its future prospects (Plymouth, 1863), 8. 28 Jack Morrell & Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of science: early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), 275. 29 Examples include, David Gooding, Trevor Pinch & Simon Schaffer (eds.), The uses of experiment: studies in the natural sciences (Cambridge, 1989); Simon Schaffer, ‘Astronomers mark time: discipline and the personal equation’, Science in Context 2 (1988), 115 – 45; Simon Schaffer, ‘Late Victorian metrology and its instrumentation: a manufactory of ohms’, in Robert Bud & Susan Cozzens (eds.), Invisible connexions: instruments, institutions and science (Bellingham, 1992), 23–56; Bruce Hunt, ‘The ohm is where the art is: British telegraph engineers and the development of electrical standards’, Osiris 9 (1993), 48 – 63.

10

Shaping the Royal Navy

of manual drawing, working with materials and tacit knowledge.30 Greater sensitivity to these concerns is essential for sketching the state of the art in ship design around the first half of the nineteenth century. The Georgian Navy was built within a craft environment where Admiralty administrators directed the labours of shipwrights trained largely by apprenticeships. Ship design was shaped by tradition, experience at sea and intellectual piracy (made easy by the capture of enemy ships during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars). If the lines and proportions of a ship were found to make for a fast, responsive and stable vessel, they were made the blueprint for future designs.31 William H. Thiesen, in one of the few histories of naval architecture to show a sensitivity to craftwork, writes that ‘English ship design included both “high art” and a “folk art” ’, the former rooted in the drawing and mathematics emphasised by French shipbuilders, the latter a ‘more conservative’ tradition which included modelling design features on ‘forms found in nature’ and using ‘frames and structural timbers from disassembled ships as templates’. All these craft traditions ‘used little more than basic measurements’ to guide the design and construction process.32 Similarly David McGee, writing about craftwork in early modern design, challenges whether the traditional perspective of craftwork as a trial-and-error process, and ‘consequently not “scientific” ’, is a secure basis for analysis. He defines three traditions in naval architecture: the craft tradition, in which there was no recourse to drawings, and design took place immediately on materials; the mechanical tradition, which did feature drawings; and the architectural tradition, in which designers used ‘multiview’ plans.33 In the first decades of the nineteenth century, British ship designers tended not to employ precision instruments but, rather, visual observations. These played a central role in the design and judgement of ship design, both in the dockyard and at sea. It was by visual interrogation that design features like ‘cod’s head’ were understood. This term referred to the practice of placing the widest point on the ship forward of the midsection, roughly imitating the 30 Marsden & Smith, Engineering empires, 41– 87; Ben Marsden, Watt’s perfect engine: steam and the age of invention (London, 2002); Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer & Peter Dear (eds.), The mindful hand: inquiry and invention from the late Renaissance to early industrialization (Amsterdam, 2007). 31 James Pritchard, ‘From shipwright to naval constructor: the professionalization of 18th-century French naval architecture’, Technology and Culture 28 (1987), 1–25. 32 William H. Thiesen, Industrializing American shipbuilding: the transformation of ship design and construction, 1820 –1920 (Gainesville, FL, 2006), 2–3. 33 David McGee, ‘From craftsmanship to draftsmanship: naval architecture and the three traditions of early modern design’, Technology and Culture 40 (1999), 209 –36, esp. 209, 214, 216, 222.

Introduction

11

shape of a cod’s head when placed on its side. This idea, although much older than the turn of the nineteenth century, was generally supported by visual observations made by Fredrik Chapman in Sweden and experimenters like Mark Beaufoy operating in Britain that suggested that ships essentially forced water out of their path. It is noteworthy that Beaufoy did employ precision tools in the model experiments that the Society for the Improvement of Naval Architecture (SINA) had commissioned him to undertake. Established in 1791 by John Sewell, the Society and its largely anti-labour members sought to improve the art of ship design by elevating the work of Enlightenment savants who would generate experimental knowledge and instruct labourers how to design more effective vessels.34 The Society fuelled the perception that French warships were faster and more powerful, ‘diagnosing this as a result of state support for academic hydrography’.35 The research undertaken by natural philosophers and experimenters like Beaufoy tended to remain isolated from the craft-culture of shipbuilding. There is little evidence that the particulars of Beaufoy’s experiments were received and considered within the Admiralty and naval dockyards.36 The impact of the SINA was ultimately remote, given that the Society closed in 1799, in part due to its failure to excite the interest of naval shipwrights. A similar story is found in William Ashworth’s study of Samuel Bentham’s programme for dockyard reforms. Employing ideas that were later made famous by his brother Jeremy Bentham in the panoptican, Bentham introduced managerial reforms to enact ‘a distinct and powerful regime of economic calculation’. Ashworth brings powerful insights to understanding the social contingencies of Bentham’s sense of accountability, but the analysis ultimately pays less attention to how administrators at the Admiralty received the plans for reform.37 It is with this critique in mind that this book begins the process of mapping authority in nineteenthcentury Britain, paying attention to the interactions of politicians with spaces of craftwork and science (or natural philosophy), and vice versa. 34 Simon Schaffer, ‘ “The charter’d Thames”: naval architecture and experimental spaces in Georgian Britain’, in Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer & Peter Dear (eds.), The mindful hand: inquiry and invention from the late Renaissance to early industrialization (Amsterdam, 2007), 279 –305, esp. 299. 35 Ibid., 299. For further details on the French organisation of science and shipbuilding see Pritchard, ‘From shipwright to naval constructor’. 36 See for example Ferreiro, Ships and science. 37 William J. Ashworth, ‘ “System of terror”: Samuel Bentham, accountability and dockyard reform during the Napoleonic Wars’, Social History, 23 (1998), 63–79, esp. 79.

12

Shaping the Royal Navy

A cursory analysis of maritime research topics in the history of science reveals the importance of the Navy as a site of science in the first half of the nineteenth century. In hydrography the Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy and Cambridge-trained mathematician William Whewell published a number of papers on tides and the behaviour of waves. Michael S. Reidy has written that their work, together with that of other astronomers and natural philosophers, ‘gave rise to a new conception of the ocean’ as a space for science.38 Airy, for instance, examined the effect of ocean waves on ironclad ships and compass navigation in order to devise a system of magnetic corrections that served to compensate for the compass deviation experienced by iron ships during ocean travel. His work brought him into conflict with William Scoresby, a well-known ship’s captain and evangelical clergyman, whose vivid and dramatic accounts of Atlantic waves contrasted with Airy’s scientific treatment of the ocean.39 Alison Winter’s study of the Airy–Scoresby controversy reveals an important insight, namely that its nineteenth-century audience identified the proponents through the oppositional categories of ‘practical’ (Scoresby) and ‘theoretical’ (Airy).40 Airy’s approach to hydrodynamics may have been well received within the Royal Society and Section A (Astronomy and Physics) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), but shipwrights and naval officers remained more receptive to visual observation and the work of ‘practical men’. In the first half of the nineteenth century the key site for the interaction between the art of ship design and those who campaigned for the use of natural philosophy, mathematics and experiment was not in places where the audience consisted of natural philosophers, like the Royal Society, but the dockyard and the drawing room. Simon Schaffer has argued that the Royal Navy’s place at the heart of the ‘fiscal-military state’ makes the dockyard ‘a remarkable site for historical reflection on the relation between knowledge and skill in the epoch of industrialization’.41 Schaffer explores how terms such as ‘reason’, ‘theory’ and ‘experiment’ had particular politically and socially contingent meanings in Georgian Britain that served to distinguish the groups 38 Michael S. Reidy, Tides of history: ocean science and Her Majesty’s Navy (Chicago, IL, 2008), 9. 39 Alison Winter, ‘ “Compasses all awry”: the iron ship and the ambiguities of cultural authority in Victorian Britain’, Victorian Studies, 38 (1994), 69 – 98. 40 Ibid., 86. 41 Schaffer, ‘ “The charter’d Thames” ’, 281. For research and military institutions see Steven A. Walton (ed.), Instrumental in war: Science, research, and instruments between knowledge and the war (History of Warfare Series, vol. 28, Leiden, 2005); Merritt Roe Smith (ed.), Military enterprise and technological change: perspectives on the American experience (Cambridge, MA, 1985).

Introduction

13

who contended for power over the dockyard.42 William Shubsole, a labour campaigner, believed that shipwrights made discoveries and ‘savings’ in shipbuilding without the aid of mathematicians, and so they rightly sought to be ‘recompensed’. SINA members, in contrast, sought to raise their profile through claims that reason and experiment provided a means of ordering large construction projects. Schaffer’s study of the military and monetary organisation of the Georgian dockyard draws out the social and spatial politics that shaped sites of experiment and the distribution of knowledge and control over the shipbuilding process. He reveals how science in the dockyard was ordered, where its boundaries (cultural and geographical) lay and whether skilled labourers, Enlightenment savants or administrators controlled it. Such an analysis helps to define the cultural processes through which knowledge of ship design was made and organised. Through this analysis Schaffer puts ‘reason’, ‘theory’ and ‘experiment’ back ‘in the places where politicized languages of art and practice provided their peculiar forceful sense’ – as opposed to their modern meanings.43 This is an important lesson for studying the century as a whole. A term like ‘experi­ ment’ had specific meanings within different groups that must not be taken for granted. Similarly, the authority attached to a ‘science’ could vary greatly. The nineteenth-century politics of art and science in ship design may be reconstructed by examining how master shipwrights talked about them. The master shipwright worked at the head of the dockyard constructive branch, and in 1851 John Fincham, master shipwright at Portsmouth Dockyard, described the traditional separation of art and science: It was not only during the earliest ages of the employment of ships, that the art of building them had to be carried on separately from the aid of science in their construction; but this state of things has marked almost the entire course of history . . . The development of art never waited for this basis; necessity impelled it onwards; and, gathering on the side of truth, and rejecting on that of error, a long course of experience produced ships of a high order of excellence, and capable of fulfilling the objects of their respective periods, before any theory of naval construction existed[.]44 42 Schaffer, ‘ “The charter’d Thames” ’, 279. 43 Schaffer draws a comparison between his essay and Ken Alder’s Engineering the revolution, as both studies examine how ‘controversial changes in the form of life of engineers and artisans accompanied programmes to transform and manage the role of analysis and experiment’. Schaffer, ‘ “The charter’d Thames” ’, 279, 283. 44 John Fincham, A history of naval architecture: to which is prefixed, as introductory dissertation on the application of mathematical science to the art of naval construction (London, 1851), ix.

14

Shaping the Royal Navy

Fincham thought that much of the ‘science’ of naval architecture was of no benefit to those craftsmen who designed and fabricated Britain’s ships of the line. In his view, science could never offer ship designers the practical lessons that could be learnt from experience – but science did have a place. Master shipwrights like Fincham are vital to our understanding of the reception of work originating with natural philosophers and experimenters. Along with the various surveyors, chief constructors and directors of naval construction, they were the gatekeepers who shaped the ‘science’ that was employed within the naval state. Without them, the study of hydrodynamics, however interesting, becomes divorced from the design of ships and the history of naval power. Fincham’s struggle with ‘science’ came down to the difficulty he experienced in reconciling experimental work and treatises written by natural philosophers with the dockyard work he was expected to undertake within a largely craftorientated environment. This did not mean, however, that he denied that there was a scientific dimension to his work. From time to time he talked of a science of ship design, but this meant something very particular within the context of dockyard work. For example, he supported efforts to ensure mathematical training for shipwrights because it added to the tools with which shipwrights could assess hydrodynamic theories. He saw Pierre Bouguer, professor of hydro­ graphy at Le Croisic and author of Traité de Navire (1746), as the role model for shipwrights who wanted to walk a path between theory and empiricism: he distinctly acknowledges the insufficiency of abstract reasoning to reach the end he had in view, whilst he had proof enough of the inadequacy of knowledge derived simply from practical sources. ‘Experience would be the best means of perfecting naval architecture, if the thing were possible; but it is plain enough that practice is insufficient in many cases. It is certain, that if this alone is capable of rendering some parts perfect, it has need, in an infinity of others, to be aided by the light of theory.’45

Thus Fincham understood the value of ‘science’ through its theories that could suggest ways of improving dockyard work. He admired a ‘well-constructed theory’ which could be universally applied to and help decision making, but saw what he perceived to be the ‘extreme difficulty of applying abstract principles to so complicated a machine, with the conditions of its proper element so little understood’.46 Fincham believed that the ‘common aversion in practical ship-builders to have recourse to theory’ – an aversion which marred the ‘difficulties and discouragements of science’ in ship design – was unlikely to change until theory 45 Ibid., xxii. 46 Ibid., xiii.

Introduction

15

was made more ‘useful’, and shipwrights made more scientific.47 This coming together was important to Fincham, who was similarly anxious that dockyard work should not be undertaken solely within the craftwork traditions: Merely practical qualifications in designing ships have been tried in our service, and found wanting. The surveyors of the navy were good practical shipbuilders, without scientific knowledge. Even their modes of calculating the contents of a ship’s body, &c., were formerly rude and clumsy, in comparison of those which science has now shown to be better suited to the purposes.48

Fincham ultimately advocated a science of naval architecture, but its shape differed greatly from that produced in Enlightenment societies and the texts of natural philosophers. This raises an important concern that runs throughout this study: the distinguishing and texturing of the many types of ‘science’ that actors claimed to practice. A contextual examination of the relationship between art and science yields insights at odds with conventional narratives within naval history. Stanley Sandler, in his account of the emergence of the modern capital ship, argues that the use of new materials, like iron and steel, simply ‘demanded far more sophisticated methods of design and construction than the traditional rule-of-thumb system that had served the Royal Navy so badly in the past’.49 Iron shipbuilders certainly utilised different knowledge and skills than wooden shipbuilders, like metallurgy and structural testing of metals, but the study of hydrodynamics and the use of experiment was by no means inherent in iron shipbuilding. Sandler engages in technological determinism and retrospective judgements that ignore the long history of science and art in ship design, as well as providing a thin analysis of why the efforts to establish a science of naval architecture post-1860 were successful. It is with this change, and the ambition to provide a more persuasive, contextual account of it, that this book is concerned. Designing the ship This book uses the motif of ship design to draw out the politics of naval architecture, authority and technology in nineteenth-century Britain. Building a navy may appear to be a task for specialists possessing extensive knowledge and skills refined through years of experience at work in the dockyard. Yet, like in many government departments, there was a tension between those individuals who were authorities on technical matters, derived from experience 47 Ibid., xiii. 48 Ibid., 265. 49 Stanley Sandler, The emergence of the modern capital ship (Newark, 1979), 33.

16

Shaping the Royal Navy

and reputation, and the administrators and representatives of government who had the authority to make decisions. Admiral Thomas Byam Martin, the last Whig Comptroller of the Navy Board that prior to 1831 controlled ship design, recollected that ‘[e]very change of Admiralty brings some contriving meddling member, who wishes to gain personal popularity in Parliament by practicing experimental economy on the officers and men of the dockyards’.50 Naval power was a highly political issue, and for large parts of the nineteenth century politicians took an active role in directing ship design. Admiral Clarence Paget, political secretary to the Admiralty and the public face of the Duke of Somerset’s 1859 – 66 Board of Admiralty, recorded in his journal that the country needed a First Lord who will ‘abstain from that which appears hereditary with first lords, namely, the vanity of supposing, after they have been a few years, or even months at the Admiralty, that they can build and arm a ship’.51 Incidentally, early in his own career at the Admiralty, Paget was accused of just this sort of interference by the then Controller of the Navy, Baldwin Walker. The authority of ship designers was further complicated by the influence enjoyed by naval officers serving on the Board. In 1831, reforms to the organisation of the Admiralty placed all control of ship design under the Board of Admiralty. The First Lord of the Admiralty was a member of government. He was assisted by a small group of secretaries who helped in administrative matters – serving as important gatekeepers of know­ ledge and patronage. The Board also consisted of three naval officers, who were appointed the first, second and fourth sea lords in charge of the naval service, personnel and shore establishments, and supplies respectively. These individuals tended to be experienced, older officers, born to wealthy families and trained for naval service. They had unparalleled authority to decide strategy, dictate shipbuilding policy and counsel the government on naval matters. The head of the construction branch of the Navy, the Surveyor (later Controller) did not have a seat on the Board.52 The sea lords by and large shared the political sympathies of the government, until the 1870s when the services of 50 Richard Vesey Hamilton (ed.), Letters and papers of the Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thos. Byam Martin (Publications of the Navy Records Society, vol. 19, London, 1901), 387. 51 Autobiography and journals of Admiral Lord Clarence E. Paget, G.C.B., ed. Arthur Otway (London, 1896), 366. 52 An early nineteenth-century reform of the Board removed the office of Third Lord, who was in charge of the matériel of the Navy, but from 1869 to 1871 Childers effectively reinstated the position by inviting Admiral Robert Spencer Robinson, Controller of the Navy, to sit on the Board. For the inner workings of the Admiralty see Nicholas A.M. Rodger, The Admiralty (Lavenham, 1979).

Introduction

17

the conservative Admiral Alexander Milne were requested by the Liberal George Goschen, thereby breaking the partisan patterns of Admiralty office holding.53 The process of setting design specifications for ships remained largely the same until the final decades of the nineteenth century. The initial conception of ship design took place at the Board level. The various lords took into consideration past designs, speculations based on private practice and foreign design work, budgetary concerns and naval experiences. The Surveyor was then instructed on what ‘type’ of ship the Board desired, its required size, tonnage and the attributes it should possess, from the number of guns to the thickness of armour. This process emphasised the modification of existing design ideas, rather than the exploration of new ones. With the exception of William Symonds’s introduction of ships of great breadth and sharp hulls, ship design in the first half of nineteenth century was undertaken in the manner of responding to new ideas by modifying existing ships (the conversion of sail battleships for steam examined in Chapter 2 being a clear example). Nineteenth-century memoirs provide some anecdotal evidence about how naval members on the Board of Admiralty approached ship design. Briggs, secretary to the Admiralty, described the following scene from the 1840s: A design of an 80-gun ship was one morning placed upon the Board-room table for the inspection and approval of ‘my lords.’ When Lord Auckland entered the room, Sir William Parker, kneeling on a chair with pencil in hand, was altering the lines of the bow; Admiral Dundas, in a similar position, was suggesting alterations in the stern, and marking them off; whilst the two other Lords were engaged in making calculations as to an entirely new armament, and to the improvement of the rig. Lord Auckland carefully examined the surveyor’s design, and listened patiently to all that each naval member had to advance in support of his particular amendment. His lordship then desired me to hand him a piece of Indian rubber, and after he had deliberately erased the pencil marks in question, he turned to the surveyor and dryly observed: ‘I really do not feel justified in introducing so many improvements’ – with a strong emphasis on the word improvements – ‘into a single ship.’ The original design was then approved, and the First Lord and naval lords affixed their signatures.54

The individuals whom Briggs described presumed that their knowledge of ship design, shaped by years at sea, was as important as that of the ship designer’s. These naval members of the Admiralty Board tended to be experienced, older 53 Andrew Lambert, ‘Milne, Sir Alexander, first baronet (1806 –1896)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 54 Briggs, Naval administration, 82.

18

Shaping the Royal Navy

officers, rather than specialists in the civil, logistic and technical operations of the Navy. This episode is suggestive of where senior naval officers saw the limits of their knowledge and respected the authority of shipwrights. It also reveals the perceptions of senior naval officers that the various calculations and concerns that any given ship design embodied were of an approximate nature, flexible enough to be changed on the fly with a rubber and pencil. Admiral Robert Spencer Robinson, Controller for much of the 1860s, noted a similar, albeit less conspicuous ‘tendency’ among Board members ‘to add weights to ships in the course of construction’.55 This could be highly dangerous in ships where the margins for error were small, and added weight would have serious consequences for the height of the ship’s freeboard and overall stability. The activity of the Institution of Naval Architects (INA), a learned society formed in 1860 for the study of ship design and hydrodynamics that remains in existence today (it gained a royal charter in 1910, becoming the Royal Institution of Naval Architects), played a key role in raising the professional status of naval architects and knowledge of their practices. Members of the institution generally advocated the importance of scientific study and experimental examination of issues relating to ship design. For John Scott Russell, the Institution’s originator and an influential iron shipbuilder on the Thames, the authority of ship designers was a subject requiring urgent attention. In an 1861 publication he made the case that the Admiralty’s hierarchy prized social and naval position above merit or technical knowledge: The first lord is generally a man who knows nothing about the navy. The first constructor of ships is frequently a man who knows nothing about the construction of ships. The first officer at the head of a dockyard knows nothing about ship-building; and the chief builder of a ship is permitted to know nothing of the designs and calculations on which the construction is founded, and he is not even permitted to entertain an opinion on the subject. This is the systematic principle of organisation of the Admiralty, its departments, and its establishments.

Russell firmly believed that authority over ship design should be vested in trained naval architects who could employ their mathematical training, know­ ledge of metallurgy and mechanics and understanding of hydrodynamics for the benefit of the Navy. He believed such people existed in the Admiralty, albeit in small quantity, and lamented that ‘they have the knowledge, but not the power’.56 At his most radical (and self-interested), he advocated the end of 55 Robert Spencer Robinson, ‘The dangers and warnings of the “Inflexible” ’, Nineteenth Century 3 (February 1878), 278 – 95, esp. 282. 56 John Scott Russell, Fleet of the future (London, 1861), 81.

Introduction

19

Admiralty construction and urged the government to order ships from private shipbuilders such as himself. Russell’s contemporary Edward James Reed, a co-founder of the INA and Chief Constructor of the Navy from 1863, took similar steps to raise the profile of naval architecture within the Navy, often confronting and alienating the very institution from which he sought greater recognition. Controversies surrounding the high-profile loss of HMS Captain and trials of the first mastless warship, HMS Devastation, kept naval architecture in the public eye for much of the 1870s. This provided an opportunity for naval architects to establish a new role within the Navy’s ship-design processes. Were there design questions that went beyond the scope of a naval officer’s understanding? Or, less dramatically, were there certain design features that had to be settled by naval architects because they were non-negotiable for the construction of a safe, steady ship? As the naval architect’s sphere of influence grew over an expanding engineering infrastructure within Britain’s dockyards, matters of credibility and authority became increasingly important. As the century drew to a close naval architects and officers began to settle those boundaries between their respective knowledge and authority. The key to this resolution was safety. William H. White, Director of Naval Construction (which replaced the office of Chief Constructor) from 1885, elaborated this for an audience at the INA when describing how he saw his role in design in relation to that of members of the Board. That Board must fix the conditions to be fulfilled, and it is the duty of the naval architect, so far as possible, to fulfil those conditions. I have known conditions to be proposed or contemplated which could not be fulfilled, or were incompatible with safety; and they had to be abandoned. The naval architect’s place and responsibility are perfectly plain. Having been given the conditions which those who are responsible desire to have combined in any design, it is his duty to ascertain and report the dimensions and cost necessary to fulfil these conditions, or to say that the conditions cannot be fulfilled, and to suggest modifications.

Even within this seemingly clear institutional framework there were tensions. ‘Some persons desire to shut the naval architect out from any further part in the proceedings,’ White explained, ‘and to insist that he has no claim to be heard in respect of questions of armament, protection, speed, tactics, or strategy.’57 While Reed had confronted the Admiralty on this point, White employed various strategies to subvert authority and gain greater control over ship design, including presenting lectures to the Royal Naval College and 57 Discussion following Reginald H. Bacon, ‘The battleship of the future’, Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects (hereafter Transactions), 52 (1910), 1–21, esp. 15.

20

Shaping the Royal Navy

publishing essays and manuals of naval architecture for naval officers, both of which highlighted the importance of ship-design problems and tensions to naval officers. Mapping authority Authority is the central theme of this book, and it is treated throughout as a source of controversy. First, there are different types of authority, from the authority invested in trusted individuals based on their reputation (credibility) to the authority invested in the representatives of the people and delegated through institutions (political).58 Second, authority over a subject could be contested. Just as science and technology should not be treated as existing in a vacuum, nor should authority. If the authority of naval architects in the Admiralty grew, it was at the expense of another group. To understand how the boundaries of authority in ship design changed during the nineteenth century it is helpful to think about it through the metaphor of maps and terrain. If the amount of authority available in the Admiralty was finite, then a given group would hold a specific territory. The extent of that territory might change over time, with actors contesting an area until a dispute was settled. This study resists a single definition of authority, and instead traces the changing boundaries and understanding of authority by mapping it onto the nineteenth-century techno-military state. For example, a group of liberally educated shipwrights in the 1830s may have claimed that they were knowledgeable, scientifically aware ship designers, but they were not given the authority to act within the Admiralty. Similarly, naval officers not trained in ship design but conscious of the practical concerns of ship operations could be deemed to have greater authority. Mapping the limits of authority reveals how, for instance, naval architects nurtured, subverted and transformed their authority over a seventy-year period when engineering knowledge and skill became increasingly bound up in the construction of naval power. This will be done on a number of levels, from exploring naval architects’ social and institutional authority to investigating the limits of epistemic authority and the often-neglected role of political authority within the history of science and technology. Within the history of science authority has been approached through a very particular framework, largely rejecting expertise and professionalisation in preference for a contextual study of personal, particularly moral, credibility. 58 One might also consider the authority which is believed to stem from the detailed study of phenomena. Although debunked by sociologists, it was prominent with actors in the nineteenth century.

Introduction

21

Steven Shapin has done much to set this agenda with his focus on trust, the moral relations between knowledge producers and communities, the importance of demonstration and the use of ‘literary technologies’ to bridge the gaps between experimenters and the society of readers.59 There is also a complementary literature which explores technological change through a focus on credibility and trust.60 These approaches have yielded a rich picture of the embodied nature of scientific and engineering credibility, with sensitivity to the social and cultural dimensions of its reception within specific communities. Their drawback is that emphasis is still overwhelmingly with the actors seeking credibility for their knowledge and skill. Historians of science are receptive to audiences within the scientific community and public sphere, but less to specific institutions like armed services and departments of state.61 For the purpose of studying the authority of shipwrights, naval architects and other groups connected to naval architecture, it is vital to go beyond their communities by mapping their authority across a more disparate terrain within the naval state. Sociologist Thomas Gieryn has employed what he calls ‘cultural cartography’ as a way of understanding the boundary controversies that take place in the history of science. In this way he uses the map metaphor to think through how actors gain credibility by mapping their claims onto the landmarks of prior knowledge and the existing boundaries of authority.62 The notion of mapping authority provides a way to trace the claims that actors made for the ‘science’ of ship design. A broader analysis of the ways that actors made claims, the ideas and values they referenced and, ultimately, how political patrons responded reveals the flexibility of science in public discourse. It reveals precisely how in some circles claiming something to be a ‘science’ had ambiguous, even negative connotations. Few people in the first half of the nineteenth century equated the physical sciences with strong national defence, healthcare or economic might.63 This was to be seen when politicians questioned the value of science in ship design in the 1830s (Chapter 1), and again in the 1860s 59 Steven Shapin, A social history of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, IL, 1994), 3– 41. 60 Smith and Scott, ‘ “Trust in providence” ’, 471– 96; Smith, Higginson & Wolstenholme, ‘ “Imitations of God’s own works” ’, 1– 48. 61 James A. Secord, Victorian sensation: the extraordinary publication, reception and secret authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago, IL, 2000). 62 Thomas Gieryn, Cultural boundaries of science: credibility on the line (Chicago, IL, 1999). 63 Frank M. Turner, Contesting cultural authority: essays in Victorian intellectual life (Cambridge, 1993), 177.

22

Shaping the Royal Navy

and 1870s when naval officers offered an alternative science of naval architecture to that practised by members of the INA (Chapter 5). Mapping also offers a way of thinking about the relationship between individual actors and groups as they contended for authority. The map is like a canvas on which a variety of actors compete for authority as representatives of a larger social network. The boundaries between the authority that ship designers, naval officers and politicians possessed may be redrawn by the actions of a few actors. Constructors like Reed and White used their positions of power in the Admiralty to expand their authority over sites of experiment and particular design questions like stability and hull shape. The strategies they used were personally contingent, but if their new map was carefully constructed, it could outlive them. Actors may have appeared to negotiate merely the limits of their own authority, but they were simultaneously involved in drawing the boundaries of their group’s authority. In these cases they were not setting out why they were an authority on an issue, but why a particular set of skills and professional credentials were. Thus the processes through which a group of naval architects and their supporters sought to establish social and institutional authority depended on their ability to appeal to wider concerns regarding naval supremacy, industrial efficiency and the value of scientific study. Through these processes, an emerging network of naval architects developed both the content and the context in which their skills and knowledge could be comprehended by selected audiences. Among the virtues of mapping authority are its sensitivity to the work of actors, their vocabularies and the immediate contexts of the institutions they operated in. This approach adds further nuance to the history of science, expertise and modernity. Between the years 1880 and 1920, Britain saw the foundations of specialised expert dialogues (sometimes at the expense of public ones), extensive professionalisation and the vital shift from craft to science in key industries, such as the electrification of Britain, organic chemistry and shipbuilding. The terms of these developments need closer analysis. Theodore Porter has astutely noted that the ‘age of science’ in British modernity saw politicians and administrators simultaneously pursue a ‘scientific method’ in government and reject the limited wisdom of scientific experts.64 Porter’s observations contrast with the narrative of expertise and government growth provided by Roy MacLeod that characterises the mid-nineteenth century as a time when ‘engineers were employed in government in the construction of 64 Theodore Porter, ‘Statistical utopianism in an era of aristocratic efficiency’, Osiris 17 (2002), 210 –27, esp. 218. Also see Theodore Porter, Trust in numbers: the pursuit of objectivity in science and public life (Princeton, NJ, 1995).

Introduction

23

highways, sewers and public buildings’. MacLeod argued that ‘because engineers enjoyed an image of political disinterestedness and public respectability, they were a useful source of advice’.65 It remains to be seen whether the civil engineer was representative of engineering practitioners, and the episodes explored in this book reveal a very different picture. A nuanced history of authority also provides a useful counterpoint to the focus on expertise in both the history of science and British history.66 It is common to find references in scholarship to ‘experts’ of ship design and naval architecture, despite the ahistoricality of the term. Expertise, although coined in the second half of the nineteenth century, had very limited use till the turn of the twentieth.67 Moreover, as scholarship on expertise serves to show, its precise meaning and function is tricky to isolate without compromising its authority or historical contingency.68 In attempting to define what expertise was, Eric Ash draws distinctions between experts and artisans, people with skilled knowledge and people with experience, designers and builders. Such an approach could be taken to shipwrights and naval architects, but because actors commonly used the term ‘authority’ it holds greater promise for a close contextual engagement. Outline of the book This book proceeds through a series of case studies, structured chronologically. They examine the history of ship design through how diverse groups judged the work of ship designers to the ways that a network of naval officers, engineers and naval architects reconceived the role of engineering knowledge in the Navy generally, and ship design specifically. Each chapter begins with a ship (or, in Chapter 2, a group of ships), using it as the basis from which to unravel the 65 Roy MacLeod, ‘Introduction’, in Roy MacLeod (ed.), Government and expertise: specialists, administrators and professionals, 1860 –1919 (Cambridge, 1988), 1–24, esp. 9 –11. 66 For naval history see C.I. Hamilton, Making the modern Admiralty: British naval policy-making, 1805 –1927 (Cambridge, 2011), 19, 80, 89, 132, 155, 185, 194, 246. 67 Some scholars locate the term ‘expert’ much earlier, but that same critique about usage applies. Eric Ash, ‘Introduction: expertise and the early modern state’, Osiris 25 (2010), 1–24, esp. 4; Christelle Rabier, ‘Introduction: expertises in historical perspectives’, in Christelle Rabier (ed.), Fields of expertise: a comparative history of expert procedures in Paris and London, 1600 to present, 1–34, esp. 2. 68 Graeme Gooday, ‘Liars, experts and authorities’, History of Science 46 (2008), 431–56; Harry Collins & Robert Evans, Rethinking expertise (Chicago, IL, 2007); Eric Ash, Power, knowledge and expertise in Elizabethan England (Baltimore, MD, 2004).

24

Shaping the Royal Navy

connections between science, technology, politics and authority. This is vital to ensuring that the expansive subject of authority is rooted in the vessels on which the claims, reputations and credibility of actors rested. Chapter 1 examines the design and trials of HMS Vernon, one of William Symonds’s most controversial vessels. Symonds was appointed Surveyor of the Navy at a time of extensive reform and professional disputes. Focusing on the Vernon helps to connect technology and politics with the diverse cultures of observation and judgement practised by politicians, naval officers and shipwrights to decide upon ship-design issues. It also serves to expose the social networks surrounding the ship that Symonds and his supporters used to powerful effect in their competition with shipwrights for authority over the Surveyor’s office. Chapter 2 examines the ways in which ship designers, politicians and engineers shaped the history of steam in the Navy. Steam did not transform naval shipbuilding, rather, naval officers, shipwrights and engineers did through their interest in the application of steam at sea. This was an issue that deeply affected the Surveyor’s office, where Symonds had endured a constant stream of criticism. In 1841 his critics gained extra authority when the Tory First Sea Lord George Cockburn extended them his support. Through a series of attempts to uncover the ‘principles’ of naval architecture, the Admiralty took on an expanded role in its management, culminating in the transformation of the office of Surveyor as an instrument of management. Symonds’s successor, Captain Baldwin Walker, was encouraged to step back from design processes and instead judge the work of shipwrights. His position became increasingly untenable in the 1860s as political pressure grew for the Admiralty to introduce iron warships, following on from the launch of HMS Warrior. Chapter 3 explores the tensions between naval administrators and a group of ship designers and men of science who increasingly identified with the title ‘naval architect’. These naval architects, frustrated by what they saw as the technical ignorance of successive Admiralty boards, wanted greater understanding of what they did. They focused attention on the ways in which they generated knowledge about ship design and how the science of hydrodynamics might be productively employed to transform it. These were contentious issues, made more so through their connections to the highly charged iron question and the opposition in Parliament to state support for a science that few believed worthwhile. Actors including John Scott Russell and Edward Reed nevertheless pursued their aims, working through the newly formed INA in London to make the case that they could guarantee British naval power in ways that other groups simply could not. The claims that naval architects made proved to be highly controversial with naval officers. Captain Cowper Coles criticised Reed’s work at the Admiralty,

Introduction

25

and his supporters campaigned for him to be given the authority to direct his own experiments and designs with gun turrets. Chapter 4 traces how Coles’s and Reed’s controversy became highly politicised and controversial. Coles, for one, subverted whatever institutional authority Reed had by calling on the political authority of a Tory parliamentary turret lobby. Reed, in return, attempted to paint the controversy as an attack on the professional skills and reputation of naval architects. Coles’s experimental turret ship, HMS Captain, capsized off Cape Finisterre, drowning over 500 sailors. The political and press response to the disaster jeopardised the credibility of the politicians, designers and naval officers associated with the Admiralty. It also fuelled mistrust in another experimental ship, the mastless HMS Devastation. Chapter 5 examines how the Admiralty attempted to rebuild faith in the fleet, turning to engineers and men of science to resolve the continuing controversy over who was to be trusted to design ships. The Admiralty formed a committee on designs to investigate the safety and efficiency of its new ship. The committee took the action of consulting the mathematician William Froude, who since the early 1870s had been experimenting with ship designs in a test tank. Froude’s testing practices provided a way of undertaking a systematic study of hydrodynamics and ship design. Working with Froude, the process of nurturing faith in the Devastation entailed authorising engineers and naval architects to be the guarantors of what constituted a safe and effi­ cient ship. By 1880 naval architects had achieved a great deal. They had formed and maintained a professional body, secured educational provisions for future generations and made inroads at the Admiralty to decide specific design questions. In the remaining decades of the nineteenth century their concerns shifted to encompass issues pertaining to management and design policy. Chapter 6 focuses on HMS Royal Sovereign and explores how William H. White reconciled past tensions with naval officers, encouraged greater uniformity in ship design and advocated for great control over the Navy’s expansive engineering enterprise. Working with naval officers and politicians he brought stability to a Navy confronting a growth of external anxiety about its prowess, and an internal fight over the technological basis of naval power. Chapter 7 examines how Admiral John Fisher, leading a dedicated group of supporters, took an opportunity in the 1900s to re-engineer naval power by transforming both the education of naval officers and the ships on which they would serve. Fisher’s HMS Dreadnought, so often elevated above the ships that immediately preceded it, was born out of the very structural and cultural shifts that this book explores.

1

Authority, judgement and the sailor-designer

[T]rust that prejudice has begun to yield to proof and experience. . . . Do not be ashamed to correct any imperfections which may be demonstrated to your own satisfaction, and go on improving; recollecting always the responsible duties of your high office, which call on you to furnish the means of our national defence; and remember that you build for posterity as well as for the present day, and that your fair fame is at stake. No passing wound to vanity, no triumph of the moment, is to be compared to this; and if you steadily persevere, your permanent reputation will be established on a rock. First Lord of the Admiralty James Graham reassures William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy, as criticism mounts of his ship designs.1 I know that you take a deep interest in Vernon, owing to so many contradictory reports being spread about her . . . this is the ship I would sooner belong to than any other in the service, although she is such a ‘dangerous’ vessel. You must have perceived that I am become a regular Symondian; so must every unprejudiced person be that has served in any of his ships. An officer on Symonds’s HMS Vernon places his faith in the controversial ship.2

HMS Vernon was one of Captain William Symonds’s first ships built for the Royal Navy. When she was laid down he was neither a member nor a trusted associate of the Navy Board that controlled naval shipbuilding. By the time she began her trials, he had been given unprecedented authority over naval ship design. The 1830 Whig government’s Board of Admiralty abolished the Tory-controlled Navy Board and appointed Symonds to oversee many of its duties. These reforms were among a number that James Graham, the Whig First Lord of the Admiralty, made to the Admiralty’s structure. The Vernon, 1 James Graham to William Symonds, 28 October 1837, in James A. Sharp, Memoirs of the life and services of Rear-Admiral Sir William Symonds (London, 1858), 200 –1. 2 Letter from an officer on board the Vernon, recipient unknown, 6 April 1835, in Ibid., 470.



Authority, judgement and the sailor-designer

27

and Symonds’s credentials as the Admiralty’s ship designer, became subject to a debate that ran deep into the technical and political cultures of the period. This debate formed around two questions: ‘What skills was a ship designer required to have?’ ‘How should the merits of a ship’s design be judged?’ Responses to these questions highlight the role of professional rivalry, political manoeuvring, social tension and epistemic controversy in early nineteenthcentury debates about authority and naval architecture. The Vernon was a fourth-rate warship, meaning that she carried between fifty and sixty guns. She was launched from Woolwich on May Day 1832 in a ceremony that saw Lady Graham name the ship after Symonds’s patron, Lord Vernon. A large crowd formed at the Thames dockyard expecting an appearance from the King. The monarch did not appear and poor weather ‘rendered the ceremony . . . less imposing than it would otherwise have been  . . . the presence of dank and dripping umbrellas, gave a sombre appearance to the scene’.3 The Vernon’s long-range sailing trials were delayed when Graham ordered the ship to join Vice-Admiral Pulteney Malcolm off the south of Ireland to intimidate tithe protesters into backing down.4 Vernon then proceeded to Antwerp with a combined Anglo-French fleet to compel the Dutch forces to leave the port city following the Belgian Revolt. Despite agreeing an armistice, Dutch forces had continued to bombard the port city. Symonds’s nineteenth-century biographer notes that Vernon greatly impressed the French officers during the operation.5 At the end of the year, Vernon was ordered to Devonport to have her defects fixed and prepared for sailing trials.6 In 1833, Vernon was given to Vice-Admiral George Cockburn for his flagship on the North America and West Indies station. Cockburn wrote to Graham mid-voyage, reporting his initial judgment of the Vernon: she ‘impressed me with a very unfavourable opinion of her as regards her behaviour in bad weather’.7 On arriving in Bermuda, Cockburn wrote of the Atlantic crossing: ‘any further experience of the Vernon in this last portion of our voyage has only tended to confirm my former statements . . . I should prefer any other frigate in the service’.8 Cockburn’s judgement of the Vernon was not universally 3 ‘Launch of the Vernon’, The Times 14841 (2 May 1832), 4. 4 James Graham to Pulteney Malcolm, 14 July 1832, James Graham papers, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge (hereafter Graham papers), Reel 27. 5 Minto also expressed delight in how Symonds’s ships outperformed those of other navies, see Sharp, Memoirs, 139, 337– 8. 6 Office of the Surveyor of the Navy, 10 December 1832, Admiralty papers, The National Archives, London (hereafter Admiralty papers), ADM 43/4. 7 George Cockburn to James Graham, 1 March 1833, Graham papers, Reel 53. 8 George Cockburn to James Graham, 27 March 1833, Graham papers, Reel 53.

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Shaping the Royal Navy

shared. In 1837, the officers of the Vernon wrote to the Admiralty to place their support behind Symonds’s ship: ‘having observed that various erroneous statements have gone abroad respecting her qualities, [they] consider it a duty that they owe their country to disabuse the public mind of the prejudices thereby created’. The officers expressed that ‘after nearly three years’ trials . . . [they] consider her a perfect man-of-war in every respect’.9 Admiral Charles Napier expressed a similar assessment, believing the Vernon to be the ‘most magnifi­ cent frigate ever built by any nation’.10 This dispute over the Vernon continued unabated for over a decade, sustained by a continuous stream of contradictory testimonies. In turn, the verdict on the Vernon served as a focal point in the ongoing assessment of Symonds’s credentials to be Surveyor. Cockburn addressed his assessment of the Vernon directly to Graham in the hope of increasing pressure on the new Surveyor to remedy his designs.11 Cockburn did not appreciate the support that Symonds enjoyed from the First Lord, so turned to Parliament, where his considerable professional clout helped to ensure a warmer reception. In the House of Commons he was referred to as ‘a great naval authority’, respected for his long and distinguished career that included serving alongside Horatio Nelson, John Jervis and Samuel Hood in the Mediterranean, conveying Napoleon to Elba and service as first naval lord at the Admiralty.12 MPs who were unhappy with Symonds’s appointment utilised Cockburn as a source of authority in their political discourse. The shipbuilder George Young, a moderate Whig MP for Tynemouth and North Shields, cited Cockburn while criticising Symonds’s appointment;13 while in 1832 Joseph Hume, the radical Whig MP for Middlesex, similarly objected to the appointment of Symonds over the long-serving dockyard officers who had been educated at the School of Naval Architecture (SNA). Taking Cockburn’s criticisms out of the institutional boundaries of the Admiralty and into Parliament altered their original status, in effect politicising a professional disagreement. Symonds’s appointment, together with the judgements passed on the Vernon, reveal the important interplay of politics and judgement for the authority of ship designers at the Admiralty. The connected issues of who was an   9 The officers of the Vernon to the Admiralty, March 1837, in Sharp, Memoirs, 483. 10 Napier quoted in Ibid., 135, 147. 11 George Cockburn to James Graham, 1 March 1833, Graham papers, Reel 53. 12 J.H. Briggs, Naval administration, 1827–1892: the experience of 66 Years (London, 1897), 10 –11; Roger Morriss, Cockburn and the British Navy in the transition: Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772–1853 (Exeter, 1997). 13 ‘Supply – Captain Symonds’, Hansard 26 (16 March 1835), 1048 –51, esp. 1049.



Authority, judgement and the sailor-designer

29

authority on ship design and how a ship should be judged encompassed a wide range of professional, political and social threads. This chapter unravels these threads to examine the cultures of authority and judgement within which the ships of the Royal Navy were shaped and careers were made. It will be seen that criticism of Symonds found form in a number of public forums, parliamentary, press and print, where arguments moved fluidly from assessments of Symonds’s ships to the type of knowledge and skills he brought to ship design. Moreover, in the context of British reform-period politics, these arguments frequently contained partisan overtones. The political nature of these controversies has not been lost on naval historians, but there is an equally import­ ant discourse on authority and engineering rooted in the values assigned to experience, practice and theory that have been ignored.14 It is clear, placing the social politics of this controversy aside, that this debate on ship behaviour rested a great deal on the perceived authority of experimental cruises as a mode of enquiry and the type of values actors employed to judge there results. A series of connected discourses reveal the fundamentally different sets of knowledge and skills that sailors and naval architects emphasised in their claims for authority to direct Admiralty ship construction. In parliamentary discussions the radical MP for Bridport, Henry Warburton, defended Symonds’s appointment, asking: ‘Is an architect required to be a carpenter or a mason? It is certainly necessary, that he should be able to judge when the works are well put together, and that knowledge can only be learnt from experience, but it is not necessary that he should be able to place the boards, and put them all together.’15 This controversy holds great appeal to the historian of expertise. Symonds resembles the ‘expert mediators’ described by Eric Ash: actors who did not necessarily have practical experience in their areas of specialisation but, through their skills in abstraction, distillation and consultation, triumphed over skilled workers.16 Ash’s framework for studying claims to expertise is insightful, but to the actors involved in the controversy there was no such term. To them Symonds’s appointment represented an issue of authority. This 14 Andrew Lambert, The last sailing battlefleet: maintaining naval mastery, 1815 –1850 (London, 1991), 27–38; Morriss, Cockburn, 27–38. 15 Debate on the appointment and qualifications of a Surveyor of His Majesty’s Navy, in the House of Commons, on the 29th of June 1832, quoted in [Henry Chatfield] Anon., An apology for English ship-builders; showing that it is not necessary the country should look to the navy for naval architects (London, 1833), 9. 16 Eric Ash, Power, knowledge and expertise in Elizabethan England (Baltimore, MD, 2004); Eric Ash, ‘Introduction: expertise and the early modern state’, Osiris 25 (2010), 1–24.

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Shaping the Royal Navy

chapter examines Symonds’s authority by first investigating the claims that actors made both in support and in opposition to his appointment, and second analysing how Admiralty officials and MPs judged those claims in relation to the Vernon. Claims as to Symonds’s authority did not exist in isolation, but must be understood in relation to the rival claims made about and, indeed, by the Navy’s shipwrights. To them Symonds was an outsider, possessing neither training nor experience in designing warships. Although these shipwrights had never been in control of ship-design policy, Symonds’s ship-designing activities were an encroachment on their traditional role within the Navy as designers. Henry Chatfield, a shipwright and graduate of the SNA, joined the debate that had begun in Parliament in an 1833 pamphlet. He wrote: When it is thus stated before the Representatives of the Nation, that a whole body of public servants, professionally educated, are less competent to fill an office of responsibility in their own department than an amateur ship-builder, it becomes a serious charge indeed; and they whose reputation is thus involved, are loudly called upon, by every feeling which ought to actuate honourable minds, to endeavour, by proper means, to exonerate themselves from so humiliating a reflection.17

Chatfield’s pamphlet, and his references to profession, amateurism and honour, fuelled further lines of argument from Symonds’s supporters, nuancing his claims to authority. The naval novelist Frederick Marryat responded to Chatfield by casting aspersions on the honour and background of the graduates of the SNA: ‘out of the whole only two are respectable’, while ‘[s]ome of them cannot legally make claim to any father!!!’18 Though containing no statements about Symonds’s knowledge and skills, such statements mattered a great deal. The imagined image of Symonds in the eyes of senior naval officers, politicians and aristocratic patrons informed their decisions about whom they granted authority to in ship design. Symonds and his supporters seemed to appreciate this, and instead of emphasising his track record in building warships – which was not extensive – made claims that the Surveyor possessed an instinct about naval architecture gained from nautical experience. In making this claim, he and his allies even questioned the value of other types of experience required for holding that office, including the hands-on experience in ship design and construction that shipwrights possessed. 17 [Chatfield], An apology, 5 – 6. 18 F.M[arryat]., ‘School of naval architecture’, Metropolitan Magazine (8 November 1833), 225 –32, esp. 231.



Authority, judgement and the sailor-designer

31

William Symonds and the Royal Yacht Club William Symonds was born in 1772 in Bury St Edmunds (Figure 1.1). His father, Thomas Symonds, was a captain in the Royal Navy. Symonds went to sea in 1794 on board HMS London, continued afloat through the Napoleonic

1.1  William Symonds, by Edward Morton (1850)

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Shaping the Royal Navy

Wars and rose to the rank of lieutenant. After 1815 Symonds became Intendant of Marine Police and Captain of the Port of Malta.19 It was at this time that he began to move within the social circle of Sir Thomas Maitland, Governor of Malta. Symonds had served with the governor’s nephew Anthony Maitland, through whom he gained his appointment to the marine police. In the course of his duties in Malta, and through excursions with Thomas Maitland, Symonds developed relationships with the aristocrats who passed through the island while yachting. Helen Rozwadowski writes that prior to the nineteenth century yachting had been an ‘almost exclusively royal activity’, but an increasing proportion of the aristocracy took up the pursuit after the establishment of the first major yacht club 1815. The club received a royal charter in 1820, becoming the Royal Yacht Club (RYC), and from 1837 found a keen patron in Queen Victoria. As European seas became safer in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the club’s membership grew in size and social status. By 1846 Britain was home to 530 yachts. The RYC’s squadron included the yachts of a number of aristocrats, sailing off the Queen’s summer home at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight where the club hosted races and regattas.20 There was extensive crossover between the RYC and Royal Navy, in terms of both social networks and sailing voyages. The First Lord of the Admiralty possessed an official yacht, which from 1815 was registered with the RYC. Many first lords of the Admiralty became members of the club. It was not unusual for RYC members to sail with the Royal Navy around Britain. For example, in 1828 the Earl of Yarborough, RYC commodore, took his yacht the Falcon to join Vice-Admiral Edward Codrington’s fleet in the Channel.21 The RYC also took great interest in the Royal Navy’s experimental cruises. These were competitive races between smaller naval vessels, normally brigs and sloops, to ascertain their comparative qualities as sailing ships. In time members of the RYC looked to the cruise to find new models for their yachts, but they were also able to exert influence over ship design in the Navy. Due to their political clout, the members of the RYC were able to raise the standing of their favourite ship designers.22 One of the first to work with the RYC was Symonds. A keen yachtsman, he joined the club in 1817 with 19 Sharp, Memoirs, 37–8, 45. 20 Helen Rozwadowski, Fathoming the ocean: the discovery and exploration of the deep sea (Cambridge, MA, 2008), 118 –20. 21 Montague Guest & William G. Boulton, The Royal Yacht Squadron (London, 1902), 137– 9, 450. 22 Sharp, Memoirs, 103.



Authority, judgement and the sailor-designer

33

the Cornwallis, although he did not turn his hand to ship design until his appointment at Malta. Symonds had no training in naval architecture, mechanics or mathematics. The closest experience he had to shipbuilding consisted in making a series of alterations to the trim of HMS Pique while serving as her first lieutenant. In 1822 he began work on a yacht called the Nancy Dawson. Symonds provided no indication in his autobiography as to why he began construction, nor how he went about it. The only detail concerned the yacht’s ‘great breadth of beam and extraordinary sharpness . . . a careful attention to stowage, the stand of the masts and the cut and setting of the sails’.23 Symonds’s ships generally had greater beam (the ship’s width at its widest point) and wedge-shaped hulls. Once appointed Surveyor, Symonds refused to work to the length, breadth and tonnage restrictions that the Admiralty Board laid down for every class. Writing in 1851, John Fincham, master shipwright at Portsmouth Dockyard, believed that the Admiralty’s restrictions were ‘undoubtedly a check to enterprise’ and that Symonds’s resistance was one of his most important acts as Surveyor.24 The fullest description Symonds provided of his design ideas was in an 1824 pamphlet on naval architecture. He began the text by establishing his authority to write about the topic, stressing his ‘thirty years experience in Naval Service’.25 Experience at sea was key to his skill and understanding of naval architecture. He complained that the Royal Navy’s shipbuilders lacked the ‘deep understanding of how ships behaved at sea and how their commanders managed them’. Such knowledge, he proposed, ought to guide the designer’s hand. But this interaction between constructors and commanders had been absent. He criticised the ships designed during Thomas Byam Martin’s reign as Navy Board Comptroller (1816 –31). He rejected the ship lines used in recent sloops, contending that they reversed the ‘principle’, which he favoured, ‘of the fish form, or full entrance and fine run’, while on an operational level he stressed that Martin’s sloops did not sail at their best trim, were too narrow 23 Ibid., 47. 24 John Fincham, A history of naval architecture: to which is prefixed, as introductory dissertation on the application of mathematical science to the art of naval construction (London, 1851), 220. 25 [William Symonds] A naval officer, A few observations upon architecture or construction for the purpose of proving that the present system of admeasuring British vessels and the duty of tonnage are injurious to the British navy and in every way hurtful to the encouragement of shipbuilding for the purposes of navigation and commerce (London, 1824), 3.

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Shaping the Royal Navy

and that their guns interfered with navigation.26 Symonds’s pamphlet did not, however, offer alternative designs that solved these problems. The pamphlet served more as an advertisement of his qualities than a description of the ships he would design. He presented himself as a person of experience, judgement and ability who could select the ‘finest models’ for ship design. In contrast, he pointed to experiments in naval architecture that were ‘too expensive and ruinous’ while the ‘science’ remained unclear.27 The selffashioning of the enlightened ‘sailor-designer’ identity was a priority. During a visit to the Earl of Lauderdale, he distributed the pamphlet to various friends and Edinburgh intellectuals. He notes in his autobiography that he called on Basil Hall, a retired naval officer and publisher of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, ‘and was introduced to professors, publishers, and Scotch reviewers, who wanted me to publish in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal’.28 This episode was very significant, as it reveals how Symonds saw himself not as an amateur ship designer but as someone with gentlemanly credentials, philosophical interests and a deep interest in the problems of naval architecture. By the mid-1830s he secured that recognition when he was knighted and elected to the Royal Society.29 Back in 1822, Symonds gained an opportunity to test the Nancy Dawson in a race against the Whig aristocrat Lord Vernon when he arrived in Malta on board the Transit. Symonds’s yacht surpassed the performance of the Transit, and he took the result as evidence that he ‘had hit upon a secret in naval architecture’.30 Vernon agreed, and lent support to Symonds and his design work by extending his personal, political and financial clout. He brought Symonds into his circle, inviting him to join his voyage around the Mediterranean. In August 1824 Symonds accompanied Lord Vernon to the Cowes regatta. In the same year Symonds was invited to become first lieutenant on board the King’s yacht. Maitland again played a key role in the appointment. He also promoted Symonds’s ship-designing skills to Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty (1812–27 and 1828 –30). Melville was already in correspondence with Vernon, who had gained an invitation for Symonds to build a sloop for the Navy of his own design, HMS Columbine.31 26 Ibid., 9 –10. 27 Ibid., 11–12. 28 Sharp, Memoirs, 65; J.K. Laughton, ‘Hall, Basil (1788 –1844)’, rev. Roger Morriss, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 29 Sharp, Memoirs, 185. 30 Ibid., 47. 31 Ibid., 66. For Symonds’s political alliances see Lambert, Last sailing battlefleet, 68 –70.



Authority, judgement and the sailor-designer

35

Members of the Navy Board, including the Comptroller, Martin, took action against Symonds’s growing authority by insisting that Vernon sign a bond of £20,000 as security for the Columbine. Martin had been Comptroller since 1816 and established a strong base of authority. He held wide powers to decide matters of finance and was entitled to be a Member of Parliament (Tory MP for Plymouth, 1818 –31). The Comptroller was in theory the equal of the First Lord. The First Lord headed the Admiralty Board, which administered the naval functions of the Admiralty, including manning, appointments and operations. The Comptroller headed the Navy Board, which was responsible for the civil establishments of the Navy, which included the Royal Dockyards, the largest industrial complex within early nineteenth-century Britain.32 Vernon rejected the proposal from Martin and utilised his social network to overcome the obstacle. During the Dartmouth and Plymouth regattas in the summer of 1825, Vernon acted with Symonds to urge the Marquis of Anglesey to encourage Melville to act without the consent of the Navy Board.33 With the sloop now underway, Vernon and Symonds enlisted the support of another member of the RYC, the Duke of Portland, who upon seeing the Columbine on the stocks was so impressed by her appearance that he requested a scaled-down version to be constructed at his dockyard in Troon to serve as his new yacht.34 Official resistance to Symonds resurfaced during the trial of the Columbine, this time from the Tory Secretary to the Admiralty John Croker and the principal of the SNA, James Inman.35 Even after the acceptance of the Columbine into naval service, opposition to Symonds continued with Cockburn’s refusal to allow him to design a frigate. Portland, who declared himself to Symonds as ‘an admirer of your system of ship-building’, offered to intervene: I think it will appear to you very plain that between the necessity of economy and the indisposition of the Navy Board, the Admiralty is not likely of itself to sanction at present any further experiments. In order to force them upon it, it had occurred to me to be possible to build a ship myself.36

To sustain Symonds’s work Portland paid for the construction of a 10-gun brig, HMS Pantaloon, at his Troon dockyard. In 1831 he offered the ship to Graham, threatening that if the Admiralty did not take it he could not 32 C.I. Hamilton, Making the modern Admiralty: British naval policy-making, 1805 –1927 (Cambridge, 2011), 10 –20. 33 Sharp, Memoirs, 68. 34 Ibid., 72. 35 Ibid., 74. 36 Duke of Portland to William Symonds, 15 May 1829, in Ibid., 81.

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guarantee that she would not ‘fall into the hands of any power which may be our enemy’.37 The support Symonds received from members of the RYC was vital in his rise as a ship designer. Montague Guest, an early historian of the RYC, suggests that the club became an informal school of naval architecture, specialising in the design of fast-sailing cutters and gun brigs. This claim requires examination. Contemporaries clearly saw great utility in the activities of the otherwise sporting and social club. A number of early nineteenth-century periodicals, including Bell’s Life and the Sporting Magazine, published articles on the work of yacht clubs in connection with national interests. They focused on how yacht clubs nurtured seamanship and naval architecture, noting that the clubs were able to introduce sea trials for ship designs that ‘no individual, however, opulent, could or would undertake’.38 Guest suggests that there was a group of aristocrats whose interest in the yacht club revolved exclusively around naval architecture rather than racing and regattas: the Earl of Yarborough, the Duke of Norfolk, Portland and Vernon. Guest’s claim is not wholly convincing, particularly as Yarborough was the first commodore of the club, and as such had a large number of social duties to undertake. What is clear, from the support that Symonds received, is that members of the RYC played an important role in naval architecture through the patronage and connections that they could offer. When Symonds was appointed Surveyor in 1832, the Sporting Magazine gave credit to the members of the RYC who had ‘shown that [the] Government is indebted to them for the improvements in shipbuilding, so clearly manifested in His Majesty’s ships Vernon, Vestal, Rover, Columbine, Snake, and Serpent’.39 Even the naming of ships reflected the RYC’s close connection with Symonds and the Admiralty. The Vernon was named after Symonds’s patron, while a 16-gun sloop, HMS Harlequin (launched 1836), was named after the Duke of Portland’s yacht.40 Influence within this social network was by no means one directional. In May 1833, the Surveyor’s office gave Vernon permission to dock the Harlequin at Portsmouth in order to examine her hull. Although Vernon defrayed the dockyard costs, the incident provides further evidence of the close association between the Admiralty and members of the RYC.41 37 Duke of Portland to James Graham, April 1831, in Ibid., 85. 38 Quoting an unnamed periodical source from 1826, in Guest & Boulton, Royal Yacht Squadron, 133. 39 Sporting Magazine, July 1833, in Guest & Boulton, Royal Yacht Squadron, 142. 40 Sharp, Memoirs, 190. 41 Office of the Surveyor of the Navy, 13 May 1833, Admiralty papers, ADM 83/6.



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One final and vital link between the RYC and Royal Navy concerned how yachting shaped the design work and culture of judgement within the Admiralty. A common set of priorities formed at the intersection of the two institutions. Members of the RYC exerted pressure on the Admiralty to build a fleet of fast sailing ships that manoeuvred with ease. Portland expressed this to Graham in 1831: ‘If I had the misfortune to be a king, I would have no ship in my fleet that could not sail well.’42 Symonds’s opponents similarly recognised this feature in his designs. Captain Edward Harris told Parliament that in the Columbine ‘Everything appeared . . . to be given up to sailing’: Even proper stowage of the boats was sacrificed, and he was convinced that many valuable lives had been lost of want of quarter boats in the new flush ships; indeed, he saw an instance of the kind on board the Columbine, when he had the honour of sailing, under Sir Thomas Hardy; a man fell overboard and was drowned, who might have been saved, had that sloop been fitted with quarter boats.43

This emphasis on sailing quality was deeply engrained in the practices of the Navy’s experimental cruises. Experimental squadrons comprising ships by builders competing for Admiralty support became a common feature in the 1830s and 1840s debates over ship design. The ships of the squadrons competed in sailing trials, through which their relative speed and manoeuvrability was gathered by experience and observation. The Admiralty used the cruises to single out which ship was fittest for service in the Navy, and which designers warranted its support. It also used them to promote designers, sometimes at the expense of sailing results. The results of the experimental cruise were often brought before the public in newspaper articles and pamphlets. Publicity for these cruises was aided by the social stature of the event. The experimental cruises matched the RYC regattas as social gatherings. Perhaps the best-attended cruise was in 1845, when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert accompanied the experimental squadron in the steam yacht Victoria and Albert, along with the King and Queen of Belgium and a number of British aristocrats (Figure 1.2). The Dukes of Portland and Devonshire hired the merchant steamer Wonder for the occasion, and invited Symonds on board to observe the cruise.44 The practices of the experimental cruise were conceived specifically to demonstrate sailing qualities, to the exclusion of any other design considerations. Fincham contended that while easiness in ship handling constituted a 42 Duke of Portland to James Graham, April 1831, in Sharp, Memoirs, 85. 43 ‘State of the Navy’, Hansard 77 (13 February 1845), 431–2. 44 ‘Departure of the fleet from Spithead’, Examiner 1954 (12 July 1845), 439.

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1.2  Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, in the Royal Yacht proceeding to Spithead, July 15th 1845, at the departure of the experimental squadron, by J.M. Gilbert and L. Haghe (1846)

good sailing vessel, it could be detrimental to a ship’s fighting qualities: ‘Neither the height at which a ship will carry her lee ports under a press of sail, nor her easy motion in rolling, will compensate for excess in the quickness or extent of that motion.’45 Fincham offered one of the most detailed and extended criticisms of the practice of experimental cruises and the constructors who were connected to the RYC, but reserved praise for the RYC as a site for nurturing naval architecture. ‘The advantages derived from the Yacht Club are in this respect very great’, Fincham wrote. ‘Most improvements have their origin in individual exertions, but the extent and rapidity of their advancement are generally proportionate to the importance attached to them and the support they receive from men of influence and fortune.’46 Such connections between the Royal Navy and the RYC help to explain the intersections between 45 Fincham, A history of naval architecture, 225. 46 John Fincham, ‘Dimensions and calculated elements of some of the vessels of the Royal Yacht Club, with a few remarks on their construction’, Papers on naval architecture and other subjects connected with naval science 1 (1827), 208 –17, esp. 208.



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yachting, ship design, the practices of the experimental cruise and Symonds’s rise to the surveyorship. Whig reform of the Admiralty In November 1830, King William IV appointed Earl Grey prime minister. Seeing enthusiasm for reform, Grey appointed a drafting committee of four convinced reformers, including James Graham, to produce a Bill addressing franchise reform. The next election, in 1831, brought in a pro-reform House, and after a series of political negotiations and manoeuvrings the Bill passed both Houses and gained royal assent on 7 June 1832. The Act represented a stabilising action, designed to eliminate corruption (interests), abuse and overspending, thus producing a more responsible and accountable political system.47 One week earlier the King gave his assent to another piece of legislation designed to produce more responsible and accountable government in the Royal Navy, the Navy Civil Departments Bill. Drafted by Graham, this time in his role as First Lord of the Admiralty, the Bill provided for a significant reorganisation of the management of the Royal Navy. The membership of the Board of Admiralty had consisted of the First Lord, three professional lords (responsible for naval operations, corresponding with subordinate boards, and naval appointments and manning), civil lords and secretaries responsible for administration. Beyond the Admiralty Board, the Navy and Victualling Boards administered the matériel and logistic foundations of British sea power.48 Graham’s reforms abolished the boards, and placed their business under the direction of five principal officers, who in turn were supervised by four naval lords and a civil lord.49 This restructuring of the Admiralty had a number of administrative, political and professional dimensions. Graham’s naval reforms removed the division of civil, naval, matériel and logistical work between the various boards. Guided by the Benthamite notion of undivided responsibility, which removed the previous system’s structure of multiple checks on decision making, Graham placed all business relating to naval power ‘under the direction and superintendance of one superior and undivided authority’.50 47 Boyd Hilton, A mad, bad, and dangerous people? England 1783–1846 (Cambridge, 2006), 420 – 9. 48 Hamilton, Making the modern Admiralty, 62– 4. 49 Ibid., 117. 50 ‘[Admiralty reform memorandum]’, 6 December 1831, Graham papers, Reel 27; Roger Morriss, Naval power and British culture, 1760 –1850 (Aldershot, 2004), 4, 175 – 81, 195 – 8; Hamilton, Making the modern Admiralty, 66 – 8.

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The radical Whig Metropolitan Magazine under Marryat’s editorship presented Graham’s reforms in partisan language. Seeing the Navy Board as a source of ‘Tory patronage and power’, the publication praised Graham’s reforms that ensured ‘Tory despotism is no more, and this most offensive remains, this latter end of Toryism, has now been cast out, and will no longer stink in the nostrils of the people’.51 A key objective of the Admiralty reform was to give the First Lord greater control over naval expenditure. Graham, who had previously served on the parliamentary finance select committee, entered office on Grey’s economising agenda. The Metropolitan Magazine described it as an ‘inefficient, self-willed, impertinent, and obstinate’ obstacle to financial control and decision making.52 A less apparent target was the SNA at Portsmouth Dockyard, which trained naval architects for government service.53 Established in 1811 to provide ‘instruction in Mathematics, Mechanics, or in the science or theory of Marine Architecture’ to promising dockyard apprentices, the SNA turned out a number of shipwrights who grew to be vocal opponents of Symonds’s work.54 In 1832 Graham closed the school as an ‘economy measure’.55 He was not opposed to scientific schools within the Admiralty per se. Following the petitioning of senior naval officers, he extended the existing provision for the scientific and practical teaching of gunnery on board HMS Excellent. Graham’s measures also represented a professional attack on the standing and knowledge of shipwrights in the Admiralty. Grey had urged him to take firm control of the work of the Navy Board. Although he acknowledged his own deficiencies to judge matériel questions, the prime minister made clear that his preference was to trust in the ‘practical knowledge’ afforded by the Board of Admiralty. Rather than availing himself of the Navy Board’s pro­ fessional knowledge, he urged Graham to ‘order’ the officials serving on the Navy Board to comply with his wishes: ‘It is only in this way, and I know by 51 M.M. ‘Naval Papers – Abolition of the Navy Board’, Metropolitan Magazine 4 ( July 1832), 241–7, esp. 243. 52 Ibid., 242. 53 Schaffer, ‘ “The charter’d Thames”: naval architecture and experimental spaces in Georgian Britain’, in Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer & Peter Dear (eds.), The mindful hand: inquiry and invention from the late Renaissance to early industrialization (Amsterdam, 2007), 279 –305, esp. 280. 54 School of naval architecture, 1833 (185), 2. 55 Hamilton, Making the modern Admiralty, 132. The average annual expense of the school was approximately £2298 (between 1811 and 1832), from its height of housing 24 students in 1815/16 to its steady decline from twelve students in 1822, ten in 1823, eight in 1826, seven in 1827 and six in its final years. School of naval architecture, 1833 (185), 16.



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experience, that any good is to be done with them. You must insist on their obeying you.’56 Their correspondence also reveals the low estimate with which they held the existing Surveyor: ‘[Robert] Seppings has, I believe done more mischief than any man ever did in the current situation.’57 Thus Graham and Grey worked to limit the influence of Martin and his Surveyor. In 1831 they gained the King’s support to remove Martin as part of the structural reform. Martin protested, hoping that the ‘good opinion & confidence’ which the King had shown in him would be enough to protect his job, but he appeared to underestimate the strength of Graham’s and Grey’s connection with the King during the passage of the Reform Bill. Having removed a major obstacle to controlling naval expenditure, in the form of the Navy Board and Martin, Graham required a surveyor who would realise the efficiency savings he sought. In Parliament he presented the office of Surveyor as a managerial position: I do not believe that the Surveyor of the Navy is required to be a practical ship-builder. It may as well be said that a Civil Engineer must be a practical stonemason. I admit that it is his duty to superintend the master shipwrights; but Mr. Lang, the shipwright, would superintend the mechanical part of it . . . But that is not by any means his [the surveyor’s] most important duty. I consider that the application and economy of labour, the discipline of the dock-yard, and the adjustment of the whole scheme of labour, are all duties intimately connected with the office of surveyor.58

Graham foresaw the Surveyor directing the work of the dockyards and the dockyard employees who possessed extensive experience in ship design and building, while his references to ‘economy’ and ‘discipline’ demonstrate Graham’s ambition that the Surveyor would spread the Whig reform and retrenchment agenda to the nation’s dockyards. Symonds was appointed Surveyor later in 1832. There is some debate among naval historians over exactly what role Graham gave to Symonds. Andrew Lambert argues that he was intended to be Martin’s replacement, not Seppings’.59 Officially, the post of Surveyor replaced that of Comptroller, but 56 Earl Grey to James Graham, 11 January 1831, Graham papers, Reel 54; James Graham to Thomas Byam Martin, 1831, Graham papers, Reel 52; J.K. Laughton, ‘Martin, Sir Thomas Byam (1773–1854)’, rev. Andrew Lambert, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. 57 Earl Grey to James Graham, 4 February 1831, Graham papers, Reel 54. 58 Debate on the appointment and qualifications of a Surveyor, quoted in [Chatfield], An apology, 6 –7. 59 Lambert, Last sailing battlefleet, 78.

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also took some of the duties of the old surveyors. In Parliament Graham sought to define Symonds’s responsibilities in terms of management, but in the debates that followed he was drawn into questions that concerned his design skills and experience. He told the Commons: ‘[I] am advised and firmly persuaded that Captain Symonds is more competent than any other gentleman I could possibly select.’ Those advisors included senior naval officers such as Thomas Hardy, Rear-Admiral William Parker and Vice-Admiral Edward Codrington. Graham continued: ‘He was perfectly unknown to me, except in his profession, and I have selected him on account of the inquiries which have been made, and on account of the highly-approved ships which Captain Symonds has built.’60 This was a reference to the Columbine, Pantaloon and yachts that had gained him influential supporters within the RYC. The perceived status of the Surveyor was further complicated by the connections that actors drew between ship-building experience and man­ agerial capability. Graham himself made these connections, along with a social dimension, when articulating why he would not appoint a shipwright to the surveyorship: that objection is, that a person who has himself been a shipwright, would necessarily have too close a connexion with the other shipwrights of the yard, to enable him to exercise that control of them which the public interest may make it requisite should be exercised; and whenever the salutary authority is relaxed, abuses and irregularities are always sure to be the consequence.61

Critics of Symonds’s appointment also made the connection as they compared the new Surveyor to Seppings. Martin in particular contrasted Seppings’s ‘efficient’ execution of his duties with Symonds, the ‘unprofessional man, who knew nothing about the business’.62 The political and economic context surrounding the abolition of the Navy Board and dismissal of Martin and Seppings highlights the various threads that combined in Symonds’s appointment. On one level it represented a political act. Lambert, in his analysis of the Admiralty as a nineteenth-century government department, interprets Symonds’s rise within two political contexts: the immediate aim of the Whig government to bring Symonds’s patrons 60 Debate on the appointment and qualifications of a Surveyor, quoted in [Chatfield], An apology, 5 – 6; Sharp, Memoirs, 89 – 91, 126 –205. 61 Debate on the appointment and qualifications of a Surveyor, quoted in [Chatfield], An apology, 6 –7. 62 ‘Civil Departments of the Navy’, Hansard 10 (14 February 1832), 349 –76, esp. 363; ‘The Navy Civil Departments’ Bill’, Hansard 10 (27 February 1832), 765 – 832, esp. 817.



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into the parliamentary reform camp; and the long-term goal of removing Tory influence from dockyards and dockyard-town constituencies.63 Yet, on another level, Symonds’s appointment needs to be understood within the structure of the reformed Admiralty organisation. In the absence of the Navy Board and comptroller, Symonds would take on many of the duties previously discharged by Martin, as well as by Seppings, from preparing ship designs to managing dockyard economy.64 As such, Symonds was expected to direct work in both design and construction. Finally, there was a professional dimension which, out of all the above, received the most attention in Parliament, the press and the pages of periodicals and pamphlets. Leading shipwrights, naval officers and Tory and radical politicians actively engaged in debates about professional status, skill and experience in relation to authority. Constructing an authority Symonds spent considerable energy in fashioning his identity as a ‘sailordesigner’, but this was little compared to the time and capital his supporters spent in constructing his status as an authority on ship design, in the face of considerable criticism. Situating and unravelling the competing representations that contemporaries constructed of Symonds provides a means to answering the core question: ‘What skills was a ship designer required to have?’ Shipwrights and graduates of the SNA cast him as a naval officer with no more than an amateur’s interest in naval architecture, while Symonds’s supporters both in and outside of the Navy represented him as a gentleman of many interests, possessing scientific credentials, experience at sea and an extensive (albeit private) study of ship forms. The ways in which these various actors represented Symonds during the controversies of the 1830s and 1840s reveal something of the ways they judged Symonds’s claim to authority. Symonds’s supporters refined their representation of Symonds as an enlightened, gentlemanly naval officer as they responded to the claims that his rivals levelled against his suitability for the surveyorship. In relation to the shipwrights who served in Britain’s dockyards, Symonds’s supporters represented him as an educated and thoughtful designer, possessing superior design skills. But that argument had less purchase when facing the graduates of the SNA, trained in a range of mathematical and philosophical topics from geometry to hydrostatics, as well as the craft skills necessary to become a master shipwright. So when responding to them Symonds’s supporters emphasised his 63 Laughton, ‘Martin, Sir Thomas Byam (1773–1854)’. 64 Hamilton, Making the modern Admiralty, 132.

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nautical experience. Through this representational work naval officers, politicians and naval commentators contributed to a particular model of authority in ship design that prized knowledge above skill, and broad perspectives above specialisation. The debate over Symonds’s appointment also reveals that shipwrights, despite their extensive skill and experience in designing and fabricating ships, lacked the professional respect of naval officers and administrators. Following the successful passage of the Navy Civil Departments Bill, parliamentary debate quickly turned to Symonds’s appointment. The radical Joseph Hume queried why the graduates of the SNA, who had applied themselves to the ‘science’ of naval architecture at national expense, had been hitherto overlooked for senior appointments.65 Lord Viscount Ingestre, a Tory politician who had served in the Navy during the Battle of Navarino, urged that one of their rank be given the post of Surveyor, as they possessed the ‘practical know­ ledge, in putting together ships’.66 Graham responded that the graduates who had remained in government employment, and would have had at most sixteen years’ service (including their apprenticeships), were too junior for the office of Surveyor. Martin, seeing a contradiction in Graham’s logic asked: ‘what degree of qualification is requisite for the situation of surveyor of the navy’ and how did a naval officer ‘of acknowledged abilities’ possessing ‘no practical knowledge of the building of a ship’ have superior qualifications to shipwrights with at least sixteen years’ experience? Martin added his recollection that Symonds ‘was unable to make the necessary calculation for [the Vernon’s design]; and [that] he actually sent to the Navy Board to ask them to make the calculation, so utterly incapable was he of doing it himself ’.67 Cockburn joined with Martin’s line of argument by asking whether Symonds would be able to take responsibility for his ships if he did not possess the knowledge and skills required to design and build them. Hitherto it has been deemed necessary that the surveyor of the navy should be the actual superintendent of everything done in the building of a ship, and that he should be able not only to tell the master shipwrights that they are doing wrong in putting together the timbers, but also to have a knowledge of the scientific and practical parts, sufficient to enable him to instruct them in the proper performance of their duties.68 65 Debate on the appointment and qualifications of a Surveyor, quoted in [Chatfield], An apology, 4. 66 Ibid., 9. 67 Ibid., 5. 68 Ibid., 7.



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With what authority could Symonds direct the construction of the nation’s maritime defences if he could not judge and adjust work at the design and construction stages? This was an important question. Was the Benthamite notion of undivided responsibility in doubt in the Surveyor’s department? The Tory Charles Yorke (later Earl of Hardwicke), MP for Cambridgeshire and a captain in the Royal Navy, also expressed grave concerns over Symonds’s appointment. He was well acquainted with the Surveyor, knowing him to be ‘an excellent officer, and a man of great ingenuity and science’, but he could not see past what he perceived to be a question of profession. He noted of Symonds: ‘With all the detail of ship-building and of workmanship he was necessarily unacquainted, as he had not been brought up to the profession of a shipwright.’69 From the other side of the House, the radical Henry Hunt made a similar point: ‘I always understand that it was impossible for a man to be a good and efficient master, without being also a workman, and capable of setting his men to rights when they happened to be wrong.’70 Both Yorke and Hunt queried whether Symonds’s lack of experience and practical skills would undermine his ability to judge the work of his subordinates. Their conception of a surveyor was someone who could oversee and intervene in all stages of the design and construction of a naval ship. Just as Symonds’s parliamentary critics emerged from various political camps, so too did his supporters. Henry Warburton, radical MP for Bridport, suggested, without providing examples, that there were many ‘parallel instances’ in which one could ‘superintend the construction of works who are not themselves required to have the knowledge of making the construction’.71 Maurice O’Connell, MP for Tralee and son of Daniel O’Connell, joined with Warburton: ‘I do not think it is quite so necessary, that a naval officer, who from his infancy is familiar with every part of a ship, should be required to be acquainted with the mechanical operations of a ship in order to qualify him to fill the situation of surveyor of the navy.’ O’Connell then went beyond all of the previous speakers by offering himself as a good judge of ship design (regardless of his background): ‘I speak from some little experience: for though I have not served an apprenticeship to shipbuilding, yet I have acquired some little knowledge of the subject, which, I think, would enable me, after a very little practice, to

69 ‘Civil Departments of the Navy’, Hansard 10 (14 February 1832), 349 –76, esp. 374. 70 Debate on the appointment and qualifications of a Surveyor, quoted in [Chatfield], An apology, 9. 71 Ibid., 9.

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detect any deficiency in the putting together the timbers of a ship.’72 O’Connell’s belief that he could master the art of ship design so quickly surely underlined his perception that the skills required to be Surveyor were based in managing ships and visually identifying faults in craftsmanship, rather than a working knowledge of the science and art of naval architecture. The earliest printed responses to Symonds’s appointments came from the periodical press. The radical Whig publication the Metropolitan Magazine, having previously defended the abolition of the Navy Board, set out a clear distinction between Symonds and his predecessor: Seppings was a shipwright, Symonds was a shipbuilder. The difference, to the article’s author, was that a shipbuilder ‘must be a scientific man’, while the other need not. It is striking that Symonds was portrayed as a ‘scientific man’. This was possible by simultaneously emphasising the ‘deeper knowledge’ Symonds was perceived to possess – a sign of expertise according to historians of the topic – and playing down the claims of SNA graduates to scientific credentials. Added to this, Symonds combined mathematical skill and nautical experience. Experience at sea was considered fundamental to becoming ‘a perfect shipbuilder’, as it gave him an understanding of how to ‘correct’ theories.73 Another article, published one month later, defended Symonds’s appointment on the grounds of the combination of nautical experience and knowledge that he brought to the position. This argument carried a number of implications, from the benefits to be taken from practical experience in seafaring and ship construction, to the notion that institutionalised study was not necessary for advancement within a technical profession.74 Conscious that Symonds’s allies were constructing a potentially persuasive discourse on technical authority around the appointment of a naval officer to the surveyorship, shipwrights responded by refuting the value of the skills and knowledge Symonds brought to the position. In 1833 Henry Chatfield anonymously penned a pamphlet titled An apology for English shipbuilders; showing that it is not necessary the country should look to the navy for naval architects.75 A graduate of the SNA and a shipwright in the Royal Navy’s dockyards, Chatfield would later become assistant master shipwright at Deptford 72 Ibid., 9. 73 M.M. ‘Naval Papers – Abolition of the Navy Board’, Metropolitan Magazine 4 ( July 1832), 244, 246. 74 ‘Naval papers. – No. II: On the state of naval architecture in Great Britain’, Metropolitan Magazine 4:16 (August 1832), 332– 8, esp. 338. 75 James Kennedy, W.A. Smith & A.F. Johnson, Dictionary of anonymous and pseudonymous English literature (7 vols., New York, 1926), I:123.



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in 1848 and master shipwright in 1853. He began his 1833 pamphlet by noting the ‘humiliation’ he felt from Symonds’s appointment and the recent parliamentary debates.76 He chose to see the appointment as a professional decision, rather than a political one. He argued that Graham was ‘a man of high and honourable principle’, and would not have appointed Symonds ‘for the mere purpose of patronage’.77 By rejecting the obvious political dimension, Chatfield moved the controversy towards professional questions such as ‘what skills did the surveyor require?’ Chatfield rejected both the partisan political interpretation of Symonds’s appointment and the representation that his supporters forged of a ‘scientific man’. To do this he developed two threads to demonstrate how the appointment reflected broader problems in the treatment of shipwrights by the British government. First, he established what he saw as Symonds’s inadequacy as a ship designer. Drawing on Symonds’s pamphlet and contemporary criticisms of the Vernon, he stressed that the Surveyor’s work was ‘incompatible with the principles of science’, in particular with regard to how the Surveyor presented and applied his knowledge of buoyancy, bearings and stability.78 Chatfield also dismissed Symonds’s emphasis on greater breadth of beam, one of the central components of Symonds’s ship-design system. He demonstrated that the Vernon barely differed in its relative dimensions of length and breadth to the 50-gun ships built at the start of the eighteenth century.79 Second, Chatfield examined Symonds’s suitability as a manager of a large engineering enterprise. Echoing the argument raised in Parliament, he asked how an individual with no training in the work of ship design and construction could ‘discriminate’ between standards of work and the relative merits and flaws of a ship’s design. What type of authority, he asked, ‘[c]an we call that superintendence which merely consists in the authority to say to one “Come, and he cometh; and to another, Go, and he goeth?” ’80 With the recent parliamentary debates in mind, Chatfield offered a response to Graham’s belief that only an outsider to the class of shipwrights could manage their work. Only the SNA graduates, he argued, had the breadth and depth of knowledge required to judge the ‘application and economy’ of dockyard labour. That had been part of the rationale offered by the Commissioners of Naval Revision who had proposed the establishment of the SNA in 1811. 76 [Chatfield], An apology, 5 – 6. 77 Ibid., 8 – 9. 78 Ibid., 27–35. 79 Ibid., 42. 80 Ibid., 13–15, esp. 15.

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Chatfield’s pamphlet provided a detailed critique of the notion of author­ ity over ship design that had been introduced into the Royal Navy with the appointment of Symonds. He specifically criticised the primacy given to nautical experience, and offered the following hypothetical scenario: What would be the feeling throughout the navy, if the First Lord of the Admiralty were to tell the House of Commons that the Right Hon. Lord Yarborough, Commodore of the Royal Yacht Club, had been represented to him as an individual of eminent attainments in naval evolutions; that he is not only a great tactitian [sic], but possesses a superior conception of the discipline of a ship’s company; that having carried pieces of ordnance in his yacht, he was conversant both in the theory and the exercises of naval gunnery; and that, upon the whole, he thought him more competent than any other gentleman he could possibly select to hoist his flag on board a man-of-war, and take command of a British fleet?81

Chatfield brought into sharp focus the disparity in the treatment of naval officers and naval architects within the administration of the Navy. It would have been unthinkable to replace Thomas Hardy or George Cockburn with a gentleman-yachtsman who had received no comprehensive training or experience in naval service, let alone risen to the top of their profession through years of activity and promotion. Chatfield’s arguments received a prompt response in the form of another article in the Metropolitan Magazine, this time clearly from the pen of its editor, Marryat. Marryat had served in the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of captain before resigning in 1830 to focus on writing naval novels, such as The Naval Officer, or, Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay (1829) and Midshipman Easy (1836). His novels proved very popular for their portrayal of naval adventure and wholesome officers steeped in, and glorifying, Britain’s naval traditions.82 Marryat’s article represented Symonds as the standard bearer of the school of thought that the sailor, through his intuition and tacit experience of the ship at sea, knew how a ship should be handled and, consequently, how it should be designed. He also claimed that SNA graduates lacked the 81 Ibid., 16. 82 Marryat’s work was respected by later authors like Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemmingway who wrote about naval life, see J.K. Laughton, ‘Marryat, Frederick (1792–1848)’, rev. Andrew Lambert, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). On the ongoing representation and interest in Napoleonic era naval history and characteristics see essays in David Cannadine (ed.) Trafalgar in history: a battle and its afterlife (Basingstoke, 2006); David Cannadine (ed.), Admiral Lord Nelson: context and legacy (Basingstoke, 2005).



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moral credibility of naval officers. This was a more socially explicit statement than Graham’s on the concern that shipwrights had no authority over their peers. Marryat cast Seppings as a mere ‘dockyard matey’, not in possession of the particular brand of social capital that was central to authority within the naval profession.83 As well as lending his reputation to Symonds, Marryat developed a number of interesting ideas on tacit knowledge in the mechanical arts and the skills required to be Surveyor. Without reference to the validity of Symonds’s principles of ship design, he argued that engineers rarely made ‘advances’ in mechanical art. He explained that the steam engine, logarithms and spinning jenny were invented by people who had wisdom and experienced situations in which the respective machines might be useful. Marryat explicitly distinguished those individuals from the ‘mere mechanics’ who built and repaired machines. ‘Every department of science has gained more from those who have not been trammelled by technicalities,’ Marryat argued, ‘and why? Because they had nothing to unlearn.’84 Like Thomas Carlyle, Marryat viewed mechanics with a scepticism drawn from evaluating what, in a mechanical society, would remain noble, personal, even human.85 But Marryat’s argument also shows signs of his boyhood friend Charles Babbage’s Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1832), specifically in the idea that science and industry did not take place in a vacuum, but benefited from cross-pollination.86 Applying his notion of technical authority to the ship, Marryat made the case that captains were the real authorities on naval architecture. ‘[The captain] has time for reflection, opportunity for observation to the utmost extent, and, by long practice and experimental workings, he brings her [the ship] under that control.’ In comparison, the shipwright’s ‘tools are in his hands, and he reasons with them more than with his understanding; to a suggestion he answers with his pencil and a calculation . . . to conceive originality, would be in him a species of heresy at which he would shudder’.87 Thus experience with the ship at sea was deemed vital to one’s skill to judge ship behaviour and 83 F.M[arryat]., ‘School of naval architecture’, 227. 84 Ibid., 227. 85 Thomas Carlyle, ‘Sign of the Times’, Edinburgh Review 49 (1829), 439 –59, esp. 443. 86 Charles Babbage, Economy of machinery and manufactures (London, 1832); Iwan Rhys Morus, Frankenstein’s children: electricity, exhibition, and experiment in earlynineteenth-century London (Princeton, NJ, 1998), 157; Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London, 1864), 17–22. I thank Iwan Morus for drawing my attention to Marryat’s friendship with Babbage. 87 F.M[arryat]., ‘School of naval architecture’, 228.

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design, more so than the technical knowledge gained from the study and practice of ship design. Marryat also added a class division between the authority of those who worked with their hands and that of those who worked with their heads. Within this frame, he portrayed Symonds, the naval officer, as an authority both of naval operations and naval architecture. Chatfield responded to Marryat with a short article in the United Service Journal, contrasting Marryat’s honourable and enlightened representation of Symonds with one of technical ignorance and stubbornness. He recognised that ‘it has been the fashion to deride the idea of applying pure mathematics and experimental philosophy to naval architecture, and to hold out the doctrine . . . that sailors “feel practically that they are right;” . . . We cannot repress a smile at so empirical a notion.’88 Chatfield urged his audience, which included naval officers and their political patrons, that constructors needed to be able to measure and calculate ship behaviour, and not simply speak from experience and intuit design principles. Only through calculation, he argued, could constructors ‘improve naval architecture as all other physical sciences are improved’.89 Drawing attention to the Vernon, he reiterated his recommendation that the Admiralty instead place its faith in SNA graduates who had been trained in mathematics, geometry and hydrodynamics. Debate over the merits of Symonds’s skills and ships continued through the 1830s into the 1840s. In 1845, Symonds intervened in the public debate with the pamphlet Facts versus Fiction, written under the pseudonym ‘One Who Has Served’. He highlighted his ‘practical experience’, ‘practical knowledge’ and ‘naval spirit’ as the keys to his suitability for the post. Using the analogies of carpenters and bricklayers, he attacked those shipwrights who had criticised those qualities: ‘because the captain of a man-of-war might not be able to handle the tools of a ship’s carpenter, they sagaciously decided that his opinions, on the qualities and construction of a ship, were wholly worthless. The bricklayers have declared themselves your only architects.’90 Symonds also utilised favourable results drawn from the experimental cruise that had returned to Devonport in late 1845 to accuse his opponents of falsifying the results of other cruising trials in order to attack his ship-design principles.91 Finally, he 88 [Henry Chatfield], ‘The school of naval architecture: in reply to the “Metropolitan Magazine;” by the author of “An apology for English shipbuilders” ’, The United Service Journal, and Naval and Military Magazine 1 (1834), 227–30, esp. 230. 89 Ibid., 230. 90 [William Symonds] ‘One who has served’, Facts versus fiction; or, Sir William Symonds’ principles of naval architecture vindicated (London, 1845), vi, xi, xiv, xv, xxi. 91 Ibid., v.



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criticised naval constructors who kept naval officers from the dockyards, and wrote that ‘[i]t was in vain to tell them that he who governed and directed the whole fabric [the naval officer] was really the practical man’.92 Symonds’s pamphlet was a very defensive text. He had been in office for over ten years when it was published, and spent most of that time under fire from naval architects. In private he complained of the ‘scandalous attacks’ made within the press by SNA graduates, while in publishing a vindication of his principles of naval architecture he sought to discredit those who doubted his work.93 He circulated copies of the pamphlet among his friends and patrons to ensure wide support in print, Parliament and government. Earl Minto, Whig First Lord of the Admiralty 1834 – 41, thanked Symonds for his copy, ‘which I have gone through with much satisfaction; and I really trust that the work may have the effect of discrediting the misrepresentations that have been so employed against you’.94 Symonds’s printed defence excited further response and criticism. In 1846, an anonymous author, writing under the pseudonym ‘A Naval Architect’, criticised the ‘personally loathsome’ mode of debate and the discreditable ‘spirit of party [political] feeling’ that pervaded Symonds’s pamphlet.95 Recalling Marryat’s claims on the ancestry of SNA graduates, the author noted that they are now called (by Symonds) ‘ “aspersors [sic]” – “calumniators” – “intriguers” – “slanderers” – “reckless falsifiers” – “libellers of high-minded honourable men” – “doers of everything that is mean and base in principle” – “ephemeral insects” – “venomous reptiles” – “overpaid mechanics” ’.96 ‘A Naval Architect’ also flatly refused the claims that naval constructors were disingenuous with trial results and that the products of their labours were failures. The author specifically examined the results of a series of experimental cruises to make the case that ships built by Seppings performed better than those built by Symonds.97 Symonds intended to have the last word on his reputation. In 1848 he began compiling an autobiography ‘in order to vindicate his fame as a shipbuilder, and to clear his productions from the misrepresentations which so peculiarly 92 Ibid., xxi. 93 William Symonds’s journal, quoted in Sharp, Memoirs, 182. 94 Earl Minto to William Symonds, 24 September 1845, in Ibid., 342–3. 95 The author also began by repeating a phrase used by Chatfield in 1834, ‘the war of controversy is better than the peace of ignorance’: [Anon.], ‘A naval architect’, The present shipbuilding controversy; or, which is the misrepresented party? (London, 1846), 7– 8. It is possible that Chatfield was ‘A naval architect’. 96 Ibid., 10. 97 Ibid., 47.

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beset them’.98 Death cut short the literary project, with the completed chapters extending only to 1831. Those chapters were published as part of a lives and letters volume written by J.A. Sharp.99 Sharp emphasised Symonds’s qualities and experiences as the key to his distinction from shipwrights and he also maintained that Symonds brought a greater knowledge of scientific principles to the post. But more importantly, he categorised (and discredited) Symonds’s opponents as craftsmen and theoreticians. The craftsmen, specifically the master shipwrights, gained skills in the dockyards but never reached the intellectual levels necessary to bring new principles and ideas to ship design. The theoreticians, largely SNA graduates, were described as ‘clever analysts’ who wrote ‘valuable papers on the theory of ships . . . more curious than useful’. Sharp specifically described the principal of the SNA, the Cambridge-educated mathematician Inman, as ‘a first-rate theorist, who had never been to sea in his life’.100 The argument that nautical experience was the distinguishing quality separ­ ating Symonds from the shipwrights as a designer had become truly pervasive. Sharp perceived nautical experience as the essential ‘test of theory, and without which its deductions are so much waste paper’.101 Sharp’s own view was that shipbuilding was more art than science. Building a ship was a complex process, from the initial calculations and drawings, to the transfer of those plans to shapes formed in the model loft, and then the construction and adjustments to the position of the masts after the first trials. Sharp’s conclusion was ‘not that science is misemployed in these investigations, but that the object it deals with is so heterogeneous in its character, the conditions of the problem are so involved and fluctuating’.102 He considered shipbuilding too complicated for a solely scientific intervention. Cultures of judgement and observation Symonds’s supporters did more than simply defend his reputation and authority from criticism. In the process of making their arguments they privileged particular ways of judging Symonds and the shipwrights according to peculiar notions of authority. The same process can be seen in the assessment of Symonds’s ships. Specifically, they emphasised the importance of sailing  98 Sharp, Memoirs, iii.  99 The personal material Sharp quotes from is no longer extant. 100 Sharp, Memoirs, 130. 101 Ibid., 102. 102 Ibid., 108 –10.



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qualities observed during experimental cruises. In attempting to silence the criticism the Surveyor received, his supporters increasingly drew on the results of experimental cruises. Experimental sailing in the British Navy was designed to ascertain the superiority of ship designs (often limited to brigs and sloops). The winning ship would become the model for further ship construction, while her designer would gain credibility for their work. The experimental cruise was not without controversy, with Symonds’s opponents questioning whether they really generated useful, even reliable, information about design. Critics questioned what design qualities the cruises highlighted, whether detailed conclusions about ship design could be drawn from the results and how the cruises were to be made instructive. Symonds’s allies found ample reason to elevate the importance of the experimental cruise. Commander Alfred Ryder, with the assistance of Edmund Fishbourne, described their reasons in a pamphlet containing the results of an 1845 experimental cruise. Ryder explained that they were vital to understanding the relative merits of the Royal Navy’s ships, but also because they provided naval architects with the benefit of a naval officer’s opinion on their designs. ‘The knowledge of the architect must receive increase from the practical information and experience of the sailor,’ Ryder wrote. ‘Arguments can be grounded only on facts that are deserving of credit from the accuracy with which they have been registered.’103 Ryder, while not seeking to become a constructor like Symonds, placed great importance in the authority of officers in judging ship behaviour. Captain John McKerlie held a similar hope in the 1830s when he prepared Symonds’s controversial Vernon for the experimental cruise. The Vernon was already subject to mixed reviews, but McKerlie hoped a successful cruise would silence all criticism. He wrote to Graham: ‘I do not know what Sir G. Cockburn will do or say when he hears our different reports . . . I trust he will become a convert also, and see the evil of his former ways, and repent.’104 McKerlie had faith in the experimental cruise, and expected a winning performance to change the minds of Symonds’s opponents. This did not happen. The Vernon had been beaten by HMS Barham, a third-rate launched in 1811 and recently converted to a 50-gun ship. It was an embarrassment to those of Symonds’s supporters who proceeded to work hard to explain the performance. They did this by undermining the authority to be derived from the experimental cruise – not as a general practice, just this particular outing. ‘The Barham had a great 103 Alfred Ryder, A pamphlet on the experimental cruizes of the line of battle ships, in 1845 (London, 1846), 19. Ryder’s italics. 104 John McKerlie to James Graham, 8 April 1835, in Sharp, Memoirs, 471.

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advantage in being so lately out of dock,’ Graham wrote to Symonds, ‘and I hear a Corry is a better jockey than old McKerlie. My faith, however, remains unshaken in the superior merits of your vessel.’105 The favourable condition of the Barham’s hull aside, the Vernon was over twenty years newer, and embodied Symonds’s design principles. Given the embarrassment of the defeat, it is not so surprising that Symonds’s supporters focused on the skills of the squadron captains to distract from the result. Sharp contended that a ‘good ship is a balance of opposing qualities, and, like a thoroughbred horse, is so “ticklish” a thing to deal with, that a very little mismanagement will put her out’.106 Sharp sought to undermine the credibility of this experimental squadron. That Graham, like Sharp, could maintain an ‘unshaken’ confidence in the Vernon after defeat should bring the cruise’s value into question. With the exception of the 1836 cruise, Symonds’s supporters tended not to see a problem in deriving credibility for the Surveyor’s ships from the experimental cruise. It is unsurprising, therefore, that they did not acknowledge the role of weather during the cruise. Some ships were more suited for poor weather and heavy seas than others, and the experimental squadron did not provide a stage for this to be seen. As a popular aristocratic venue for members of the RYC, the squadrons often met in and around the summer months. Ships designed for smooth-water sailing by compromising their stability performed well on the cruise. Cockburn, one of the Vernon’s fiercest critics, noted in his report on the ship: ‘I firmly believe that in smooth water and a good breeze she will beat any that swims upon the sea . . . but the moment she is opposed by a sea ahead . . . she becomes worse than can be believed by any that do not witness it and I can compare her to nothing but a child’s rocking horse constantly moving up and down without advancing a step.’107 Those observing the Vernon on a summer’s day off the south coast of England would have had little opportunity to see both sides of how the ship performed. Cockburn believed that the results of the experimental cruises did not provide clear indications for the design of naval ships. Writing a special minute to the Board of Construction in 1845, he recorded ‘how difficult it is to arrive at a satisfactory decision as to the best form or principle of construction to be adopted for the future building of ships of war’. He noted from cruise results that differences between ships built decades apart could be very slight – as the

105 James Graham to William Symonds, 17 January 1836, in Ibid., 176. 106 Ibid., 176. 107 George Cockburn to James Graham, 5 November 1833, quoted in Morriss, Cockburn, 209.



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victory of the Barham over the Vernon would suggest.108 He was not alone. The shipwrights who opposed Symonds’s appointment as Surveyor developed a number of arguments against the continuation of the practice. Henry Chatfield wrote that reports of the Vernon were ‘absurdly contradictory, [and] that it is impossible to draw any conclusion from them which would not be denied by the partisans of separate interests’.109 Chatfield found fault with the credibility of any system of judgement not underpinned by a ‘luminous exposition of the system or process by which they are produced’. Put differently, seeing should not itself lead to believing until the cruises were made to service the systematic study of ship design and performance. The experimental squadrons, as they operated, were forms of empirical art rather than science. Chatfield quoted John Herschel on the distinction: The tendency of empirical art is to bury itself in technicalities, and to place its pride in particular short cuts and mysteries, known only to adepts; to surprise and astonish by results, but conceal processes. The character of science is the direct contrary. It delights to lay itself open to inquiry, and is not satisfied with its conclusions till it can make the road to them broad and beaten, and in its application it preserves the same character, its whole aim being to strip away all technical mysteries, to illuminate every dark recess, and to gain free access to all processes, with a view to improve them on rational principles.110

In drawing the analogy between experimental cruises and empirical art, Chatfield reversed the accusations of Symonds’s supporters that shipwrights followed an empirical art while Symonds pursued a science. In 1851 Fincham provided a fuller analysis of the information gathered from the experimental cruise. He did not doubt that naval officers gained important information concerning ship behaviour from the cruises, but that such information was not conducive to forming useful judgements of ship design: what is the condition in which their [naval officer’s] opinions are evolved? Undoubtedly much more in that of disjointed notions, than as parts of a system exhibiting their dependences and relations in regular order. This seems to be inevitable; since the relations of the various conditions cannot be understood 108 George Cockburn, Board of Construction special minute, 15 November 1845, Admiralty papers, ADM 3/265. 109 [Chatfield], An apology, 10. 110 John Herschel, Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy (London, 1830), 70 –2 quoted in [Chatfield], An apology, 10.

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without study, – a study embracing the elements, as well as the general conditions, and the outline.111

Fincham raised an important question concerning the culture of judgement and observation that the experimental cruise maintained: ascertaining the relative qualities of ships of war required more than observation. It required trained judgement rooted not in nautical experience but the study of the mechanics of naval architecture. A ship is a combination of various design choices, placed into a delicate balance to secure the optimum results. Altering a ship’s design required a working knowledge of how specific design choices affected overall behaviour. Fincham believed that experimental cruises emphasised a culture of judgement based on comparing whole ships and then inferring from the results which design features were more successful than others. He located this culture of judgement with the prevailing consensus in the Navy that knowledge based on experience was key: ‘until a recent date, there was so prevailing an indifference to the application of scientific principles, that the chief dependence for improvement has been on experience’. The problem was compounded by the manner in which the experiences gained on the squadrons were employed in ship design. Fincham appreciated that it was ‘from actual experience that general principles are to be deduced’, but that it was not the practice of the Admiralty to use the cruise for ‘the simple view of marking the relative qualities quite distinctly, and irrespectively of successful competition’.112 Instead the spirit of competition had turned the cruises into ‘nothing better than sailing matches; for when the ships had exhibited their best performances, inquiry was arrested, when it was found that the ship was either good or bad; so that the reason of excellence or inferiority remained, in general, unaccounted for’. Both the Admiralty and designers were so eager to ‘improve’ ships based on the results of the experimental squadrons that they repeatedly moved masts, changed sail arrangements and altered trims – all subjects which had been ‘very imperfectly investigated’ in relation to overall ship performance.113 By continually altering ships on the cruise it was impossible to re-use them as benchmarks for comparisons with newer ship designs over an extended period of time. A number of prominent shipwrights advocated the end to the cruises altogether as a way of finding the ‘fittest’ ship. Fincham concluded that until the Admiralty ceased to ‘experiment’ through a ‘spirit of rivalry’ and competition at sea, mobilising often aged admirals to command squadrons of under-manned 111 Fincham, A history of naval architecture, 246. 112 Ibid., 246 –7. 113 Ibid., 221, 224.



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ships, naval constructors would have little idea which specific features of a ship’s design combined to contribute toward greater speed or manoeuvrability.114 During his tenure as Surveyor of the Navy Symonds established a reputation that lasted through the century. In the 1860s Joseph Woolley, an Inspector of Schools and founding member of the INA, used the phrases ‘Symondite ship’ and ‘Symondite fashion’ in reference to a ship that rolled dangerously at sea.115 To officers like Cockburn this was the problem with Symonds’s ships. The admiral could not deny that the Surveyor’s ships were fast. Symonds’s appointment raised important questions about what knowledge and skills the Surveyor should possess. Symonds was not seen by key political actors as an amateur, while some within the naval and political communities went so far as to reject the professional character of shipwrights, choosing instead to see them as artisans to be directed. Shipwrights, however marginalised they felt by the appointment, used the publicity around it to promote their own claims to authority. Whig politicians extended their personal clout to defend the Surveyor, no more so than Graham, whose ability to make managerial judgements was increasingly called into question. The debate over Symonds’s suitability for the surveyorship also subtly played out a tension over what the ‘science’ of naval architecture entailed. For those who claimed Symonds was a scientific man, scientific credentials seemed to entail little more than membership of the Royal Society, the publication of treatises and a claim to knowledge that went deeper than craft skills and experience. At the same time, and for many of the same supporters of Symonds, a disposition to theory, as in the case of Inman and the graduates of the SNA, was of little benefit. Both the meaning and value attached to science in this controversy changed according to the context of who was presently involved in the controversy. The same insight applies to the importance assigned to nautical experience. A number of naval officers placed the emphasis on understanding ship design not with the designer or builder, but with the user, the naval officer. From that perspective, it is possible to understand why a number of naval officers saw shipwrights as ‘mere builders’, trying to usurp authority they did not deserve. Understanding how these actors made their judgements of Symonds and his ships helps explain the decisions that they made, as well as shedding light on the cultures of judgement and authority in the Royal Navy. 114 Ibid., 220, 224. 115 William Froude, ‘Remarks on Mr. Scott Russell’s paper on rolling’, Transactions 4 (1863), 232–75, esp. 235; William Froude, ‘On the rolling of ships’, Transactions 2 (1861), 180 –230, esp. 187.

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The actors who judged Symonds played a vital role in granting him the authority that he received as Surveyor. The support of naval officers was vital, but in Symonds’s case, the political support he enjoyed mattered more. He frequently called upon the support of his political patrons through the 1830s and 1840s as parliamentary debates continued to call into question the performance of his ships. In 1847, Joseph Hume questioned Graham, who was now Robert Peel’s Home Secretary and parliamentary confidante, on the seaworthiness of the Vernon and Vanguard.116 The ships had been adamantly defended by Captains Berkeley, Hay and Austin, but the matter still reached Parliament for discussion. When told that the Vernon’s decks were constantly wet from her pitching, Graham explained that all fast ships were wet ships. The former first lord did not speak from knowledge of ship design, but so long as he remained in Parliament, and continued to attach importance to nautical experience in relation to mastering ship design, Symonds maintained a powerful position.

116 ‘House of Commons’, Examiner 2048 (1847), 280 –2, esp. 281–2.

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Steam and the management of naval architecture

During your tenure of office the Royal Navy has been converted from a sailing to a screw navy, and the efficient vessels of every class which now constitute the screw navy, bear testimony to the skill and intelligence which have been successfully bestowed on this most important subject. W.G. Romaine, Secretary to the Admiralty, congratulates Baldwin Walker on his tenure as Surveyor of the Navy.1 The Royal Dockyard of Portsmouth is well worthy of a visit. To me it was an object of peculiar interest. I had only visited it once before, and that merely for a few hours. As I anticipated I found everything in order, and upon a most gigantic scale, but the expenditure appeared to be lavish in the extreme, especially in the building department. There we found some six or seven very large vessels on the stocks from the frigate to the line of battleship. Some of them had been sixteen years in the course of construction, and would still require a few years to complete. All of them were undergoing very great alterations at an enormous cost. Some were in process of lengthening in midships, others at the bow, and all were having their stern frames torn down, and rebuilt so as to receive a screw propeller. No doubt the next batch of Admiralty Lords who succeed in office, will have other alterations to make, and thus the public money is too often wasted. MP and ship owner William Schaw Lindsay sees a different side to the management of naval architecture while visiting Portsmouth.2

In 1853, Portsmouth received upwards of 100,000 visitors and 1,000 ships for the largest naval spectacle since the 1845 experimental cruise. Just as in 1845, 1 William Govett Romaine to Baldwin Walker, 10 January 1861, Baldwin Walker papers, Jagger Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town (hereafter Walker papers) [catalogue page (cat.) 71]. 2 ‘Royal Dock of Portsmouth’, 26 October 1854, Typescript of Lindsay’s Journal, William Schaw Lindsay papers, National Maritime Museum, London (hereafter Lindsay papers), LND/35/2.

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the occasion attracted Queen Victoria, representatives from both houses of Parliament and Europe’s ruling families. The event was a fleet review, held months before hostilities officially commenced in the Crimea. Such reviews had been a common feature in naval history, providing the monarch with an opportunity to inspect the country’s naval force, but in the nineteenth century these occasions took on a more public profile as a place where entertainment, technology and projections of naval power became inseparable. Already in 1853 the review was well attended by merchant shipping companies and featured events such as a ‘sham fight’ to demonstrate the use of steam in naval warfare.3 Unlike any previous review, this occasion was a steam spectacle. The warships featured included the first purpose-built steam warship, HMS Agamemnon, the experimental paddle frigate conceived by Admiral Charles Napier, HMS Sidon, and four of the first warships converted to steam, including the Napoleonic-era HMS Edinburgh. Beyond the naval ships, representatives from many of Britain’s steamship companies, including the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Company and the General Screw Steam Company, attended in steamers. Members of the public chartered steamships from London, the south coast and France to gain their mobile vantage points for the review. The Mersey-based Arabia, then the fastest transatlantic steamer, was ordered to the event by the directors of Cunard’s British and North American Royal Mail Steam Company. Steam was also the central attraction for the newspaper correspondents in attendance. The Times noted that at the last fleet review in 1814 ‘there was no such thing as a war steamer’. The review proved the ideal stage on which to demonstrate the claims made by steam advocates, including greater manoeuvrability. The same article remarked that the ships ‘manoeuvred with as much precision as the troops at Chobham . . . and this they were enabled to do quite irrespective of sails, wind, or weather.’4 The review was a widely acclaimed success, considered all the more impressive given the questions and criticisms that had been levelled at those who managed naval architecture in the Royal Navy. The Times reminded its readers that ‘many successive naval administrations have borne the not undeserved 3 ‘The review of the fleet’, The Times 21506 (13 August 1853), 7; ‘Naval intelligence’, The Times 21500 (6 August 1853), 8. For the changing character of naval reviews see Jan Rüger, The great naval game: Britain and Germany in the age of empire (Cambridge, 2007), 12– 49. 4 ‘The review of the fleet’, The Times 21506 (13 August 1853), 7.



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reproach of wasted expenditure and abortive experiments’.5 Mid-nineteenthcentury debate about the Navy was dominated by criticisms of how the Admiralty managed experiments with new materials, trials of new technologies and construction programmes. Questions of authority permeated the management of naval architecture in two important ways. First, actors seeking to manage naval architecture explicitly emphasised their credibility and experience, along with the specific bodies of knowledge and skill that they considered essential to their claim to authority. Second, the boundaries of authority between the Board of Admiralty, Surveyor and dockyard shipwrights were redrawn as the Admiralty increasingly sought to set out the principles and systems by which ships would be designed and constructed. This is most evident in the ways that the Admiralty restricted Symonds’s authority in the years prior to his retirement, and then increased the autonomy of Admiralty constructors and master shipwrights in design work prior to the appointment of his successor. The introduction of steam in the Navy is a large and complex subject, enough to warrant a separate book.6 With this in mind, the emphasis of this chapter is focused exclusively on the implications of steam for the management of naval architecture. In his account of Anglo-French naval rivalry C.I. Hamilton writes that ‘[t]he large scale introduction of steam upset any comfortable assurance about warship design’.7 This chapter examines the concerns of those actors involved in the management of naval architecture, locating the introduction of steam within a larger debate over what were the ‘correct’ principles of ship design. Their work was complicated by steam, but not driven by it. Ship designers, administrators and politicians increasingly talked about managing naval architecture in terms of ‘principles’ and ‘systems’, exploring which principles ensured conversion to steam at the least cost and waste of material and labour. The principles of naval architecture were fiercely contested in the first half of the nineteenth century, as Chapter 1 demonstrated. Personal and political tensions were rife, which has important implications for our understanding of the introduction of steam into the Royal Navy. Past studies have focused on long-standing debates concerning how ‘reactionary’, ‘conservative’ or, even, ‘backward’ the Admiralty was in managing the introduction of steam into the 5 ‘The naval display’, The Times 21504 (11 August 1853), 8. 6 The only extended studies of the introduction of steam into the Royal Navy are Andrew Lambert, Battleships in transition: the creation of the steam battleship (London, 1984); David K. Brown, Before the ironclad: the development of ship design, propulsion and armament in the Royal Navy, 1815 –1860 (London, 1990). 7 C.I. Hamilton, Anglo-French naval rivalry, 1840 –1870 (Oxford, 1993), 15.

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Navy.8 Far less attention has been paid to the authority and credibility of those individuals who proposed the principles of naval architecture. Yet this issue subsumed the Surveyor’s office, was frequently discussed in Parliament and required careful negotiation by the advocates of a steam Navy. James Graham had appointed Symonds as Surveyor partly in the hope that he would secure greater economy in Britain’s dockyards. We have already seen that his approach to managing the design and construction processes in the Navy became increasingly controversial. Late in 1847 he retired from the surveyorship and was replaced by Captain Baldwin Walker. Walker had distinguished himself in a number of naval engagements in the Mediterranean, both in the Royal Navy and (with Admiralty permission) in the Turkish Navy, in which he took the name Yavir Pasha.9 Walker was a less controversial appointment than Symonds for a number of reasons. He had no ambition to be a ship designer. He was appointed with the explicit instruction that he would manage only the design and construction of the Royal Navy’s fleet. His office was reformed at the time of appointment to give naval architects more authority in ship design. Walker presents an interesting figure through which to explore how naval architecture was managed. He was alleged to tell dockyard commissioners ‘that he was not a professional officer, nor competent to give an opinion with reference to shipwrights’ – despite twelve years’ service.10 This begs the question how, with his relatively low level of knowledge, he managed naval architecture and the work of shipwrights. The following sections reconstruct the ways in which various principles of naval architecture were judged by shipwrights, naval officers and politicians alike, examining the concerns that guided those actors who directed the work of the Navy’s vast engineering enterprises. Naval architecture on trial Symonds was a controversial surveyor, and his opponents heavily questioned his suitability to design ships. His part in the design process was one of directing ship design, using his experiences, observations and instincts as a guide. Anecdotal evidence in Chapter 1 suggests that he was found wanting in the   8 Andrew Lambert, ‘Responding to the nineteenth century: the Royal Navy and the introduction of the screw propeller’, History of Technology 21 (1999), 1–28; Hamilton, Anglo-French naval rivalry. For an alternative perspective focusing on the dockyard see Philip MacDougall (ed.), Chatham dockyard, 1815 –1865: the industrial transformation (Publications of the Navy Records Society, vol. 154, Farnham, 2009).   9 C.I. Hamilton, ‘Walker, Sir Baldwin Wake, first baronet (1802–1876)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 10 Thomas Brassey, The British Navy (5 vols., Cambridge, 1882, rpnt 2010), IV:40.



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finer details of design work, and this work often fell to his chief assistant, John Edye. Edye was born in 1792, and entered Plymouth Dockyard as an apprentice to John Tucker, a contemporary of Robert Seppings. Edye was the only chief clerk in the Surveyor’s office, and was paid less than the master shipwrights. All accounts suggest that he made important contributions to the structure and weight details of Symonds’s plans, but did not undertake original design work under the Surveyor.11 We must keep in view that throughout the 1830s, the Surveyor actively produced hull forms and provided the underlying design principles for master shipwrights – something which became a source of friction between him and the master shipwright at Woolwich, Oliver Lang.12 Symonds enjoyed unprecedented authority through the 1830s under a series of Whig administrations. This changed in 1841 with the election of the first Tory majority for over a decade. Prime Minister Robert Peel invited the Earl of Haddington to join his government as governor of India, an offer he rejected on account of his desire to be First Lord of the Admiralty. Haddington was known not to possess much knowledge about the Navy. Symonds wrote that he was ‘a stranger to everything Naval’.13 John Henry Briggs, a long-serving secretary to the Board, wrote that Haddington acknowledged his limited understanding of naval affairs and ‘wisely deputed their management to Sir George Cockburn, Mr. Sidney Herbert and Mr. Henry Corry’.14 This was vital for Cockburn. His personal reputation alone afforded a great deal of respect, but now he gained institutional authority and a good deal of autonomy and political influence under the new First Lord. Cockburn’s appointment to the Haddington Board was bad news for Symonds, who had been widely criticised by the Admiral. The Surveyor grew anxious, complaining of ‘Sir George Cockburn ruling with an imperious and overbearing hand; interfering with my duties, setting up the Master Shipwrights, and even the mechanics, in judgment of my work; clipping my wings, and depriving me of all my power and respect in the Yards’.15 Symonds doubtless exaggerated the situation, but he was right to fear Cockburn’s newfound authority. Over the next six years he would face various committees of master shipwrights 11 Andrew Lambert, The last sailing battlefleet: maintaining naval mastery, 1815 –1850 (London, 1991), 32, 39; Brown, Before the ironclad, 39. 12 Lambert, Last sailing battlefleet, 75. 13 James A. Sharp, Memoirs of the life and services of Rear-Admiral Sir William Symonds (London, 1858), 290 –1; H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Hamilton, Thomas, ninth earl of Haddington (1780 –1858)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 14 J.H. Briggs, Naval administration, 1827–1892 (London, 1897), 74. 15 Sharp, Memoirs, 290 –1.

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being formed to evaluate his work, an increase in competition within the Admiralty for design work and a series of revisions and alterations to his ships – the last of which drove him to retire from office. Rivalry was not new to Symonds, but with the altered political landscape it was a greater threat to the unrestricted authority he had enjoyed in the 1830s under Graham. Writing to the then Captain Walker he complained of ‘a nest of scorpions’ who ‘scandalously & shamefully’ sought to undermine him, and also the ‘odious conspiracy . . . which I fear is encouraged in a high quarter’.16 The graduates of the SNA, who had opposed Symonds since the early 1830s, wasted no time in approaching Cockburn with their grievances. Three in particular, Samuel Read, Henry Chatfield and Augustin Creuze, believed that since the Tories had departed the Admiralty in 1831 they had been ‘systematically disenchanted’. They reminded Cockburn that Viscount Melville had promised naval architects ‘the honour of his patronage’ in the form of fast promotions to positions of seniority in the dockyards and opportunities for SNA students to submit ship designs for the experimental cruise. Under Graham the graduates, and the SNA itself, experienced a change of fortunes. The petitioners complained of stifled career advancement and being excluded from the experimental cruises. This ‘want of confidence in our knowledge’, they felt, was emblematic of a larger problem: the neglect of naval architecture as a science. [W]e see much greater reason to regret that while the sure method of proceeding was available by the plan of education laid down by the Board of Naval Revision, mere speculation should have been resorted to, providing no conclusive results to improve our knowledge of any of the principles of naval architecture. . . . Naval architecture cannot be advanced except by bringing mathematical reasoning to bear upon the results of experience, which results can only be obtained by collecting and comparing facts connected with the subject – a work of patient investigation. Naval architecture must be regarded as a progressive scientific art, and therefore cannot be advanced by sudden impulses.

The SNA graduates did not mention Symonds by name in their initial correspondence, but they made clear their view that the past ten years of shipbuilding had seen little more than a series of ‘isolated experiments of various projectors from which no conclusions have been derived’.17 The petitioners combined their aims of furthering the science of naval architecture and attaining personal advancement under Cockburn’s patronage. 16 William Symonds to Baldwin Walker, 31 January 1845, Walker papers, [cat. 64], D70/188 30 (t). 17 Samuel Read, Henry Chatfield & Augustin Creuze to George Cockburn, 16 April 1842, Admiralty papers, ADM 7/577.



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Read, Chatfield and Creuze desired appointments to ‘the superior situations in our dockyards’, followed by permission to begin a ‘scientific analysis of the Navy’ to ‘ascertain the causes of properties and exact capabilities of every British Man-of-War and steam vessel’.18 Another Tory Admiral, Thomas Byam Martin, former Comptroller of the Navy Board, believed that in wartime the government acknowledged the ‘importance and value [of shipwrights] to the country’, but ‘may grind the men down in peace[time]’.19 Given the clear partypolitical lines that had been drawn around the SNA, they doubtless hoped for sympathetic treatment from the Tory Naval Lord. The graduates gained Cockburn’s support, and were afforded a leave of absence to meet in Chatham and draw up designs for various classes of ship. These designs became the frigate HMS Thetis and the brig HMS Espiegle.20 Work in Chatham proceeded until the spring of 1844, despite numerous requests from the Admiralty for the shipwrights to return to their regular duties.21 The Board expressed dismay that it took the shipwrights four months to produce the lines of a ship. When requested to justify themselves, they explained that the majority of the time had been taken up with studying the science of naval architecture, undertaking calculations and making drawings, all of which were necessary ‘in preparing original designs’. They further asserted that it took ‘extreme patience involving great labor [sic] and exacting great precision’ to devise a hull form with the appropriate levels of ‘displacement and stability.’ They also explained that their work involved theoretical processes, nurtured during their time at the SNA.22 In responding to the Admiralty’s request for the final designs, the shipwrights cemented the link between their ships and a scientific approach to naval architecture. In October 1844 the Espiegle, carrying the hopes of the SNA graduates, was put to the test on the experimental cruise. This was the first opportunity since the early 1830s that actors representing themselves as scientifically trained naval architects had had the opportunity to exhibit their work.23 A number of brigs formed the squadron under the command of Captain Armar L. Corry, 18 Ibid. 19 Richard Vesey Hamilton (ed.), Letters and papers of the Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thos. Byam Martin (Publications of the Navy Records Society, vol. 19, London, 1901), 387. 20 John Barrow to Samuel Read, 16 April 1841, Admiralty papers, ADM 7/577. 21 John Barrow to Samuel Read, 21 December 1842, Admiralty papers, ADM 7/577. 22 Henry Chatfield & Augustin Creuze to John Barrow, 12 May 1844, Admiralty papers, ADM 7/577. 23 [Henry Chatfield], An apology for English ship-builders; showing that it is not necessary the country should look to the navy for naval architects (London, 1833), 20.

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including Symonds’s HMS Flying Fish and HMS Daring, designed by the Cowes-based private shipbuilder John White. White, who by Cockburn’s own admission was ‘a practical man’, had not actually designed the Daring. Rather, the Admiralty had given him one of the worst 42-gun frigates in the Navy, which he altered by lengthening the ship and adding a new bow.24 Corry oversaw fourteen trial runs on the cruise, eight on the wind and six off. The Daring performed best, followed by the Flying Fish and the Espiegle. Corry noted in his report that the Flying Fish was superior both ‘with the water smooth and a long swell’ and ‘on a wind, in moderate weather’, but that with ‘wind abeam’ the Daring outperformed all.25 The same ships were tried again in an experimental cruise held in March 1845, although yielding different results. Writing from on board the Daring, Commander Matson reported that she remained superior ‘under any circumstances’, but that now ‘the advantage [was] being slightly in favour of the Espiegle’.26 Cockburn drew two conclusions from the cruises. First, the Espiegle was superior to the Flying Fish on the grounds that the former carried five months’ provision while the latter carried only three.27 Second, and more important for Symonds’s authority with the Board, he believed that no one at the Admiralty understood and successfully applied ‘principles’ of naval architecture to ship design. Across all the classes of ships on display in the 1845 cruise ‘new builds’ like Symonds’s HMS Queen and HMS Albion were frequently outperformed by older ships. He conceded that alterations had made Symonds’s ships ‘at last tolerably good’, but that the results of their respective first cruises cast serious doubt on his ship designs.28 On the second cruise Symonds took proactive steps to ensure the best results for all his ships, from the brigs to the 110-gun first-rate ship of the line HMS Queen. Symonds specifically worked to secure good ‘jockeys’, and approached Baldwin Walker to captain the Queen.29 He was reasonably con­ fident Walker would be given the command, explaining that ‘my friend the Duke of Portland has promised to ask Lord H[addington] to appoint you as 24 ‘State of the Navy’, Hansard 77 (13 February 1845), 413. For White’s see David L. Williams, Maritime heritage: White’s of Cowes (Peterborough, 1993). 25 Navy (trial cruises), 1845 (394), 5. 26 Ibid., 27. 27 ‘Supply – the Navy estimates’, Hansard 78 (31 March 1845), 1265. 28 George Cockburn, Board of Construction special minute, 15 November 1845, Admiralty papers, ADM 3/265. 29 William Symonds to Baldwin Walker, 9 December 1844, Walker papers, [cat. 64], D70/188 30 (s).



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a personal favour’.30 Walker was given command, despite Haddington’s belief that he was too important to command a ship on the experimental cruise. The First Lord nevertheless expressed his ‘confidence’ that there was ‘no officer better qualified for the performance of the very important duty’, and that he would provide ‘a fair and impartial statement of opinion’.31 Following the cruise Walker offered his opinion that the Queen was ‘a most magnificent man-of-war, and in every respect superior to the St. Vincent or Trafalgar, or any ship I ever served in’.32 The results of the cruises far from endorsed either Symonds’s system of naval architecture or the ‘science’ advocated by SNA graduates. If anything, the varying results between cruises, so far as the brigs were concerned, cast doubt on the experimental cruise as a means of judging the relative merits of competing ship designs.33 Moreover, the success of White’s Daring seems to have been ignored, receiving little attention from Parliament, where the debate continued to focus on the familiar terrain of Symonds’s controversy with the SNA graduates. Captain Henry Rous took the performance of the Espiegle as vindication of the abolition of the Navy Board and the SNA.34 He also advised that the Surveyor should not design ships, but judge ship designs ordered from individuals of ‘reputation’. By ‘reputation’ he did not mean professional reputation in ship design, but personal reputation. The connotations of this are evident in his plea for the Admiralty to request designs both from the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the naval officer Charles Napier. Brunel was then preparing his screw steamship Great Britain for its maiden voyage to New York.35 Napier, although no naval architect, had forged a reputation as a steam advocate. Promoting steam Steam is ‘the great reformer of our century’, stated an 1859 article on the Navy in Chambers.36 This sentiment was widely held, but it is perhaps misleading. 30 William Symonds to Baldwin Walker, 31 January 1845, Walker papers, [cat. 64] D70/188 30 (t). 31 Ibid. 32 Quoted in John Fincham, A history of naval architecture: to which is prefixed, as introductory dissertation on the application of mathematical science to the art of naval construction (London, 1851), 235. 33 Ibid., 233. 34 ‘State of the Navy’, Hansard 77 (13 February 1845), 414. 35 Ibid., 416. 36 ‘Our screw navy’, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts (hereafter Chambers’s) 275 (9 April 1859), 229 –32, esp. 230.

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The real power behind such reform came from the steam advocates who were willing to expend their own energy experimenting and reforming Britain’s naval infrastructure.37 This side of the history of steam engineering in the Royal Navy is all too rarely examined. Instead the conventional account of steam in the Navy is one of a series of successful trials, from the paddlewheel HMS Comet, through the experiments of John Ericsson and Francis Petit Smith with screw propellers, to the tug-of-war between the paddlewheel sloop HMS Alecto and a screw sloop HMS Rattler. In 1845 the Admiralty ordered steam machinery for the conversion of warships to steam and screw, and in 1852 launched HMS Agamemnon, the first line-of-battle ship designed for screw propulsion.38 There are important deviations from this conventional history. Hamilton places the introduction of steam and the screw propeller into the context of Anglo-French rivalry, treating international diplomacy and war as factors ‘that gave an added impetus to naval innovation and growth’.39 In this top-down model technology is not strictly treated as though it existed in a vacuum, but as an enterprise that might be pushed forward or kept back according to the politics of naval officers and administrators. Moreover, the narrative of steam seems to be of interest only when familiar figures in naval history took an interest. Andrew Lambert provides an alternative perspective on the Admiralty’s decision to adopt the screw propeller. He fairly observes that the contemporary literature on the subject was largely to be found in a polemical pamphlet discourse that charged the Admiralty with ‘conservatism’ and an unwillingness to support experiments with different designs of screw propellers. Lambert instead traces how Admiralty officials acted. He contends that the Admiralty, convinced of the benefits of the screw over paddlewheels for propelling warships, bided its time and sought to place the financial burden to develop the screw on private industry wherever possible. Ultimately the Admiralty took steps to adopt the screw, Lambert argues, only when it made most financial sense.40 Unlike Hamilton, Lambert draws the work of engineers and administrators closer together. However, he retrospectively distinguishes between ‘intelligent naval officers [who] were well informed about steam technology’ and those who might not fit into a rational model of technological change. For example, Captain Edward Parry, the first Controller of the 37 Christine MacLeod, Heroes of invention: technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750 –1914 (Cambridge, 2007); Ben Marsden & Crosbie Smith, Engineering empires: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain (Basingstoke, 2007). 38 For example see Eric Grove, The Royal Navy since 1815 (Basingstoke, 2005). 39 Hamilton, Anglo-French naval rivalry, 14. 40 Lambert, ‘Responding to the nineteenth century’, 23– 4.



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Admiralty steam department, formed in 1837, was ‘no expert’.41 Although ‘expert’ is a problematic term, Parry certainly did not lack authority or credibility. He was best known for Arctic exploration, but was well connected to the scientific community through the Royal Society, and to steamship builders and owners through his work with the mail packets, where he developed relationships with Samuel Cunard, David MacIver and George Burns.42 There are arguably problems in reconstructing a model for logical decision making within the Admiralty. As Hamilton has shown elsewhere, it is a mistake to treat the Admiralty as a single mind involved in forward planning.43 It is not that Admiralty officials were illogical, or even conservative, but that decision making took place within social networks by actors who ascribed very particular meanings to steam. The introduction of steam in the Royal Navy may be more productively examined as a history of steam advocates (and opponents). These actors worked in and outside of the Admiralty, making claims (often exaggerated) about the use of steam, predominantly drawing on the experiences of commercial ocean steamship companies. Throughout this period the credibility of steam at sea remained fragile, and immensely contingent on the work, risk and reputation of the actors who experimented with steam – which serves to further highlight the importance of personal credibility and authority to the history of naval architecture. Steam was a polemical issue in the popular and technical press. In the United Service Journal, an anonymous author noted the many obstacles facing ‘scientific mechanicians’ and ‘mechanical power’ in and around the Navy. Early advocates of steam complained of the treatment they were given by the naval community. We remember, that the first men who crossed from Dover in a steam-boat were insulted, pelted with mud, – and the sailors, packet-owners, and boatsmen, cocked their hats on one side, put their hands in their jacket pockets, and asked – ‘If they was the gentlemen who was going to sea in a tea-kettle?’ and added, ‘if it comes on to blow they’ll simmer on the Goodwin.’ It was not until their trade was destroyed that they would believe the efficiency of the power.44

41 Ibid., 3– 6. 42 Crosbie Smith, Ocean steamship: building trust into the servants of empire, 1840 –1875 (forthcoming). 43 Hamilton, Making the modern Admiralty, 38. 44 [Anon.], ‘On mechanical power, and the neglect of the scientific mechanicians’, The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine 3 (1833), 220 – 6, esp. 226.

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The same author believed that official resistance to steam was rooted in social and cultural concerns: class politics and noble traditions. Admirals and captains celebrated a naval tradition, not an inventive one. Robert Southey’s Horatio Nelson was their hero, not the James Watt popular with self-help organisations and technical institutes.45 There were, of course, specific centres of resistance to steam. The RYC, Britain’s aristocratic sailing club described in Chapter 1, threatened to expel any member who used steam propulsion. The contributor to the United Ser­ vice Journal took this as evidence that there was no encouragement given to science and engineering at the intersections between Britain’s wealthy sailors and government.46 The author asked: ‘Is such conduct worthy of our Government? Is such indifference creditable to our aristocracy? Is such neglectful ignorance, tolerable among our wealthy manufacturers?’47 We have already established the influence of the RYC, and indeed one of its key members, Symonds, wrote in his journal about ‘monstrous iron steamers’, while his bio­ grapher noted that he ‘had no love for steamers in any shape’.48 Another RYC member, Thomas Assheton-Smith, left the club when it not only refused the entrance of a steam yacht, but ridiculed the suggestion: ‘some of the members went even so far as to taunt him with the insinuation that he intended to make any steamer he might build subservient to business purposes’.49 Assheton-Smith was an Eton-educated landowner and sportsman who maintained his lifestyle through profits from the slate quarry industry. He had been a member of the RYC for many years, registering five different sailing yachts. In 1829 he communicated with the Clyde-based marine engineer Robert Napier, inviting him to discuss the design of a steam yacht, the Menai. The engineer recollected their discussion: he had quarrelled with some of the members of the Royal Yacht Club, and was determined to leave the club, and build a steam-yacht; but that Mrs. Smith was very much against his doing so, and that I must overcome the objections to steam. . . . He repeated, I must do it. . . . During dinner, Mr. Smith made many judicious remarks about steam and steam-vessels, others the reverse – the latter I explained when he was wrong. . . . Mr. Smith then decided on building a steam 45 MacLeod, Heroes of invention, 91–180. 46 Crosbie Smith & Anne Scott, ‘ “Trust in providence”: building confidence into the Cunard line of steamers’, Technology & Culture 48 (2007): 471– 96, esp. 482– 3. 47 [Anon.], ‘Mechanical power’, 221. 48 Symonds’s journal, quoted in Sharp, Memoirs, 332. 49 John E. Eardley-Wilmot, Reminiscences of the late Thomas Assheton-Smith, Esq. or the pursuits of an English country gentleman (London, 1860), 101–2.



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yacht, with copper boilers, and gave me the order, saying, when I wanted money he would send it. The vessel cost him about 20,000l.

Assheton-Smith placed complete trust in Napier. At no point did he visit Napier’s yard or interfere with the work. Napier was struck by ‘the complete confidence he placed in me from first to last, to which I responded by doing everything I could to meet his wishes, and on the lowest terms I could, as I knew he did not build his vessels for mercantile purposes, but purely for the improvement of steam navigation’. Assheton-Smith also offered security for Napier’s dealings with the Government and East India Company. Napier built eight ships for Assheton-Smith, each one according to his own design. These included the Fire-King (1840), which featured ‘long very fine hollow lines’. The ship attracted shipbuilders and interested parties, who ‘uniformly condemned’ its design.50 Events in the RYC indicate the cultural baggage of steam in the 1830s. Come the 1840s, steam had become increasingly commonplace in commercial seafaring, but credibility remained fragile and debates continued over the relative merits of the paddlewheel and screw propeller. Writing in 1850, after the decision had been taken to fit screws to many of Britain’s warships, but while debate about the decision continued, Captain Edward Pellew Halsted reminded readers of the two key benefits of the screw: ‘to restore that complete broadside armament’ and ‘to secure for the ship the full co-operation of steampower, whether in close or distant action, by so disposing her machinery as to afford it a protection as effectual as that of the magazine itself ’.51 These benefits were only relevant, however, if the screw itself was found to be a practical invention for warship propulsion. The paddlewheel had been popular among proponents of steam in the Navy like Charles Napier, but the screw propeller also had influential backers. In May 1836 Francis Petit Smith (1808 –74), a farmer and model-boat enthusiast, took out a patent for the Archimedean screw-propeller – just six weeks prior to another patent submitted by Ericsson. He had received technical support from Thomas Pilgrim and financial aid from Wright’s Bank.52 ‘The novel and difficult achievement by Smith’, David K. Brown writes, ‘was the integration of a steam engine and a propeller with a driveshaft which would accept the thrust from the propeller while remaining watertight where it passed through

50 George Napier to John E. Eardley-Wilmot, May 1859, quoted in Ibid., 102–3. 51 E.P. Halsted, The screw fleet of the Navy (London, 1850), 1–2. 52 Fincham, Naval architecture, 344.

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the hull.’53 Later in 1836 Smith exhibited a model of his screw at the National Gallery of Practical Science. Adelaide Gallery, as it was popularly known, offered instrument makers and mechanics a public stage to exhibit their work.54 John Barrow, an Admiralty secretary, vice-president of the Royal Society and ardent supporter of exploration, saw the model and advised Smith to approach the Admiralty. Barrow was not the only civilian at the Admiralty with an interest in the screw; Sidney Herbert, First Secretary to Haddington’s Board, was also a noted supporter of the screw.55 Smith commissioned a launch with which to try his screw. The Admiralty requested a larger trial vessel, and in 1839 Smith finished work on the 237-ton Archimedes. In 1840 she was placed under the supervision of Captain Edward Chappell, superintendent of packet services, and Thomas Lloyd, chief engineer of the Admiralty steam factory. Chappell had gained considerable knowledge of the steamships used to convey mail packets. Later in 1840 he left Admiralty service and joined the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, where he oversaw the final stages of construction in an ambitious project to complete fourteen ocean-going steamships.56 Lloyd, in contrast, who was a graduate of the SNA, worked on the sea trials of Symonds’s HMS Columbine prior to an appointment in Symonds’s office. In 1831 he worked with Marc Brunel and in 1833 entered the steam factory at Woolwich, where he rose to the position of chief engineer and inspector of steam machinery for the Navy.57 Trials with the Archimedes were favourable. Chappell and Lloyd tried her against HMSs Ariel, Beaver and Swallow in 1840.58 Lloyd proceeded to work closely with Smith and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whom the Admiralty had brought in to consult on the design of screw warships. A comparative trial was conceived in which sister ships would be fitted with paddlewheels and the screw propeller respectively. The Rattler–Alecto trial of 1845 consisted of speed 53 David K. Brown, ‘Smith, Sir Francis Petit (1808 –1874)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). Unfortunately Petit’s life has received no more substantial treatment. 54 Iwan Rhys Morus, Frankenstein’s children: electricity, exhibition and experiment in early-nineteenth century London (Princeton, NJ, 1998), 75 – 6. 55 ‘Supply – the Navy estimates’, Hansard 78 (31 March 1845), 1275. 56 Crosbie Smith, ‘ “This great national undertaking”: John Scott Russell, the master shipwrights and the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company’, in Don Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800 –1918 (Farnham, 2012), 25 –52, esp. 29, 47– 8, 50 –1. 57 David K. Brown, ‘Lloyd, Thomas (1803–1875)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Bio­ graphy (Oxford, 2004). 58 Fincham, Naval architecture, 346.



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tests, followed by a race and then the often-cited tug-of-war. The trial was one of a number of steam experiments that the Admiralty keenly watched. Another, also involving Lloyd and Brunel, was the screw-propelled SS Great Britain. She was launched in 1843, and contemporaries presented her ‘success’ as substantially adding to the credibility of screw propulsion.59 For example, Admiralty secretary John Henry Briggs credited the Great Britain’s successful Atlantic crossing with changing the terms on which members of the Board talked about the possibilities of combining steam and the screw.60 This was a very positive reading of a vessel that experienced a number of technical setbacks, including breaking of the main topmast on the second Atlantic crossing and the snapping of two blades off the screw on the third crossing.61 The relationship between naval and commercial steamships was not always so mutually beneficial. Addressing the Commons in 1846, Admiral Charles Napier drew contrasts between the performances of steamers built in Her Majesty’s and private dockyards to illustrate his argument that the Admiralty was not employing ship designers with the adequate skills to design a steam navy. ‘There was not a builder in Glasgow, or the river, who would not produce better steamers than were to be found in the navy. The Cunard steamers sailed to Halifax and the West Indies in all seasons’, Napier described, ‘but the moment the Admiralty sent a squadron to sea, the steamers had to put back into port perfect wrecks! This arose from nothing but ignorance, downright ignorance, and giving the building of the vessels entirely to one man.’62 The target of his criticism was Symonds, but also those at the Admiralty who had left the Surveyor to direct all design work for the Navy. Napier’s claim was not entirely accurate, as Cunard sailed only to Halifax. The company responsible for carrying the mail to the West Indies was the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which experienced many technical problems and a number of shipwrecks including the Solway and Tweed.63 Napier was an influential figure, widely acclaimed for his extensive war experience. He had received the freedom of the City of London for his service in Syria, and in 1841 became MP for Marylebone, aligning himself with Viscount Palmerston.64 As far back as October 1829 he had described a steam 59 Ibid., 317. 60 J.H. Briggs, Naval administration, 61. 61 Ewan Corlett, The iron ship: the history and significance of Brunel’s Great Britain (Bradford, 1980), 115 –18. 62 ‘Navy civil department’, Hansard 87 (17 June 1846), 619. 63 Smith, Ocean steamship, chp. 6. 64 Andrew Lambert, ‘Napier, Sir Charles (1786 –1860)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

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corvette. He stressed the need for the ship to be built with a flat bottom, as opposed to the common wedge shape, and to have greater breadth so that the engine could be positioned on a lower level within the ship, making it less likely to be hit by shot.65 In 1845 he conceived and oversaw the construction of an experimental paddle warship, HMS Sidon. His was not an original piece of design work, but a slightly altered version of HMS Odin, a steam frigate ordered earlier in the year. Napier’s contribution was to request that the machinery be placed under the water line and that 2 feet 9 inches be added to the depth of the hold for greater coal-carrying capacity.66 Napier possessed a keen sense of the problems associated with accom­ modating steam in sailing ships. In Parliament he criticised Symonds’s steamers for their sharpness and lack of depth, which made positioning the engine difficult: ‘they were so sharp that when the machinery was put in they were obliged to raise it too high; they were obliged to get a platform for it, so that it lay exposed to the shot of the enemy’. He also criticised the Navy’s first steam corvettes, the internal arrangements of which severely limited the number of main deck guns. Without these guns the ships were unable to fire fore and aft. With such limitations, Napier likened the role for steam corvettes to that of the cavalry, moving quickly through the enemy’s fleet but unable to fight in conventional ways. The only steamship constructed under Symonds’s watch that he did approve of was HMS Terrible, designed by Oliver Lang. She measured 1,840 tons, and was larger than conventional line-ofbattle ships.67 In Parliament Napier led the charge for greater scrutiny of what had passed during Symonds’s reign as Surveyor. He was anxious to see the faults in Symonds’s ‘system’ of building steamships corrected. In February 1845 he moved for the Commons to establish a select committee to examine ‘if the ships constructed [since 1835] are an improvement of the old system’. Napier also offered a potted history of naval architecture in his lifetime, from how it was managed by the now-abolished Navy Board to Symonds’s suitability for the surveyorship. He gave a lot of credit to the RYC, to which, he wrote, ‘we owed our improvement in shipbuilding; they employed private individuals to build their ships, seeing that the Navy Board stuck to their old ways’. He also added his general fondness for Symonds’s sailing ships, despite maintaining a firm belief that he should not have been appointed Surveyor.68 65 ‘State of the Navy’, Hansard 77 (13 February 1845), 399 – 400. 66 Fincham, Naval architecture, 335. 67 ‘State of the Navy’, Hansard 77 (13 February 1845), 402–3. 68 Ibid., 383, 386 –7, 389.



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Napier focused on past events, but his concern was to assess whether the Navy was in a good position to design and construct steam-powered warships. He did not doubt the capacity of the engineers or naval architects working in the Navy, but rather that of those in the Admiralty who managed the design process: error lay with the engineers; but he did not blame them, but the Board of Admiralty, for not having brought the engineers together, to let them know that no steam man-of-war is of use, the machinery of which is exposed to be destroyed by the first shot of the enemy. Now, he had no hesitation in asserting, that not one of these steam-boats, built at the cost of these immense sums, had the slightest pretensions to be considered as a man-of-war.69

Napier was not alone in asking questions about the Navy’s credentials for building steam warships. Rous believed that Symonds’s steamers ‘were failures’, but the fault was not his, ‘but with the Admiralty who had employed him’: ‘if they had desired him to rebuild Westminster Abbey he would have done it too’.70 Symonds’s reputation was as a designer of sailing ships. While the radical Joseph Hume, one of Symonds’s most constant critics, urged that if Symonds’s shipbuilding system was found wanting, the SNA should be immediately restored.71 Cockburn took a slightly different view of steam. He observed that on his entering office as First Sea Lord, the Navy’s steam warships were generally underpowered. He disregarded Napier’s concerns over the lack of main-deck guns, and outlined his vision for the role of steamships in the Navy. First, ‘steamships were not, and never could be, the main navy of the country’. Second, they could be usefully employed to tow ships ‘in and out of action’. And third, by developing guns with great range and heavy shot, steamships could act outside the range of sailing ships, using their engines to ‘choose their position’ to engage the enemy. For these reasons, it was not necessary to ‘overload them with guns’ on the main deck, which would also ‘render them so much deeper in the water . . . [and] impede their power of rapid movement’.72 In 1845 the Admiralty sent communications to commercial engine builders inviting bids to build steam engines. The order stipulated that the equipment would fit below the water line and provide a means for raising the screw. A number of firms responded, including Maudslay and Field, Robert Napier and Penn. The Admiralty proceeded to issue orders for fifteen screw-engines for 69 70 71 72

Ibid., 402. Ibid., 418. Ibid., 409. Ibid., 413–14.

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warships and a further four to be fitted in block-ships.73 The engine design work was largely left in the hands of private enterprise, leaving the complex issue of fitting engines, propelling apparatus and the conversion of ships in the hands of the Admiralty. Shipbuilding principles In the absence of first-rate naval architects, we have been obliged to avail ourselves of mediocre talents and mere assumption. Naval officers (!) who know much about building ships have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of the public money, and at this hour we have line-of-battle ships that cannot keep their ports open in anything like a strong breeze and a sea to match. . . . Perhaps by men at the Admiralty, who have no professional whims and favouritism of their own, some fostering care will be given to the rearing of scientific persons who shall be capable of understanding the true principles of ship-building.74

The twin concerns with Symonds’s record as Surveyor and the challenges of building steam warships dominated shipbuilding discussion in the second half of the 1840s. Analysing the results of the 1845 experimental cruise, Cockburn concluded that the poor performance of many ships on their first trials ‘only affords lamentable proof of want of a governing principle’.75 Cockburn had initially written ‘lamentable proof of want of governing science’, before editing the document. Through the remaining years of Symonds’s reign as Surveyor, ending in his decision to retire in 1847, Admiralty and parliamentary discussion increasingly focused on whether Symonds had taken a principled approach to ship design, and if so, whether those principles were correct according to the scientific study of design problems. Hume, for example, was convinced that Symonds’s want of principle stemmed from a lack of scientific knowledge, and that without principles ‘no two ships could be built by Sir William Symonds having the same qualities’.76 Cockburn’s concerns with Symonds’s design work were not limited to sailing ships. He expressed to the Board his concern that there were no shipbuilding principles at work in the Admiralty for the design of steamships. Cockburn continued to advocate a scientific enquiry of the topic: ‘tho’ we have made considerable improvement of late in the steam vessels recently constructed & 73 ‘Our screw navy’, Chambers’s 275 (9 April 1859), 230. 74 [Anon.], ‘Naval architecture’, English Gentleman (18 July 1846), 10. 75 George Cockburn, Board of Construction special minute, 15 November 1845, Admiralty papers, ADM 3/265. 76 ‘State of the Navy’, Hansard 77 (13 February 1845), 409.



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in their machinery, there is still very much to be gained by scientific attention to this branch of our naval force’.77 Cockburn went on to remark that the policy of pitting practical constructors against each other to display the virtues of their designs had ‘done much towards improving both the sailing & the steam ships’, but it had not afforded ‘much promise of bringing us to any fixed occurring principles of construction and I consider the extraordinary results of the late experimental cruises strongly call upon us to take measures for placing this matter on a more satisfactory footing’.78 In Parliament there was similar interest in establishing reliable and clear principles of shipbuilding. A principled programme of design and construction, it was hoped, would produce ships that attained intended design attributes without the extra expense of alterations. The key to that approach seemed to reside with science. For example, in 1845 the Tory Lord Ingestre, who had opposed Symonds’s appointment, complained that the Surveyor could not build ships to plan: ‘none . . . would float within one foot of the proposed water line’. To remedy the faults in Symonds’s work he advised the Admiralty to appoint a committee of scientific advisors, a ‘Board of scientific instruction’, similar to the College of Engineers in the Army.79 The following year he repeated his concerns, explicitly stating that the House had ‘a right to complain of the unscientific plans upon which the Admiralty were accustom to proceed’ in ship design.80 Viscount Palmerston added ‘we are come to that pass at which it is expedient for the Government to call in science to the aid of mere prac­ tical knowledge’.81 The parliamentary debate over Symonds’s credibility as a ship designer ultimately took shape around Napier’s proposal that Parliament form a select committee to investigate the principles underlying his design work. An important theme in this discussion concerned the role of science in establishing such principles. Parliamentarians began to see scientific knowledge not only as the answer to ending the uncertainty that appeared to be inherent in the future of steam warship construction, but as an alternative to the course that Symonds had pursued as Surveyor, testing his ideas in full-scale ships. Palmerston, the former foreign secretary, praised the ‘desire to improve and perfect our ships of war’ by experimentation, but suggested that there was a viable alternative. 77 George Cockburn, Board of Construction special minute, 15 November 1845, Admiralty papers, ADM 3/265. 78 Ibid. 79 ‘Supply – the Navy estimates’, Hansard 78 (31 March 1845), 1284 – 4. 80 ‘Navy civil department’, Hansard 87 (17 June 1846), 623. 81 ‘Supply – the Navy estimates’, Hansard 78 (31 March 1845), 1289 – 90.

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[I]nstead of making costly experiments by building large ships under the superintendence of persons scientific to a certain degree, but not having the whole knowledge requisite for such an undertaking, I think the better course would be to invite the most scientific men the country possesses (and they are equal to those of any other country) to give their views on these matters, aided by the experience of practical men. I believe in this way, for a trifling expense, you would procure that knowledge which would enable you to make some considerable progress towards a certainty in these matters.82

Science, here understood in opposition to the large-scale experiments of the experimental cruise, could be key to adding precision, certainty and, in turn, greater economy to Admiralty ship design. This distinction between science and experiment reveals the distance between the perception of scientific practices in Parliament and Britain’s scientific societies.83 The Prime Minister was next to weigh in. Peel agreed that science should aid practical knowledge in the Admiralty, but he had concerns over the procedure for making use of science: ‘the question here is, what shall be the presiding authority to call in the aid of science for the assistance of practical experience?’ He did not believe it was the place of the Commons to become that authority. Moreover, he expressed confidence that the Board of Admiralty already ‘does avail itself of the suggestions of men of science; that there are men distinguished for their scientific acquirements in the dockyards of this country; that they have the fullest opportunity for submitting their suggestions’. As such, he believed that forming a committee to do what the Admiralty already did was to ‘imply a distrust of the Board of Admiralty . . . [and] that there would be a much greater likelihood of producing confusion’.84 Peel seemed acutely anxious to avoid setting up a rival power to the Board of Admiralty, and warned, perhaps with the defunct Navy Board in mind: ‘do not let us have two expensive authorities, contravening each other’s decisions’.85 Lord John Russell expressed similar opposition to Napier’s proposal for a select committee. He was anxious not to make the House of Commons an arbiter of shipbuilding principles, but did not have the same faith as Peel in the Admiralty’s current policy. ‘[W]ith regard to a more scientific and speculative investigation as to what might probably be the effect, in future wars, of the use of steam vessels, he thought it might be extremely useful to have a Commission upon that topic.’ He urged the formation of a ‘Scientific Board 82 Ibid., 1291. 83 Marsden & Smith, Engineering empires, 111. 84 ‘Supply – the Navy estimates’, Hansard 78 (31 March 1845), 1301. 85 Ibid., 1301.



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of Construction under the Admiralty, to aid & advise the Admiralty on a topic of so much importance & cost to this country’.86 Responding to the various speeches, Napier explained that his opposition to Symonds was not because he considered him ‘unscientific’, but because he was ‘not . . .  fit for such a position, however clever he might be as a scientific man’.87 Cockburn, constrained as a representative of the Admiralty, neither attacked nor defended Symonds’s principles, nor expressed his support. He strongly urged that Napier’s proposed ‘Committee of the House of Commons was the very worst tribunal that could be selected for the purpose’ of investigating past shipbuilding principles. He also questioned the merit of the previous Whig government’s policy of devolving the entire responsibility for ship design to one individual. He responded to the debate by outlining the current Board’s approach to shipbuilding: ‘not to trust any single person with the building of the Navy’ and not to be ‘in too great a haste’ to overturn past work until a superior mode of ship design be discovered.88 He alluded to the work at Chatham to examine ‘scientifically the errors of construction of our former system of building’, maintaining that the ships they had designed were ‘the most perfect, according to the principles their science should dictate’.89 He also drew the House’s attention to the promotion of two SNA graduates, Oliver Lang and John Fincham, to the position of master shipwrights at Woolwich and Portsmouth, respectively – possibly as the first step in creating a rival power in the dockyards to Symonds. Fincham, for one, had complained that since taking office, Symonds had routinely ignored his and his colleague’s skills: there was no important competition to interfere with the plans of the surveyor in regard to steam vessels. The general exclusion of collateral skill and judgment in designing steam-vessels, at a period of their history when the need of them was indistinctly perceived, and when, therefore, the best adaptation of form, dimensions, and power, for naval uses had to be ascertained by approximation, is perhaps the cause that the character of naval steamers did not advance more quickly towards the standard of required excellence.90

Lang, on the other hand, had closely allied himself with Cockburn. Symonds wrote with suspicion that his rival had taken Cockburn to a hustings in Greenwich where he contended a seat in Parliament.91 86 Ibid., 1314. 87 ‘Navy civil department’, Hansard 87 (17 June 1846), 615. 88 ‘State of the Navy’, Hansard 77 (13 February 1845), 412–13. 89 Ibid., 412. 90 Fincham, Naval architecture, 333. 91 Sharp, Memoirs, 291.

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The decision was made to form a Committee of Reference (later renamed the Council of Science). Cockburn supported it, urging that ‘with the rapid advance science is making in every other branch or profession the naval ser­ vices ought to have the full benefit of this spirit & then naval construction ought to be formed on more fixed & certain principles’. His original draft was more damning of Symonds’s guess and test approach: with the rapid advance science is making in every other branch or profession things cannot be & ought not to be allowed to remain in the doubtful & unsatisfactory state in which it has been sufficiently shown that naval construction now is going forward by guesswork & experiments rather than governed by any fixed principles to be maintained & proved the most correct by scientific exposition.92

The Admiral suggested that this body act as a ‘supervising Board of construction to which the Admiralty may refer for detailed explanations in favour of, or against the line or draughts of all ships or steam vessels hereafter to be built’.93 He was explicit that the Board would only advise, and have no authority to direct ship design. He further suggested that the Board consist of an admiral ‘who has considered the subject of shipbuilding’, a professor of mathematics (he named James Inman), two or three distinguished graduates of the SNA and two captains of the navy, who would meet no more than fortnightly to provide advice when called on.94 The final composition differed slightly from Cockburn’s proposal, consisting of a chairman, initially the junior sea lord, Admiral John Hay (1793–1851), ‘two of the most scientific Shipwright Officers, to be selected for this duty by the Board, and such other one or more competent persons, not officially connected with the Admiralty’.95 In 1847 the Committee was issued its instructions. The Board felt that, given the large amount of money annually expended on building warships, it was of ‘great importance’ only to accept designs that had received ‘due examination by persons practical and theoretically acquainted with the science of Naval Architecture’. The Committee was also requested to ‘confer’ with the chief engineers of the Woolwich and Portsmouth steam factories to ensure that steam vessels met their intended tonnage and freeboard.96 Lord Auckland, who became First Lord in July 1846, believed Hay to be a 92 George Cockburn, Board of Construction special minute, 15 November 1845, Admiralty papers, ADM 3/265. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Naval construction, 1847 (289), 1. 96 Ibid.



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political nuisance, replaced the chairman and changed the Committee’s name to the Council of Science. In Parliament pressure on Symonds continued to grow. Having had his authority curtailed inside the Admiralty he now watched as his reputation outside came under sustained attack. Concerns were raised that Symonds had been ‘allowed so much power without interference on the part of the Admiralty’ on questions of ship design. Cockburn, who opposed the Surveyor’s inde­ pendence, drew MPs’ attention to the decision of the Tory Admiralty to form a committee at Woolwich ‘who were to state in what respect the present form of shipbuilding was erroneous, and what improvements could be made’.97 Symonds was far from happy: ‘A committee of Master Shipwrights was ordered to make a rigid survey of the Ordinary, without reference to me. They met in Woolwich, and were encouraged to pick my works to pieces.’ He recorded how it altered the stern of his design for HMS Boscawen. He also noted that ‘A committee of the School of Naval Architecture, including those who were known to have written against me under anonymous names in the public papers, assembled at Chatham.’98 Seeing an increasing number of checks on his authority and autonomy, Symonds retired. In August 1847, Auckland offered the surveyorship to Baldwin Walker. For the previous two years Walker had commanded Symonds’s Queen during the 1845 experimental cruise and then HMS Constance in the Pacific. The former posting notwithstanding, he was largely an outsider to the politics that had subsumed the Surveyor’s office over the past two decades. He also possessed little technical knowledge about ship design. This, however, appeared to be part of the attraction for Auckland, who wrote that the Surveyor required ‘little of technical knowledge in the science of shipbuilding, and I would require in future more of judgment and general superintendence and much less of minute interference in construction than have yet been expected in this office’. Auckland based his decision on the advice of unnamed naval officers, and was confident ‘that I could find no one better than you are to fill this important place’. He felt that Walker would command ‘universal confidence’ as a manager, and made specific mention of his ‘ability, directness, temper and habit of arrange, for which all give you credit’.99 Auckland’s letter set the tone for how Walker would act as Surveyor. Any possible doubt over his involvement in ship design was soon removed when 97 ‘Navy civil department’, Hansard 87 (17 June 1846), 627. 98 Sharp, Memoirs, 291. 99 Lord Auckland to Baldwin Walker, 6 August 1847, Walker papers, [cat. 64], D70/188 30(v).

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the Board reconstructed the Surveyor’s office and provided explicit instructions that the Surveyor was only to supervise and manage the work of the dockyards. It was the Surveyor’s job to ensure the ‘proper application’ of the navy estimates. The Admiralty emphasised the importance of establishing ‘general principles’, as had been the focus of parliamentary discussion, and prevent ‘rash experiments and wasteful expenditure’. The Board wanted the Surveyor to do this by judging ship design, and not, as Symonds had, personally undertaking design work. The Board reiterated its reasons for appointing Walker: ‘in selecting you as successor to Sir William Symonds, they have, consequently, looked more to sound practical knowledge and ability as a seaman, than to your qualifications as a shipbuilder. They wish you to bring a free and unbiassed [sic] judgment to bear upon the plans of others.’100 The Board made clear to Walker that although he was to be the final arbiter in his office, he was to use his two assistants when drawing plans and consult with the Council of Science when considering designs. John Edye continued as the first assistant, and added Isaac Watts, a graduate of the SNA and lately Master Shipwright at Sheerness, to the second assistant position. By requiring that Edye and Watts undertake all drawings, so to ‘ensure the most searching examination of all drawings for the construction of ships’, the Board made a major albeit quiet change to the management of ship design. The authority to shape the ship now rested with the Surveyor’s technical staff. The Surveyor could set the specifications for a design and reject them, but the actual design work was taken out of Walker’s hands.101 This was a clear redrawing of the boundaries of the Surveyor’s authority. As a manager the Surveyor became an important mediator between the Board and an expanding industrial enterprise. The dockyards were producing larger ships, but also engaging in more complex industrial practices. The Surveyor’s control over this work received further formal confirmation when, as of 1 April 1851, the steam department was consolidated with the Surveyor’s department.102 The Board similarly sought to raise the profile of the Council of Science as a counterweight to the Surveyor. Although the Council, as a body, could not design ships, the Admiralty told Walker that the Board reserved the right to request the Council’s opinion on designs produced by the Surveyor’s office. The Admiralty also saw a role for the Council in setting the principles by which ship design would be carried on: ‘it is not only to the good construction 100 ‘Copy of the minute of the Board of Admiralty respecting the Reconstruction of the Office of the Surveyor of the Navy’, 2 June 1848, Walker papers, [cat. 71]. 101 Ibid. 102 James Dundas to Baldwin Walker, 31 December 1851, Walker papers, [cat. 71].



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of particular ships that in such consultation you are to look, but to the clear establishment of principles by which the building of ships is permanently to be governed’. Frustrated by the rivalry between factions during Symonds’s reign as Surveyor, the Board seemed to hope for a group effort to guard against ‘ill-considered expenditure’: ‘no useful change can long escape the notice of so many practical men’.103 Press articles on the state of naval architecture frequently had recourse to mention the lack of government support for the provision of trained naval architects. In 1846, the English Gentleman noted: ‘We have had men of experience, and men of experiment, but no men of genius. There has been no encouragement to their growth.’104 The Admiralty took steps to support the education of a new generation of naval architects by establishing evening classes at each of the naval dockyards. In 1848 this scheme was extended to afternoons and placed under the direction of the Reverend Professor Henry Moseley, vicar of Olveston, chaplain to Queen Victoria and professor of natural and experimental philosophy at Kings College London.105 The Admiralty then opened a new school at Portsmouth, the Central School of Mathematics and Naval Construction, in 1848 under the leadership of Reverend Joseph Woolley. This was a smaller institution than the first school. In a rare moment of history repeating itself, it was closed in 1853 on the order of James Graham, then serving in the Earl of Aberdeen’s Peelite administration. As with the first school, the Portsmouth school was closed on the justification that the state did not perceive a significant advantage from giving a small group of the dockyard workforce a specialised education.106 Managing conversion The greatest challenge during Walker’s tenure as Surveyor was to manage the conversion of the Royal Navy into a steam force. This process was beset by political and technical difficulties. The ship owner and MP for South Shields, 103 ‘Copy of the minute of the Board of Admiralty respecting the Reconstruction of the Office of the Surveyor of the Navy’, 2 June 1848, Walker papers, [cat. 71]. 104 [Anon.], ‘Naval architecture’, English Gentleman (18 July 1846), 10. 105 B.B. Woodward, ‘Moseley, Henry (1801–1872)’, rev. R.C. Cox, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 106 This pattern reflected the traditional values through which state involvement in such matters was understood. William C. Lubenow, The politics of government growth: early Victorian attitudes toward state intervention, 1833–1848 (Newton Abbot, 1971), 12, 183–5.

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William Schaw Lindsay, believed the management of dockyard work had become a highly partisan practice. At every change in administration we have a new secretary of the Admiralty, and a new set of Lords Commissioners, differing of course from their predecessors, and naturally anxious to show to their partisans how much better they can manage the naval affairs of the country than the stupid batch of Whig or Tory Lords, whom they have superseded.107

Lindsay made a fair point, an administration’s effectiveness could be judged according to its management of construction, conversion and experiments with steam engines – often with the key factor being the cost of all the above. Lindsay went further with his criticism, going beyond direct costs by reading partisan politics into various components of the steam warship. Continuing his description of how changes of administration were felt in the dockyard: each in turn discovers that the ships on the stocks, are too shallow, too narrow, too short or perhaps too long, and alterations are forthwith undertaken, and everything previously ordered, countermanded. The anchors in stock are all condemned because they are after the plan patented by Porter, or Trotman or Rodgers, or some other patentee who had the favour and the patronage of the last appointed Lords Commissioners. The great guns are considered useless, and are ordered to be melted, and recast in some other form. The store houses or engine shops are torn down to be rebuilt because the new first Lord prefers the Gothic to the Elisabethan [sic] style.108

Lindsay criticised the wastefulness of Her Majesty’s dockyards throughout his time in Parliament, where he trod the path of the economic radicals, associating with Richard Cobden and John Bright. The solution he offered for the economic management of dockyard work was the appointment of a Crown officer, not subject to ministry change. Beyond partisan politics Walker had to take responsibility for, and supervise, the technical practice of converting ships. Again, politicians were more than ready to offer their thoughts. George Pechell, captain in the Royal Navy and Whig MP for Brighton, was an advocate of steam and the Smith screw, but strongly objected to the practice of lengthening ships in their midsection: ‘he did not think that sawing a vessel in two, adding to her length, and putting a

107 ‘Royal Dock of Portsmouth’, 26 October 1854, Typescript of Lindsay’s Journal, Lindsay papers, LND/35/2. 108 Ibid.



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steam engine in the middle of her was an example that ought to be followed’.109 This was, however, one of the main methods for converting ships to steam. In 1852 Walker corresponded with Henry Eden, Commodore Superintendent at Woolwich, over alternative plans to convert HMS Royal Albert into ‘an efficient screw of the line’. The Royal Albert represented the type of ship Lindsay described as being in a perennial state of conversion. She had been ordered in 1842 as a sailing ship, laid down in 1844 and after eight years on the stocks was altered for steam. Eden conveyed four plans for conversion offered by the Woolwich shipwrights. These involved various combinations of altering the stern for ‘the reception of the screw propeller’, lengthening the midship and selecting higher amounts of horsepower to drive the ship. The shipwrights urged their fourth suggestion, that the ship be lengthened 35 feet in total for the ‘reception of the screw’, which they believed would guarantee a speed of 8½ knots at a cost of £16,000 in hull alterations and £27,000 in engines of 480 nominal horsepower.110 Walker and the Board rejected their advice and asked Eden to request the shipwrights to alter the stern and fit engines of 400 horsepower, a cheaper proposal by almost £15,000 that restricted the ship to 6¾ knots.111 Walker kept a close watch on conversion projects and took major technical decisions to the Admiralty Board. Unlike Symonds, he was a manager, both in his department and with the dockyards. His correspondence reveals the extensive advice he received from his assistants. For example, in 1852 Watts wrote to criticise the engines of HMS Highflyer, noting that more compact engines such as those fitted in HMS Tribune would allow sails to remain in the locations where they were most effective and ‘make her a better ship under sail’.112 Walker was not, however, in a position of total authority as a mediator between the dockyards and Board of Admiralty. In February 1859, Henry Corry, Secretary of the Admiralty on Lord John Pakington’s Conservative board, apologised for directly communicating with dockyard superintendents about the conversion of sailing frigates. Acknowledging that he had circumvented the Surveyor’s office, he sought to reassure Walker that the order was sent due to ‘a misapprehension’ of a Board minute. Corry also sought to address any of Walker’s concerns that his authority was diminished by the Board requesting that he obtain alternative designs to those that his office produced. In 1859 109 ‘Supply – the Navy estimates’, Hansard 78 (31 March 1845), 1275. 110 Francis J. Laire et al. to Henry Eden, 16 October 1852, Walker papers, [cat. 71] S.8824. 111 Baldwin Walker to Henry Eden, 23 October 1852, Walker papers, [cat. 71] S.8824. 112 Isaac Watts to Baldwin Walker, 9 August 1852, Walker papers, [cat. 78].

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Corry requested the Surveyor to have drawings for two frigates prepared by his office, and ‘to call upon Mr Peake and Mr Lang to do the same for any two other of the frigates’.113 The major technical difficulty Walker faced in the conversion of ships was to ensure that they had the best lines for screw propulsion. Ships designed for sail by Symonds proved to be especially problematic. The former Surveyor preferred sharp floors for his vessels, whether sail or steam. At the time there was belief among steamship builders that hull forms with flat bottoms provided better conditions for steaming.114 It was unknown what hull lines, especially in the run towards the stern, were beneficial for screw propulsion. The form, fine run and placement of the screw on the Rattler happened to work very well, but not by design. In his history of naval architecture Fincham noted that ‘no one in the service who was called upon by the Admiralty to form plans for other steam-vessels to receive the screw, considered that a fine run was material’. Only in 1846 did Lloyd write to the superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard to suggest that there might be a connection.115 Not all steam conversions were controversial, and the fitting of engines and screws could produce positive, albeit unexpected results. The Admiralty’s 1845 decision to proceed with steam engines on a large scale included the order of four engines to be fitted in line-of-battle block-ships. One of the ships selected for conversion was the 35-year-old HMS Edinburgh. She was launched in 1811 at Rotherhithe, and alterations to this Napoleonic-era third-rate took seven years. In June 1846 she was handed over to John White’s Cowes dockyard to be fitted with a screw. The Times’s daily naval intelligence update reported that ‘She is fit for no other purpose’ than to become a block-ship.116 An article in Chambers explained the derogative nature of this term: a block-ship ‘is a sturdy clumsy fabric, suited to defend a harbour, but not swift enough to run out and have a sea-fight’.117 She left dock April 1847, only to return for new boilers and engines between December 1851 and May 1852.118 In June 1852 Edinburgh received her sea trial. Captain Hewlett found every­ thing satisfactory, and The Times naval intelligence reported: ‘She has in this 113 Henry Corry to Baldwin Walker, 28 February 1859, Walker papers, [cat. 71]. 114 Edward J. Reed, On the modifications which the ships of the Royal navy have undergone during the present century (London, 1859), 8. 115 Fincham, Naval architecture, 356. 116 ‘Naval intelligence’, The Times 19274 (27 June 1846), 8. 117 ‘Our screw navy’, Chambers’s Journal 275 (9 April 1859), 230. 118 ‘Naval intelligence’, The Times 19512 (1 April 1847), 8; ‘Naval intelligence’, The Times 20992 (23 December 1851), 7; ‘Naval intelligence’, The Times 21109 (1 May 1852), 7.



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proved herself a good seaboat, both under steam and sail.’119 The Admiralty had not expected the converted Edinburgh to perform well at sea, but the engine, screw and alterations to her stern all contributed to an effective steam warship capable of 8.9 knots.120 The Edinburgh still had a role to play as a steam experiment, specifically with regard to the effectiveness of its engine and apparatus for raising her screw. Admiral Robert FitzRoy, former superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, considered her Maudslay engines to possess less astern power than Penn’s double eccentric machinery. FitzRoy also recorded his pre­ ference for the manual apparatus for lowering the screw: ‘The Edinburgh’s screw is raised and lowered easily – quickly – & smoothly – by common runners and tackles. I saw it done . . . the additional machinery of hydraulic apparatus – or any other complicated means of raising the screw – adds to the Contractors profit. I listen to their opinions cautiously.’121 In 1853 Edinburgh was sent to the Crimean War as part of Napier’s battle fleet.122 Under Walker the management of naval architecture became far less personally controversial than it had been under his predecessor. Symonds’s resignation, together with the reconstitution of the Surveyor’s department under Walker, marked the end of an unhappy era in the history of naval architecture for those actors aligned with the SNA and theoretical education in ship design. Writing in 1859, Edward James Reed, a graduate of the Portsmouth school and editor of the Mechanics’ Magazine, contended that the decision to invest such a great amount of authority in Symonds ‘made war, not only upon professional naval architects, but upon the profession of naval architecture itself ’.123 Walker, in contrast, rep­resented the belief that while naval officers ought not to design ships, they possessed the right skills and experience for the management of a large engineering enterprise. A large part of their suitability seemed to rest on the authority they could command as mediators between the admiral superintendents who oversaw the dockyards and the admirals and administrators on the Admiralty board. Shipwrights, having emerged from their battles with Symonds and his advocates, seemed to accept Walker. It did not take long, however, for this calm to pass. In the opening years of the 1860s the natural philosopher William Snow Harris produced a pointed critique of the Navy’s management approaches and treatment of technical authorities. A member of the Royal Society and a trusted 119 ‘Naval intelligence’, The Times 21151 (25 June 1852), 8. 120 Brown, Before the ironclad, 123. 121 Robert FitzRoy to Baldwin Walker, 7 August 1852, Walker papers [cat. 78]. 122 ‘Our screw navy’, Chambers’s Journal 275 (9 April 1859), 229 –32, esp. 230. 123 Reed, Modifications, 8 – 9.

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advisor to the Admiralty for his work on lightning conductors, Harris was not easy to dismiss. ‘It is certainly a very great mistake’, he wrote, ‘to place the Naval Construction of this country under the control of a Naval Officer or any other individual, not fitted by a sound mathematical, physical, and practical education for so great an object.’ Rather than ships based on ‘sound philosophical reasoning and induction’, he believed, ‘we obtain ships of a more or less hypothetical character, according to the particular notions and views of Naval Officers’.124 Debates on the management of naval architecture increasingly revolved around steam – and soon iron – but also more expansive professional issues, from the credibility of shipbuilders to attempts to redefine who was a naval architect and who was not.

124 William Snow Harris, Our dockyards. Past and present state of naval construction in the government service. Its future prospects (Plymouth, 1863), 36.

3

Iron experiments and guaranteeing naval power

The successful launch of the Warrior may be thought to open a new chapter in the history of the British Navy. We cannot, indeed, regard the theory of ironcased ships as absolutely established, but there is certainly sufficient reason for concluding that such fabrics must hereafter enter largely into the composition of our national marine, and represent a most important element of our naval strength. . . . Iron may not entirely supersede wood, any more than steam has superseded sails, but in one shape or other it may be confidently expected that the new system will last. The Times reports the landmark launch of Britain’s first ironclad with a mixture of confidence and hesitancy.1 While there is no mechanical question of greater importance, there is none which obtains less systematic investigation than that of the construction of iron ships. Any one who is disposed to spend four pence in travelling by steamer from London Bridge to Greenwich, and who is also prepared to use his eyes sharply while on the journey, will pass in review scores of iron ships of forms so strangely various that he will find it difficult to believe that any fixed principles of naval architecture exist, or ever did exist. The engineering press brings attention to the uncertainty in naval architecture regarding the form of iron ships.2

On 19 December 1860, the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company launched Britain’s first ironclad warship (Figure 3.1). The press coverage conveyed a deep sense of uncertainty. An article in the London-based Temple Bar hoped that the familiar material aesthetic of naval power would remain ‘whatever may be discoveries of scientific naval architecture in iron, and of gunnery, [we hope] that our men-o’-war will still be constructed to look as much as possible like ships’. This article was not just interested in appearances, but also 1 ‘The successful launch of the Warrior’, The Times 23818 (1 January 1861), 7. 2 ‘Iron ships’, Engineer 10 (26 October 1860), 275 – 6, esp. 275.

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3.1  HMS Warrior, artist unknown (1872)

in the prospects of the sailor in these ships that seemed to resemble scenes from Britain’s growing urban industrial cities more than the history paintings of the Napoleonic Wars: It is not to be supposed for a moment that our high-spirited youth of the aristo­ cracy, and our race of seamen born on the shores of the island home, take to the sea for the sake of the fighting; that they would practice a profession of butchery and destruction from behind iron walls . . . Those who know anything of sailors must see the charm of the life which animates them; and it is only surprising that any who confess their sympathy for the profession should be advocating the construction of engines (they cannot be called ships) devoted to all the grossness and barbarity of war, while they are deprived of every thing attractive to the sailor. Let the new iron frigates be as invulnerable as iron and mechanical skill can make them, and let us, by all means, have a fleet of them ready without delay to match any that can be brought into the sea from other shores. But let them be ships that officers and men can take pride in . . .3

The process of confronting iron in ship design was deeply embedded in many aspects of naval culture, both imagined and experienced. Britain’s trusted maritime defences were her wooden walls (or hearts of oak), refined and 3 [Anon.], ‘A visit to the iron-clad ship’, Temple Bar 1 ( January 1861), 232– 41, esp. 241.



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rarefied in literature, art and song. They were the maritime homes of officers and sailors, and the spaces in which labour at sea took place.4 The shaping of the Warrior and the introduction of iron into the British warship took place against this backdrop of projecting naval power and actors building credibility for new matériel. In this sense, there was an important symbolic aspect to iron that was just as important as the material one. Writing in 1861, Edward James Reed, a naval architect and editor of the Mechanic’s Magazine, contended that ironclad ships should be designed to be as familiar to the British sailor as possible, enabling him to continue using the ship as he had for centuries before. He believed that the major virtue of the Warrior was not its armour or guns, but its superior speed. This, he explained, was because British officers would have the capacity to ‘carry her [La Gloire (1859), France’s first ironclad] by the good old English method of boarding’.5 Reed wrote here on both technical and tactical considerations, concerning himself with the mentalities of naval officers more than naval architects had tended to. This was a characteristic of his public writing on ship design that, throughout the 1860s, increasingly turned to the professional status of naval architects within the Navy. Professionalisation was important to Reed, and his concerns brought him into contact with the naval architect John Scott Russell, Admiralty constructor Nathaniel Barnaby and Cambridge mathematician Joseph Woolley. In 1860 they formed the Institution of Naval Architects (INA), with which they sought to patrol the boundaries of their profession and promote its authority. Discussion of profession has become increasingly rare in the history of science, where the vogue is presently with expertise.6 Professionalisation continues to appear 4 Don Leggett, ‘Neptune’s new clothes: actors, iron and the identity of the midVictorian warship’, in Don Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800 –1918 (Farnham, 2012), 71– 92. Contrast with John Beeler, Birth of the battleship: British capital ship design 1870 –1881 (Chatham, 2001); Michael Carroll Dooling, ‘The thin line: the Crimean War transforms naval power’, Naval History, 18 (2004), 36 – 41; Peter Goodwin, ‘The influence of iron in ship construction: 1660 –1830’, Mariner’s Mirror 84 (1998), 26 – 40. 5 [Edward J. Reed], ‘The Warrior and La Gloire’, Cornhill Magazine 3 (February 1861), 192–204, esp. 197. 6 Paul Lucier, ‘The professional and the scientist in nineteenth-century America’, Isis 100 (2009), 699 –732; Adrian Desmond, ‘Redefining the x axis: “professionals,” “amateurs,” and the making of mid-Victorian biology – a progress report’, Journal of the History of Biology 34 (2001), 3–50; Jack Morrell, ‘Professionalisation’, in R.C. Olby, G.N. Cantor, J.R.R. Christie, and M.J.S. Hodge (eds.), Companion to the history of science (London, 1990), 980 – 9. Contrast with Harry Collins & Robert Evans, Rethinking expertise (Chicago, IL, 2007); Eric Ash, Power, knowledge and expertise in Elizabethan England (Baltimore, MD, 2004); Christelle Rabier (ed.), Fields of expertise: a compara­ tive history of expert procedures in Paris and London, 1600 to present (Cambridge, 2007).

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in naval history, where it frequently serves to explain the changing authority of various groups working with the Admiralty, from naval officers to naval architects.7 This chapter traces how naval architects working in distinct geo­ graphies developed a sense of profession in order to lay claim to authority over iron shipbuilding in the Royal Navy. Combined with the next chapter, this analysis reveals that profession did not guarantee authority, but was a means to extend the claims of naval architects that they could guarantee naval power. Their authority was strengthened through professionalisation, but ultimately depended less on how they organised themselves as a group than on how specific members made their claims and interacted with other groups, from naval officers to politicians. Building in iron presented a fresh set of problems, and provided actors with experience working with iron steamships the unique opportunity to assert their claims to guarantee naval power. At the Royal United Service Institution (RUSI) Captain Edward Pellew Halsted described it as ‘a violation of all ana­ logous experience’ to suggest that the knowledge and skills used to design wooden ships could simply be transferred to iron shipbuilding: it was a ‘distinct and special “art” which is practically known only to those who make it their calling’.8 The iron shipbuilders in the audience, Joseph Samuda and William Fairbairn, approved, but not everyone did. Captain Edmund Fishbourne rejected Halsted’s claims, citing the arguments of a prominent iron sceptic, General Howard Douglas. Fishbourne did not accept Halsted’s position that iron was superior to wood in every way. He raised the weaknesses experienced of iron ship bottoms and cited a roster of iron shipwrecks, including the Eva, Birkenhead, Yorkshireman, Tayleur, Prince and City of Glasgow. He concluded by questioning whether matériel change substantially affected naval power: ‘our successes have ever been independent of superiority in the material’. In bringing discussions to a close, the chair of the session remarked that ‘there is still matter for controversy’ as ‘naval officers of the greatest experience, and builders, differ’.9 Building in iron also presented complex problems in Britain’s dockyards. The existing historiography has focused on the technical and administrative issues the Navy faced. C.I. Hamilton summarises that iron-hulled ships made 7 C.I. Hamilton, The making of the modern Admiralty: British naval policy-making, 1805 –1927 (Cambridge, 2011), 19, 194; Roger Parkinson, The late Victorian Navy: the pre-Dreadnought era and the origins of the First World War (Woodbridge, 2008), 118 – 61; Eric J. Grove, The Royal Navy (Basingstoke, 2005), 20 – 68. 8 E.P. Halsted, ‘Iron cased ships’, RUSI Journal 5 (1861), 121– 69, esp. 207. 9 E.G. Fishbourne, ‘Iron ships and iron plates, with reference to views recently advanced in the theatre of the Institution’, RUSI Journal 5 (1861), 354 – 69, esp. 356 – 9, 363.



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‘greater demands’ on the yards in terms on material, civil engineering infrastructure and the education of the workers.10 An alternative historiography, which places greater emphasis on the social networks that engineered technical, institutional and cultural changes to the ship, seeks to locate technological change in the human fabric of cultural values, engineering processes and the formation of credibility among social groups.11 Reed, for example, saw the Warrior as part of the ‘reconstruction of the Navy’. This phrase appeared throughout the 1860s in the press, public meetings, parliamentary discussions and Queen’s speeches.12 Instead of the sharp break signalled by ‘revolution’, reconstruction emphasised an ongoing process, and one which was firmly embedded in the practices of engineers. Reed believed that this reconstruction, which represented a ‘great crisis in our naval history’, would require ‘all our national good sense, and all our scientific skill, to carry us securely past it’.13 Politics of construction Designing a fast iron warship was a substantial challenge in more ways than one. It was a technical challenge, but also a political, logistical and cultural one. In 1858, the Admiralty invited designs from the shipbuilders Laird’s of Birkenhead, Napier’s of Glasgow and, from the Thames, John Scott Russell, the Thames Iron Company and Samuda. There were also a plethora of uninvited suggestions that tended to circulate in the national press. Reed warned against these ‘worthless schemes’ for reconstruction offered by the ‘brains of men of all classes’ and championed by ‘a patriotic press . . . ever ready to lend its influence to proposals’. The reconstruction of the Navy, he argued, was a specific type of challenge that required certain skills: it ‘is a scientific question – and profoundly scientific too’.14 The Board of the Admiralty ultimately gave the contract to its own naval architects who, without invitation, offered a design 10 C.I. Hamilton, Portsmouth dockyard papers, 1852–1869: from wood to iron (Winchester, 2005), xxvii. 11 See the chapters in Don Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800 –1918 (Farnham, 2012). 12 [Anon.], Admiralty administration: its faults and its defaults (London, 1861), 133; J. Mackintosh, ‘National defence, or new strategies in warfare’, RUSI Journal 3 (1859), 131– 4, esp. 133; ‘The Navy Estimates’, Hansard 151 (1 July 1859), 526; [Anon.], ‘The Admiralty – Old and New’, The United Service Magazine 90 (August 1859), 515 –27, esp. 516. 13 [Edward J. Reed], ‘The Warrior and La Gloire’, Cornhill Magazine 3 (February 1861) 192, 198. 14 Ibid., 198.

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for a ship of great breadth, length and speed (14 knots). Reed confidently believed the Warrior met the challenge presented by La Gloire, but was not convinced that the lords of the Admiralty trusted their designers. Having not originally invited a design from them, he asked ‘Why is the profession of Naval Architecture ignored by a British Admiralty?’15 Reed had a vested interest in the reconstruction of the Navy, seeing it as an opportunity to extend the authority of naval architects. He was not alone. Many of Britain’s shipbuilders had a commercial stake of some kind in the reconstruction of the Royal Navy. John Ford, whose Thames Ironworks built the Warrior’s hull, reported to Walker that his company stood to make over £500,000 from its contract with the Admiralty for 5½ inch iron plates;16 while for the Board of Admiralty, its interest was first and foremost geopolitical. Writing to the Board in June 1858, the Surveyor, Baldwin Walker, outlined the familiar argument that the Royal Navy should not lead in the construction of a novel warship that might upset the order of naval power: it is not in the interest of Great Britain, possessing as she does so large a Navy, to adopt any important change in the construction of ships of war which might have the effect of rendering necessary the introduction of a new class of very costly vessels until such a course is forced upon her by the adoption by foreign powers of formidable ships of a novel character requiring similar ships to cope with them.17

But with La Gloire under construction, that moment had arrived. Walker called on the Admiralty to begin work on two ironclad ships and four iron warships: ‘France has now commenced to build frigates of great speed with their sides protected by thick metal plates, and this renders it imperative for this country to do the same without a moments delay.’18 Iron and ironclad ships had been employed in the merchant navy, and in a limited way in the Royal Navy, but they had yet to be employed as the ships of the line that patrolled the seas and symbolised naval power. News of France’s ironclad sparked alarm and uncertainty in the British government. Henry Wellesley, the British ambassador in Paris, received the following report of French iron-sided ships: ‘The plans are not shewn [sic] to anybody but it is easy to fancy a floating battery built for speed as well as strength which has 15 Ibid., 204. 16 John Ford to Baldwin Walker, 4 February 1862, Walker papers, [cat. 12]. 17 Baldwin Walker, ‘Ships to be constructed and their sides to be protected by metal plates’, 21 June 1858, Walker papers, [cat. 102]. 18 Ibid.



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been the only point thought of until now, with engines of eight of nine hundred horsepower they expect to drive them through the water at the rate of the fastest ships.’19 The report contained no suggestion of weakness, nor did its author stop to consider whether all those features could be obtained in one ship. Around the same time the Admiralty sent Rear-Admiral Clarence Paget to spy on the ship. The French government had refused any British visitors to the dockyard at Toulon where La Gloire was under construction, so the Admiralty encouraged Paget, an MP and naval officer with little technical knowledge of ship design, to take an impromptu holiday on the Continent with his wife. Early one morning, when small vessels came alongside the stocks with supplies, Paget hired a row-boat to take him up to the ship to make observations – much to the boat owner’s fears of treason.20 I had carefully measured my umbrella, and having succeeded in getting alongside among a crowd of bumboats, I climbed the side steps, avoiding the accommodation ladder, and so got a careful measurement of the height of her ports [using the umbrella as a rule]. Arrived on deck, the officer of the watch accosted me civilly but firmly, requesting me to turn round and go back to my boat, which I did, after apologizing and taking careful note of the turret which stared me in the face.21

Paget’s report to the Board provided the Admiralty constructors with a rough idea of the height of the armoured deck, the height of the main battery above the waterline and the general dimensions of the ironclad in comparison to France’s existing line-of-battle ships. Paget privately looked on La Gloire as an example of how the two countries managed their respective military enterprises. He observed that ‘[e]ach [French] ship is similarly fitted, as also their engines, so that an accident to one by breakage in any part can be replaced by another. In fact, they are homogeneous.’22 This emphasis on order and ‘interchangeability’ in France’s state shipbuilding enterprise was a result of her government’s meritocratic bureaucracy.23 In contrast, Paget represented the disorder in British shipbuilding, described in the previous chapter, as a symptom of aristocratic patronage at work in the Admiralty and dockyards. 19 Col. Claremont to Henry Wellesley, 9 June 1858, Walker papers, [cat. 102]. 20 Arthur Otway, Autobiography and journals of Admiral Lord Clarence E. Paget (London, 1896), 194 – 6. 21 Ibid., 195. 22 Ibid., 284. 23 For interchangeable parts in French engineering see Ken Alder, Engineering the revolution: arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763–1815 (Princeton, NJ, 1997).

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Paget began to see himself as an authority on ironclad shipbuilding, and increasingly acted in ways that caused friction with Walker. The Surveyor had successfully negotiated the reconstruction of the Navy into a steam force, but tired under the pressure of another reconstruction in short succession. C.I. Hamilton writes that the weight of parliamentary scrutiny of his work left him exhausted, and he resigned from office.24 Walker’s correspondence during the construction of the Warrior and discussions about further ships suggest a slightly different story that involved friction with Paget. The Admiralty Board, presumably at Paget’s behest, had ordered professional officers in Walker’s department to provide a report on whether future Warrior class ships would gain ‘some advantages’ by being given ‘a fuller floor in the midship section and finer lines at the two extremities’. The Board felt that the alterations would also enable ‘comparative trials of vessels of this description constructed on somewhat different lines’, which in turn would furnish ‘valuable data for future guidance’. Members of Walker’s department ‘reported in explicit terms that in their opinion no change could with advantage be made in any part of the design of the “Warrior” ’. On this occasion Paget deferred to the professional officers, clarifying that the matter involved ‘details of a purely technical and professional character’.25 Walker’s view of the episode, which he relayed to Admiral Richard Saunders Dundas, substantially differed. While serving on the Duke of Somerset’s Board in 1859 – 61, Dundas had been involved in the design of the Warrior, and felt to some extent accountable for the ship. He had heard a rumour that ‘there has been some fresh discussion respecting the lines of the iron cased ships, & that some alterations have been ordered, I fully expected before I left London that on the return of Clarence Paget he would be full of his own ideas after his visit to Toulon & other places & I take it for granted that any fresh discussion will have originated with him’.26 Dundas did not believe that Paget was any more knowledgeable, or adequately suited to make changes to ship designs, than any other Admiral: ‘he is not himself a constructor, nor is his practical judgment at all superior to that of other people’.27 In reply Walker described his perception of Paget’s request for alterations to the design of the Warrior. ‘Soon after you and the Duke of Somerset had left the Admiralty’, he wrote, 24 C.I. Hamilton, ‘Walker, Sir Baldwin Wake, first baronet (1802–1876)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 25 Clarence Paget to Baldwin Walker, 10 November 1860, Walker papers, [cat. 71]. 26 Richard Saunders Dundas to Baldwin Walker, 10 November 1860, Walker papers, [cat. 71]. 27 Ibid.



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‘Mr Watts, my professional assistant, was sent for.’ Later the Board called for a junior officer from Walker’s department to answer questions about ship form. Hearing of this, Walker told the First Lord that ‘such a circumstance had not occurred during the thirteen years I had held my present appointment, and that if the Secretary of the Admiralty [referring to Paget, the political, or first, secretary] was allowed to dictate what the forms of ships should be, it would be impossible for me to hold my present office’. Walker then offered his resignation, explaining ‘that I had been subject to much worry and annoyance and that with the committee on gun boats, the Royal Commission on Dockyards and the heavy woes of my department my health had suffered so much that it would be impossible for me to go on. I should therefore feel obliged if he would allow me to retire.’28 Sections of the engineering press felt sympathy for the problems Walker faced at the Admiralty, operating between technical and political authority, negotiating ‘whims and fancies’ and ‘fixed and rigid principles’. The Engineer concluded that ‘it is easy to see that the late Controller held an office which no reader of ours could possibly (we trust) consider enviable’.29 Tensions aside, Walker wanted to ensure that the Admiralty appreciated the value of his professional officers and ‘their superior judgment and skill’. Writing to William Romaine, Secretary of the Admiralty, Walker noted that ‘I should be committing an act of great injustice did I not point out in a special manner the able and ready assistance which I have on all occasions, and especially during the trying Russian War, received from Mr Watts, the chief constructor, and Mr Lloyd, the engineer-in-chief.’30 Shortly after resigning Walker was appointed to the Cape command and Admiral Robert Spencer Robinson became Controller. Outside of the Admiralty, pressures mounted from advocates and opponents of iron shipbuilding. In 1861 the naval architect John Scott Russell joined the press and pamphlet debate over the construction of iron ships of war, stating that it ‘can no longer be treated as a theoretical and technical speculation’, but as ‘one upon which practical issues of national importance must at once be taken’. Put more boldly, ‘[t]he success or failure of the new iron fleet is the success or failure of the nation’.31 Russell was an important proponent, and 28 Baldwin Walker to Richard Saunders Dundas, 13 November 1860, Walker papers, [cat. 71]. 29 ‘Iron-plated ships of war’, Engineer 10 (7 December 1860), 376. 30 Baldwin Walker to Secretary of the Admiralty, 6 February 1861, Walker papers, [cat. 71]. 31 John Scott Russell, Fleet of the future (London, 1861), 1, 56.

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builder, of iron ships. The son of a Scottish clergyman, he was educated at Glasgow University prior to teaching mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and emigrating south, where he purchased William Fairbairn’s Millwall yard and established himself among the Thames shipbuilders.32 He was also secretary of the Royal Society of Arts, and during his time in office contributed to the early planning for the Great Exhibition of 1851.33 In the technical press the Admiralty’s decision to delay the construction of new ironclads was reported as a sign that the Board lacked confidence in the designs it had before it. The Engineer believed that professional men at the Admiralty could not agree on the form of future ships or their armour specifications, especially as the Warrior had ‘not won any general approval’.34 Among the most prominent members on the anti-iron side of the debate was the army general and Tory MP for Liverpool Howard Douglas (1776 –1861), who had worked and written extensively on artillery and naval gunnery. His Treatise on naval gunnery (1819), which went to five editions, was used for over twenty years as an instructive text on the training ship HMS Excellent. In 1848 Robert Peel consulted Douglas on the question of building iron ships, which he opposed.35 The Engineer believed him to be ‘the principal literary champion of wooden ships of war’, who was also to wield considerable ‘influence’ against iron shipbuilding projects.36 He judged La Gloire to be a failure: ‘she is so overloaded with armour and armament, that in anything like heavy seas she not only takes water into her ports, but that the sea rolls up her sides and over her’.37 He did agree with other actors that now that France had launched an ironclad, Britain ‘must do likewise’, while maintaining that iron-cased ships were stronger than iron alone: ‘but for the timber by which the plates are backed up, the side of the ship [Warrior] would not be shot-proof ’.38 32 William Pole, The life of Sir William Fairbairn (London, 1877), 342. 33 David K. Brown, ‘Russell, John Scott (1808 –1882)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, 2004). 34 ‘Iron-plated ships of war’, Engineer 10 (16 November 1860), 327– 8, esp. 327. 35 S.W. Fullom, The life of General Sir Howard Douglas (London, 1863), 398. 36 ‘The Great Eastern, and iron-cased war-ships’, Engineer 11 (22 February 1861), 121–2. 37 Howard Douglas, A postscript to the section of iron defences contained in the fifth edition of ‘Naval gunnery’ in answer to the erroneous principles set forth by the reviewer in ‘The Quarterly Review’ for October, 1860 (London, 1861), 42. 38 Howard Douglas, ‘On iron ships, and iron-cased ships’, Transactions 2 (1861), 2–7, esp. 2.



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Douglas described various investigations into the penetration of shot into iron plate in the 1860 edition of his gunnery treatise. He reproduced the findings of firing experiments in Metz on 13-inch thick iron, in which the plate fractured at both the point of impact and deeper: ‘not only is the object struck destroyed in a short time, but the fragments scattered in different directions are highly dangerous’.39 Similar results were produced between 1849 and 1851 in Portsmouth on much thinner iron plates backed with oak planking, in which the splinters ‘must prove highly destructive’.40 Douglas concluded that ‘the destructive effects of the impacts of shot on iron ships cannot be prevented’.41 He also considered the suitability of well-known iron steamships for war, turning to Brunel’s Great Eastern. He remarked that this ship was ‘utterly unfit for any of the purposes of war’, and that he ‘will not follow Mr Scott Russell [its designer] in the plunge which he takes to dive into the future of the British Navy’.42 Douglas was not alone. In reporting the launch of the Warrior, the Spectator maintained: ‘She will serve well as an experiment. If she answers, we may build more Warriors. In the interval of trial [however], there is no justification for suspending the construction of a single wooden ship.’43 The Admiralty was torn between internal and external pressures, as can be seen in the debate over armour configurations that took place between 1860 and 1861. After the Warrior was laid down a number engineers and naval officers offered alternative designs for ship armour, such as Captain Cowper Coles’s shot-proof shield (see Chapter 4) and Josiah Jones’s angulated armour – or inclined sides principle. The Admiralty continued work with the Warrior but halted plans for three further ironclads while it investigated these and other proposals. In January 1861 Sidney Herbert, Palmerston’s secretary of state for war, formed a committee on iron plates led by Captain John Hay. William Pole, William Fairbairn’s biographer, contemporary and a fellow member of the committee, criticised the Admiralty for not examining iron armour designs prior to laying down the Warrior: ‘our authorities having wasted, in indecision, the time that the French Government had employed in investigation and experiment’.44 The naval officer and author Sherard Osborn raised a similar criticism in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, claiming that British naval 39 Howard Douglas, Treatise on naval gunnery (London, 1819, 5th edn 1860), 121–2. 40 Ibid., 125 –33. 41 Ibid., 131. 42 Howard Douglas, ‘On iron ships, and iron-cased ships’, Transactions 2 (1861), esp. 6. 43 ‘[The Warrior has been launched . . .]’, Spectator 34 (5 January 1861), p. 2. 44 Pole, William Fairbairn, 350, 360.

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‘progress’ depended ‘upon the energy and expenditure of the Emperor Louis Napoleon . . . It would not be natural to expect that this change should be wrought without a deal of official grumpiness.’45 The press coverage of the iron armour question reveals two important themes that ran through this naval-industrial debate in the early 1860s: a resistance to experiment perpetuated by Admiralty officials and the willingness of the press to promote projectors. These themes are evident in the coverage given to Jones’s angulated armour. Jones, a Liverpool iron shipbuilder, projected that a pyramid structure inclined at a 45° angle away from the hull and built between the waterline and main deck would reduce the ship’s target size to enemy fire, deflect shot at most angles and provide a thicker layer of iron between the outer armour and the hull.46 The Times boldly claimed that a ship built with Jones’s angulated armour would be ‘invisible on the water’ and ‘present no vulnerable point’, asserting: ‘She ought to blow a Gloire into chips as certainly as a Gloire would demolish an old Fisagard or Arethusa.’47 A journalist at the Temple Bar was so convinced by what they heard of the scheme that they criticised Pakington for giving the design of the Warrior to an Admiralty naval architect rather than to ‘professed iron shipbuilders’ such as Jones.48 Colburn’s United Service Magazine was similarly enthused by Jones’s scheme, and reported the Admiralty’s August 1860 firing trials to test Jones and Coles’s designs. Captain R.S. Hewlett of the gunnery training ship HMS Excellent oversaw the private tests with a plate of Jones’s angulated armour attached to the Arctic brig Griper. The Times gained information of certain results from the trials that the 69-pound. shot fired at 200 yards neither pierced nor seriously fractured Jones’s armour plate.49 Colburn’s believed the experiments ‘proved the success of the principle . . . a ship coated with plates such as we have described would be invulnerable’.50 Other sections of the press remained unconvinced of the value of Jones’s armour. The Engineer observed that no ‘scientific journal of note’ supported Jones, and agreed with General Douglas that the large angular iron structure 45 [Sherard Osborn], ‘Iron-clad ships of war’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 88 (December 1860), 633– 49, esp. 634. 46 [Anon.], ‘A visit to the iron-clad ship’, Temple Bar 1 ( January 1861), 235. 47 ‘The course of the discussions upon iron-cased . . .’, The Times 23761 (26 October 1860), 6. 48 [Anon.], ‘A visit to the iron-clad ship’, Temple Bar 1 ( January 1861), 235. 49 ‘Naval and military intelligence’, The Times 23691 (6 August 1860), 12. 50 ‘The recent trials of Jones’s angulated plates for ships of war’, Colburn’s United Service Magazine 94 (1860), 63– 9, 69.



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would adversely affect the stability of an ironclad by greatly increasing the weight along the edge of the ship’s breadth. It predicted that the Admiralty would not accept the armour, but that the popular press – naming The Times, Blackwood’s and the Cornhill Magazine – would substantially extend the time it took to make the decision.51 In mid-1861, Hay, the chair of the iron plate committee, reported to the INA that ‘the committee were persuaded that what is called angulated sides possessed no real advantages as compared with the usual upright sides, when all the circumstances of the case were considered’.52 Iron questions The manner in which the Admiralty went about investigating and, ultimately, rejecting angulated armour is illustrative of Russell’s frustrations with how it approached engineering problems. He contended that the Admiralty could act with greater expediency in such situations if it appointed technical specialists to positions of authority in a meritocratic manner. In his pamphlet on the Fleet of the future (1861), he diagnosed this as one of the main differences between British and French approaches to investigating iron shipbuilding: The first thing he [Napoleon III] did was to look out for the ablest man he could find; he did not search for a first lord of the Admiralty [Somerset] who had sound Tory principles, or an accomplished nobleman of pure Whig descent. He did not look out for a Surveyor of the Navy [Sir Baldwin Walker] who never in his life had either mastered the science of naval architecture, or even possessed the practical experience of building a ship or even a jolly-boat. He did not appoint by seniority the most aged shipbuilder in the dockyard [Isaac Watts] to stand at the head of his profession, and be designer of ships for the navy. He did as any practical man would do in his own business; having got a difficult thing to do, which had not been done before, which had no precedent to guide it and no authority for an example, he looked out simply for the man of most talent – best scientific acquaintance with the principles of his profession – . . . in short, the man who seemed most fitted for his work.53

Russell’s portrayal purposefully sought to galvanise public anxiety and fear of French naval power. He claimed that there was no one on the Duke of Somerset’s Admiralty Board who possessed the knowledge to guarantee naval supremacy, and so urged the public to petition the Admiralty to cease 51 ‘Armour-cased ships’, Engineer 11 (11 January 1861), 27; Douglas, A postscript, 28. 52 ‘Institution of Naval Architects’, Practical Mechanic’s Journal 7 (1 May 1862), 52. 53 Russell, Fleet of the future, 59 – 60.

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building ships and instead buy from private yards, such as his own in Millwall – thereby abolishing government dockyards and their institutional authority over engineers. Somerset led the Admiralty for seven years of shipbuilding uncertainty, from 1859. He received unprecedented criticism in the press for the Admiralty’s costly shipbuilding programme and decided to publicly defend his record.54 Somerset described the years of his time in office as a ‘transitional period of ships and of armaments’ during which ‘[t]he progress of improvement was rapid, and ships were hardly completed before they were superseded by better designs’.55 He surmised that the great ‘economic’ pressure on the Admiralty was not financial, but a manifestation of the tension in achieving the following three objectives without waste: to build an ironclad fleet which could rival France’s, experiment with the design features of iron and convert the ships already in production so that they could simultaneously meet the first two objectives. Somerset argued that it was difficult to ‘experiment’ with designs and at the same time to expect new ships to be better than those previously constructed. Experiment, as Somerset understood it, did not guarantee ‘progress’. Somerset’s defence made compelling points about the risks iron ships involved and the problems inherent in ‘experimenting’ with ship design on a large scale, yet it failed to stem the tide of public criticism. The Times’s response to Somerset’s pamphlet was, first, to censure Somerset for inviting further attacks by publicly defending himself, and second, to label the entire Admiralty an old-fashioned, perennially ‘unready’ institution, lost in a sea of ‘change’ and ‘progress’. ‘They squander our moneys, they neglect our coast defences, they maintain at a huge expense a wooden navy rotting in our harbours . . . and the Ironclads they build are built on so false a principle that an enemy can sink them as they roll, without being hit himself.’ The article continued: In no department of human affairs at the present day is change the condition and progress the necessity so much as in the preparation of the implements of naval warfare. In no body of men is the objection to change so ingrained, the indisposition to take counsel of other and younger minds so decided, the incapacity for progress so confirmed, as in the elder Admirals and Vice-Admirals who, time out of mind, have directed the naval policy of Whitehall.56 54 Leggett, ‘Neptune’s new clothes’, 76 – 9. 55 [Edward Adolphus Seymour], The naval expenditure from 1860 to 1866, and its results (London, 1867), 37, 43. 56 ‘The human memory cannot recall the period . . . ’, The Times 26148 (11 June 1868), 8.



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In this and other criticisms of the Board, ‘progress’ became an important, albeit vague, actors’ category. Progress, wherever it was supposed to lead (indeed, this was a source of controversy), became a barometer for assessing how well politicians and officers at the Admiralty managed matériel change. Russell believed that ‘progress’ was a transition to iron shipbuilding and administration by technical experts; a transition that Somerset did not possess the technical knowledge or administrative finesse to negotiate. ‘It is this inability to decide among conflicting opinions [from the various departments of the Admiralty and government]’, Russell wrote, ‘which renders the present position of the First Lord, so difficult.’57 He continued, explicitly linking matériel and naval management, noting that: [i]n the two apologies which he has had officially to make, for the abject failure of his department either to reconstruct itself or the fleet, he has frankly told the [House of] Lords that it is to the Commons of England, and to them only, that he has been looking for the reform of the navy. When he is asked what he has done with the millions which the people had voted him for the matériel of a new navy during the last three years, he states that, with a trivial exception, he spent it on wooden ships.58

Somerset, Russell charged, ‘doubted – hesitated – pondered – and did nothing’ to continue the matériel changes Pakington had begun by ordering the Warrior.59 He charged that the £30,000,000 in navy estimates voted to the Admiralty between 1855 and 1862 had resulted in the ‘value [of] . . . about £1,000,000 in the two “Warriors” produced’, the rest having been ‘wasted’ on wood. This he linked to the limited authority given to naval architects, who had advocated without success for more iron shipbuilding within the ‘administration of the Admiralty and the great naval establishments’.60 Russell had a vested interest in the authority of engineers and believed that the Admiralty’s institutional hierarchy and politics marginalised them. They had no direct authority within the Admiralty to address the Board level. The Surveyor was kept at a distance from the Board, leaving the extent of its power in the hands of the First Lord (as the restriction on Symonds’s influence described in Chapter 2 demonstrates). In 1860 Somerset gave the Surveyor 57 Russell, Fleet of the future, 81. 58 Ibid., 15. 59 The ships built during his reign, including HMSs Defence and Resistance were, in Russell’s eyes, ‘two [of the] worst designed ships that have ever floated’. Ibid., 72–3. 60 Russell also used the threat of French naval supremacy to establish the importance of shifting authority towards technical officers trained in naval architecture. Ibid., 80 –1.

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new authority over monthly and annual shipbuilding budgets and dockyard work – as well as the older, albeit modernised title of Controller. Russell never­ theless satirised what he believed was the treatment of the Board’s technical specialists. Here he described Paget’s (Lord C.) attempt to get the Chief Constructor (Con.) to design two ships, identical to the Warrior, but half the size. Lord C. What, the guns carried two feet nearer the water? I said she should be the same as the “Warrior.” Con. But your Lordship will do me the justice to remember I said it could not be done. Lord C. But I told you it was an order of the Board, and must be done. But about the coals: I can’t see that half the coals should not carry a ship of half the size over the same distance as double the coals carries twice the size of ship. Con. It is on account of the slower speed, my Lord. Lord C.  What! Slower speed? Why should the speed be slower? Con. It is, my Lord, slower in the proportion of 11 to 14. Lord C. But the Board did not order that. How do you get that? Con. By calculation. Lord C. Oh, but that is matter of opinion. No, I think she will go on as fast as the “Warrior.” I am a sailor, and if I had the command, I should make her do it. But won’t the ports take in the water? . . . why don’t you put them higher? Con. Because it would make her a worse sea boat then she is. Lord C. You don’t mean to say that she is not a good sea boat? Con. I fear not my Lord. Lord C. But why should she not have good qualities? I like the look of her. Con. We have done the best we could. Lord C. Well, I like her look, and I think I can set my opinion [as] an experienced seaman against yours.61

Russell’s satire highlights the type of skills and judgements that he believed were utilised to guarantee naval power. At a time when politicians sought naval supremacy at a discount, he asked whether other attributes might be prioritised.62 Believing that public funds had been wasted by building ill-conceived ships, Russell raised questions about how to effectively manage the Navy’s 61 Ibid., 74 –5. 62 For naval spending see Beeler, British naval policy in the Gladstone–Disraeli era (Stanford, CA, 1997). For Gladstone, Disraeli and financial management see A.B. Hawkins, ‘A forgotten crisis: Gladstone and the politics of finance during the 1850s’, Victorian Studies 26 (1983), 287–320; H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Disraeli, Gladstone, and the politics of mid-Victorian budgets’, Historical Journal, 22 (1979), 615 – 43.



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shipbuilding programme: ‘what ships it [the Admiralty] shall build; to whom it will entrust the design of these ships; [and] to whom the execution’.63 Experiments in iron shipbuilding Russell wanted greater authority given to naval architects, but not just any type of naval architect. He specifically favoured those who used experiments to generate new knowledge of ship behaviour and guide their design work. He promoted this connection in numerous scientific papers. For example, in 1854 he addressed the BAAS meeting at Liverpool with a paper ‘On the progress of naval architecture and steam navigation’. He described how superior ship lines could be guaranteed by naval architects who ‘consulted and cross-question nature’ through experiment.64 He drew his audience’s attention to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Leviathan (later Great Eastern), being built on the Thames in accordance to the wave-line theory that Russell had developed over the previous decade. Broadly put, the theory sought to describe the ‘relation between the length of the ship and the velocity of advantageous propulsion’, in principle lengthening the ship and replacing the wide, convex bow with a thin, long, concave bow. Russell approached naval architecture with the notions of ‘work’ and ‘economy’ in mind. He put the problem of finding the ‘best form’ for a ship’s hull in the following light: ‘what is the way of least waste? Let us inquire how a ship, in moving through the water, shall avoid wasting power in causing unnecessary or useless movement.’65 He conceived waste both mechanically and commercially. ‘Power and money were wasted in vain attempts to make ships of unsuitable dimensions attain high speed’, he noted, ‘instances are well known, where a double amount of steam boiler had been provided to compel high speed in an unsuitable vessel, and afterwards these boilers had to be removed, the higher speed being found impossible in that kind of ship.’66 Russell recognised the vital importance of linking experiment with economy, following a 63 Russell, Fleet of the future, 16 –17. Also see Ben Marsden, ‘The administration of the “engineering science” of naval architecture at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–1872’, Yearbook of European Administrative History 20 (2008), 67– 94. 64 Ben Marsden & Crosbie Smith, Engineering empires: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain (Basingstoke, 2007), 103. 65 John Scott Russell, ‘The wave-line principle of ship-construction, part I’, Trans­ actions 1 (1860), 184 – 95, esp. 186. 66 John Scott Russell, ‘The wave-line principle of ship-construction, part III’, Trans­ actions 2 (1861), 230 – 45, esp. 240.

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series of disappointing model experiments. In the 1840s Russell gained BAAS support to make observations on the resistance profile of ship shapes, ranging from small models in canal experiments to 200-foot sea-going vessels.67 During those experiments he observed how waves were formed along a ship’s hull during motion, and came to believe that he had discovered ‘a remarkable law by which it appears that velocity has a corresponding form and dimension peculiar to that velocity’.68 The wave-line theory, as he called it, addressed where water went when a ship pushed through it. He concluded that ‘[i]n the case of the fore body, the water must suit itself to the shape of that body which is forced into it. . . . We must [also], therefore, fit the after body to the run of the water in the wake.’69 Russell’s advice for shipbuilders was tempered by a hesitancy to trust the results of model experiments. He was aware that previous model experiments undertaken in the name of ‘the advancement of naval architecture’ had failed to capture the interest of shipwrights and ship owners. Reasons included the lack of interest among experimenters in ‘the wants of the constructor’, that the model shapes experimented on rarely reflected ship shapes and that the sizes of the models were ‘too small to claim for these results, as applied on a largescale, any considerable degree of confidence’.70 He wanted to make his experiments as instructive as possible, which included convincing shipbuilders that models provided a trustworthy way to derive superior ship lines. He proposed a volume based on his BAAS experiments that would list illustrations of ship shapes and the corresponding resistance expected of each shape.71 In the 1850s, the Australian Royal Mail Company invited Russell to design two mail steamers, during which time he met Brunel, the company’s chief engineer. In 1852, Brunel discussed a plan with Russell for a leviathan of the ocean, 600 feet long and of 20,000 tons, to be built in Russell’s Millwall shipyard. The Leviathan was designed to embody Russell’s wave-line theory. Brunel was not himself scientifically sophisticated, or notably learned in theory or 67 John Scott Russell, ‘Notice of a report of the committee on the form of ships’, in Reports, 1843 (London, 1844), 112–15, esp. 113. 68 John Scott Russell, ‘The wave-line principle of ship-construction, part I’, Trans­ actions 1 (1860), 184; Russell, ‘The wave-line principle of ship-construction, part II’, Transactions 1 (1860), 196 –211, esp. 201; Russell, ‘Notice of a report of the committee on the form of ships’, in Reports, 1843 (London, 1844), 114. 69 John Scott Russell, ‘The wave-line principle of ship-construction, part III’, Trans­ actions 2 (1861), 230 – 45, esp. 237. 70 John Scott Russell, ‘Report of a committee on the form of ships’, in Report, 1842 (London, 1843), 104 –5, esp. 104. 71 Ibid., 104.



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mathematics. He surrounded himself with people who were, such as Russell, William Froude and William Bell, who undertook experimental investigations and complex design work on Brunel’s behalf.72 Russell’s association with the design of the Leviathan demonstrates the way in which the ship and experimental models became a fundamental part of the project of experimentation in hydrodynamics.73 Russell’s credibility as a naval architect became increasingly connected to the Great Eastern. He frequently stated that ‘the Great Eastern . . . is a pure example of the wave form’, and as such the credibility of his ideas was entwined with the success of the ship.74 In 1860, he claimed that shipbuilders who incorporated the wave-line theory were able to benefit from the practical rules that the theory supposedly established. He believed that the wave-line theory ‘gives us the exact length of ship for every speed at which we wish a ship to go’.75 Russell employed the rhetoric of science and experiment to describe the wave-line principle and Brunel’s ship.76 In these papers he also emphasised the importance of asking questions that were not necessarily consequential to the shipbuilder, such as ‘where does the water go which is displaced by the bow? And how does it go?’77 He used these questions to establish the import­ ance of experimentally investigating ‘best form’. He further emphasised the important role of science by contrasting the experimental culture he advocated with the craft practice traditions he had been taught on the Thames, particularly with regard to ship dimensions: ‘I was educated in the dogma that the great beam, or main breadth of construction, should be exactly one-third of the length from the stem, and exactly two-thirds of the length from the stern; making the after body double the length of the fore body.’78 Away from the Thames, the River Clyde in Scotland became another centre of iron shipbuilding and engineering science with links to the Royal Navy. 72 R. Angus Buchanan, Brunel: The life and times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (London, 2002), 221. 73 For Russell see George S. Emmerson, John Scott Russell: a great Victorian engineer and naval architect (London, 1977). 74 John Scott Russell, ‘The wave-line principle of ship-construction, part III’, Trans­ actions 2 (1861), 241. 75 Ibid., 205. 76 This was also acknowledged in numerous national and local reports of Russell’s work on the Leviathan, see for example, ‘The Great Eastern steam ship’, Morning Chronicle 28298 (2 September 1857), 7. 77 John Scott Russell, ‘The wave-line principle of ship-construction, part III’, Trans­ actions 2 (1861), 230. 78 Ibid., 239.

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In the 1820s Robert Napier, with the help of the engine builder David Elder, began to build wooden steamships. In the early 1840s he began iron shipbuilding at Govan. He favoured ships with length-to-breadth ratios greater than 6:1, believing that long ships were faster.79 Napier’s ships were fast, and were popular with Cunard and the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, commercial enterprises that operated a number of mail contracts.80 This recognition seemed to vindicate Napier’s views on speed and hull form. His son James Robert Napier continued the family work into the 1860s, building the hull of HMS Black Prince, Warrior’s sister ship. Unlike his father, however, he did not think that positive experiences with long ships provided sufficient evidence on which to base ship-design decisions. He rejected this and other popular ideas within the craft practice traditions of ship design, preferring instead to base decisions on experimental findings. Napier developed a reputation for his interest in mechanical science through the BAAS. He also formed a strong collaborative relationship with the Glasgow engineering professor W.J. Macquorn Rankine. In the mid-1850s they worked together on the development of an air-engine, before turning their attention to hydrodynamics and ship design.81 Working together they produced a formula for ship resistance, which they employed in the design of the Admiral, a Napierbuilt steamship, launched in 1859. This was a mutually beneficial relationship that enabled the pursuit of theory and practice in professional engineering. Napier pursued this end to gain engineering and commercial advantages while Rankine secured the support of Glasgow industrialists. In 1855 Rankine sought the Regius Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, the future of which had been in jeopardy since the resignation of Lewis Gordon.82 Napier petitioned 79 In 1860, Robert Napier’s son James Robert Napier, told members of the INA that on the Clyde ‘Many builders have adopted, on average, eight or nine time the breadth for the length of the vessel.’ Ibid., 207. 80 For Napier, see Michael S. Moss, ‘Napier, Robert (1791–1876)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004); Crosbie Smith, ‘ “This great national undertaking”: John Scott Russell, the master shipwrights and the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company’, in Don Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800 –1918 (Farnham, 2012), 25 –52. 81 Ben Marsden, ‘Blowing hot and cold: reports and retorts on the status of the airengine as success or failure, 1830 –1855’, History of Science 36 (1998), 373– 420. 82 For Rankine see, Ben Marsden, ‘Rankine, (William John) Macquorn (1820 –1872)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004); Ben Marsden, ‘Engineering science in Glasgow: economy, efficiency and measurement as prime movers in the differentiation of an academic discipline’, British Journal for the History of Science 25 (1992), 319 – 46.



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the university to maintain the chair and lent his support to Rankine’s application.83 They also worked together on a large volume on hydrodynamics and mechanics with Isaac Watts (then retired from Admiralty work) and Frederick Barnes (whom Watts referred to as ‘a very superior young man’) entitled Shipbuilding: theoretical and practical (1866).84 In 1856, Rankine contacted Russell to enquire into the best shape for ships. Russell had established a good reputation on the Clyde for his work as a consultant for the Clyde-built Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ships.85 Russell responded, noting the lack of experimental data on the subject, ‘I fear you will not be able to find ready made any materials for a practical essay on the thoughts of the forms used in naval architecture.’86 He encouraged Rankine to undertake research into the subject, and noted that ‘my friend Mr. Napier would assist you with the means of making such a series of experiments’.87 Rankine agreed that it was highly desirable to conduct experiments, but held reservations. Writing to Napier, he explained: ‘I am pretty confident his proposal is impractical. The series of experiments he speaks of would cost a very large sum if done in such a style as to be of any service; would occupy a great deal of time, & waste a great deal of material & workmanship; and where is the money to come from?’88 Rankine experienced the limits of knowledge as the limits of his capital, but forged a compromise by collaborating on the design and trials of the Admiral. Once she was built, he undertook a comparison between its resistance properties and that of Brunel’s Leviathan designed in accordance with the wave-line theory.89 Together with Napier he came to the conclusion that Russell’s wave-line theory was flawed, especially in the expectation that length lessened resistance. Rankine’s general theory of ship resistance examined the problem at a molecular and mechanical level. He focused on water particles and their hydrodynamic behaviour, specifically with regard to the way the movement of bodies distorted them. For a ‘well-designed ship’, Rankine wrote, ‘particles of water 83 W.J. Macquorn Rankine to James Napier, 7 November 1855, Napier papers, Glasgow University Archive Service, Glasgow (hereafter Napier papers), 90/2/4/38; Isaac Watt, Frederick Barnes, James Robert Napier and W.J. Macquorn Rankine, Shipbuilding: theoretical and practical (London, 1866). 84 Isaac Watts to Baldwin Walker, 9 August 1852, Walker Papers, [cat. 78]. 85 Smith, ‘ “This great national undertaking” ’, 25 –52. 86 Russell’s initial letter was quoted verbatim in Macquorn Rankine to James Napier, 27 June 1856, Napier papers, 90/2/4/38. 87 Quoted in Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Macquorn Rankine to James Napier, December 1857, Napier papers, 90/2/4/38.

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[will] glide over her surface through its whole length, and are left behind her with no more motion than such as is unavoidably impressed upon them through adhesion and stiffness’.90 This approach reduced the subject of hydrodynamics to a matter of energy. Rankine concluded that every vessel had a specific speed at which the production of waves that caused resistance was ‘insensible’. When that speed, which we may call the ‘efficient speed’, was exceeded, energy was lost through the production of those waves. Rankine’s mechanical treatment of hydrodynamics reflected broader trends in mid nineteenth-century physics, and specifically the concerns of the North-British network of men of science and engineers to which he belonged. Members of the North-British network constructed the science of energy in the second half of the nineteenth century. They were sensitive to issues of ‘work’ and ‘efficiency’ within their scientific and engineering work.91 They also sought a union of theory and practice that would utilise experimental and mathematical skills for the improvement of mechanical objects like steam engines, propellers and iron ship hulls – the last of which has been overlooked in the historiography of physics.92 Rankine’s work on ship resistance was therefore significant both in regard to how he conceptualised waves and how he interpreted the problem for others through the framework of ‘mechanical work’ and ‘energy’. In this he nuanced older understandings of hydrodynamics from natural philosophers and naval officers alike, albeit without substantially altering the fundamental principle that a ship in motion cuts through the water and moves fluid out of its path. The absence of experimental data, along with 90 Merrifield quotes from Watts et al., Shipbuilding: theoretical and practical (London, 1866). Charles Merrifield, ‘Report of a committee on the stability, propulsion, and sea-going qualities of ships’, Reports, 1869 (London, 1870), 10 – 47, esp. 18. Lord Robert Montagu, second son of the Duke of Manchester, also developed a theory on the path of every particle of water displaced by a vessel passing through it, see Robert Montagu, Naval architecture: a treatise on shipbuilding (London, 1852). 91 For themes of work, entropy and efficiency in nineteenth-century physics and engineering see Crosbie Smith, The science of energy: a cultural history of energy physics in Victorian Britain (London, 1998). 92 For example see the chapter ‘Mysterious fluids and forces’, in Iwan Rhys Morus, When physics became king (Chicago, IL, 2005), 156 – 91, that ignores debates in hydrodynamics that represent an important feature of the debate between mole­ cular and field theory physics. Contrast with Marsden’s observation that ‘Rankine successfully combined considerations of the fluid flow and the geometry of actual ships with engine propulsion, hull resistance, and, most importantly, work’. Ben Marsden, ‘Rankine, (William John) Macquorn (1820 –1872)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).



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his intellectual style, ultimately undermined the credibility of Rankine’s mole­ cular theory.93 William Denny, another Clyde shipbuilder, felt alienated by his ‘overmathematical and algebraic explanation of the practical subjects he took in hand’; while his friend the Glasgow Professor of Natural Philosophy William Thomson (another member of the North-British network) believed that he ‘was very unintelligible to practical men’.94 These criticisms were significant for the influence of Rankine’s theory of ship resistance. Napier, in contrast to Rankine, stood to lose his commercial credibility if an iron shipbuilding experiment failed. Ships equated to financial and personal capital. He laid his credibility on the line with every ship he designed. This was never made clearer to him than during his work on the Warrior’s sister ship. The Black Prince’s construction was fraught with technical and financial difficulties, particularly with regard to satisfying the Admiralty’s specifications and political concerns. To ease these difficulties the Admiralty copied to Napier letters on the design and work that took place on the Warrior. From the Admiralty’s perspective it had been ‘of great importance that one of these experimental vessels should be completed at as early a date as possible’.95 Letters from John Ford to Paget illustrate the pressures on the private firm. Ford compared the Warrior to another experiment in shipbuilding recently completed on the Thames, Brunel’s Great Eastern, and stressed that ‘a work of such novelty and magnitude requires more time for its execution’.96 The difficulty of meeting the Admiralty’s specification for iron armour nearly bankrupted Napier’s company. Napier’s credibility was important to the Admiralty’s early forays into ironclad shipbuilding, and the Admiralty was a major customer. To nurture his stock with the Admiralty he turned to his friend Robert Spencer Robinson, Walker’s successor. In 1863, Robinson supported Napier by arranging to give a group of admirals a tour of the works.97 Napier’s relationship and credibility with Robinson, however, was not always assured. In 1863 they clashed over a Board memo written by Robinson that appeared in The Times. Robinson’s report alleged that there were serious technical and administrative problems 93 Charles Merrifield, ‘Report of a committee on the stability, propulsion, and seagoing qualities of ships’, Reports, 1869 (London, 1870), 21. 94 William Denny to William Froude, 17 February 1873, in A.B. Bruce, The life of William Denny: shipbuilder, Dumbarton (London, 1889), 141. 95 Baldwin Walker to the Board of Admiralty, 6 June 1860, Napier papers, 90/2/6/42. 96 John Ford to Clarence Paget, 9 June 1860, Napier papers, 90/2/6/42. Also see Philip Banbury, Shipbuilders of the Thames and Medway (Newton Abbot, 1971). 97 Robert Spencer Robinson to James Napier, 20 September 186, Napier papers 3, 90/2/4/28c.

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with iron shipbuilding. While iron ships could be built larger and with greater structural strength, they suffered from localised spots of weakness, fouling, the attraction of marine zoophytes, the poor quality of available iron, the danger of iron splinters that result from shot impacting on iron and a relative weakness under an armour belt. In an inversion of the use of the French Gloire to justify iron shipbuilding, Robinson stated that ‘[t]he most able designer of warships in Europe . . . M. Dupuy de Lôme . . . constructs the ships that are to form the French line-of-battle of wood, in preference to iron’. The Controller also noted that only Chatham Dockyard was equipped for iron shipbuilding, and thus the country either needed to make a large outlay for shipbuilding machinery or place faith in Britain’s commercial shipbuilders. Robinson supported the former proposal, which he championed with the Board by claiming that ‘in no one instance have the [private] contractors kept to their agreements with the government, either as to time or cost.’ He continued, alluding to the ‘general slovenliness of the work performed by iron shipbuilders’, and their ‘uncertainty attending this mode of construction.’98 Robinson’s report outraged Russell, who organised a petition on behalf of London’s iron shipbuilders that urged Parliament to form a committee to study the report.99 Russell also wrote to Napier urging him to write a similar petition on behalf of Clyde shipbuilders, refuting the claims being made against his company specifically, and iron shipbuilders generally: ‘I think you have a just right to complain . . . you must not allow yourself to lie silently under the implication of bad workmanship, bad material and want of principle.’100 He urged Napier to act quickly to refute the claims, lest ‘it will be believed that you are silent because the accusations are true’.101 For Napier both his credibility and that of the fragile union of theory and practice that he, his firm and Rankine advocated was on the line. Their experiments with hydrodynamics in the Admiral, ironclad shipbuilding with the Black Prince and publication of Shipbuilding: theoretical and practical were intended as instructive offerings to a community torn over the worth of science in ship design. Russell agreed that  98 Robinson’s report was quoted in ‘Iron or wood?’, The Times 24503 (11 March 1863), 11. It is noteworthy that these debates on the Admiralty’s shipbuilding policy were in no way affected by the Admiralty’s decades of experience funding the mail lines operated by commercial companies, many of which had begun building iron steamships in the late 1840s and 1850s. I thank Crosbie Smith for pointing out this contrast.  99 John Scott Russell to James Napier, 13 March 1863, Napier papers, 90/2/4/36. 100 John Scott Russell to James Napier, 23 March 1863, Napier papers, 90/2/4/36. 101 John Scott Russell to James Napier, 18 April 1863, Napier papers, 90/2/4/36.



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this union ought to be at the heart of the naval architect’s profession. His views were representative of a number of engineers and shipbuilders who believed their skills and knowledge of iron and steam distinguished them from craftsmen. These engineers believed they could be invaluable to the administrators and admirals who managed national shipbuilding projects, if only they were authorised to use them. Russell wrote to Napier: Ever since the time of Socrates, there has been no surer way of becoming unpopular than to insist on having right things done for right reasons. Besides the carrying out of true principles, requires a great deal of self-denial, and it is very difficult to convince a man who has nothing better than opinion to go upon, that you who go upon principle have any better title to be heard than he has.102

Over the following twenty years engineers and naval architects fought to demonstrate that scientific skills, knowledge and ways of working could guarantee naval power. Institute and educate In 1859 Russell began exploring ways to improve the professional standing of naval architects in public affairs. He invited Joseph Woolley (1817– 89), former professor at the Central School of Mathematics and Naval Construction at Portsmouth, and two of his former students, Edward James Reed and Nathaniel Barnaby (1829 –1915) to a meeting at his Sydenham home. They agreed on a plan to form an institution to encourage discussion among ship owners, naval officers, politicians, men of science, marine engineers and naval architects.103 Through this institution they could shape naval architecture as a profession by pursuing an agenda designed to differentiate naval architects from shipbuilders educated through apprenticeships in the craft practice tradition.104 Russell informed Napier that ‘[t]he society of naval architects . . . will . . . be a most powerful body for the protection of the true interest of naval architects . . . [from practical] shipbuilders who “know what they are about.” ’105 102 John Scott Russell to James Napier, 31 January 1860, Napier papers, 90/2/4/36. 103 Particulars from the night are not extant. The official history of the INA claims that Russell offered to pay any initial expenses incurred in holding meetings. Kenneth Barnaby, The institution of naval architects, 1860 –1960: an historical survey of the institution’s transactions and activities over 100 years (London, 1960), 8. 104 For institutions and control see Steven Shapin & Barry Barnes, ‘Science, nature and control: interpreting mechanics’ institutes’, Social Studies of Science 7 (1977), 31–74. 105 John Scott Russell to James Napier, 31 January 1860, Napier papers, 90/2/4/36.

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The founders of the INA combined a mixed set of backgrounds. Like Russell, Woolley had a university education, but after completing the Cambridge mathematics tripos as third wrangler he took religious orders and became a fellow of St John’s College. After serving as rector of Crostwight he served as principal of the Portsmouth school of naval architecture, 1848 –53, and published on geometry.106 Reed and Barnaby, in contrast, received their education through the Royal Dockyards and at the Portsmouth school. Reed began as an apprentice at Sheerness Dockyard before entering the Central School of Mathematics. In 1851 he married Rosetta Barnaby, Nathaniel’s sister. He returned to Sheerness in 1852, but found little interest in the mould loft work that he had been assigned. The next year he left the dockyard to become editor of the Mechanic’s Magazine, a position he held until the Duke of Somerset appointed him to replace Watts as Chief Constructor in 1863. Barnaby also began as an apprentice at Sheerness. On graduating from the Portsmouth school he was appointed draughtsman at the Royal Dockyard Woolwich, where he remained until he joined the naval construction department in 1854, where he worked on the design of the Warrior. In 1863 he became Reed’s head of staff. The INA founders shared a vision to distinguish naval architects from shipbuilders. The management of this process fell to Reed, who in his role as secretary set out to isolate ‘[m]any of our shipbuilders [who] are not naval architects’.107 Within the INA he designated subscribers as either a ‘member’ or ‘associate member’. Writing to Napier he explained the difference: Members should be such persons who are in your judgement worthy to be deemed ‘naval architects’ – persons who may write after their names ‘M.I.N.A.’, without in any way discrediting the Institution. Associate members are to be such shipbuilders, marine engineers, officers of the Royal and Mercantile Navies, men of science, and other gentlemen as may be able to co-operate with naval architects in the advancement of their profession.108

Reed differentiated the naval architect from shipbuilders who had merely mastered their practice through years of experience. The founders invited forty individuals to attend a founding meeting for the INA, including a number of people who met Reed’s terms. From this group fourteen attended. Eight were in the service of the Admiralty, including Oliver Lang and Henry Chatfield. Within this group there was a smaller social network linked by education. 106 Joseph Woolley, The elements of descriptive geometry (London, 1850). 107 [Edward J. Reed], ‘Introduction’, Transactions 1 (1860), xv–xix, esp. xvii. 108 Edward J. Reed to James Napier, 31 December 1859, Napier papers, 90/2/4/39.



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Barnaby, Reed, Frederick Barnes and J.B.C. Crossland were all graduates of Woolley’s Portsmouth school.109 The other members included the mechanical engineer John Penn (who engined the Warrior), the naval architect John Grantham and the Lloyds surveyors James Martin and J. Horatio Ritchie.110 These individuals agreed that the institution would pursue three broad objectives. First, to bring together in one forum the various ‘results of experience’ from shipbuilders, engineers and naval officers. It was vital to establish a sense of common experience and community through which the interests and skills of naval architects might be recognised and made accessible beyond a small group of experts.111 Second, pursuant of the first objective, to promote ‘experimental and other inquiries as may be deemed essential to the promotion of the science and art of shipbuilding, but are of too great magnitude for private persons to undertake individually’.112 The loan of Royal Navy vessels for experimentation was, for example, more likely when the said experiments were sanctioned and pursued under the authority of an institution. A unified body of naval architects and technical specialists might be more persuasive than a lone experimenter in securing support. This was further demonstrated in the INA’s third objective, ‘the examination of new inventions, and the investigation of this Institution, because no public body to which professional reference could be made, then existed’.113 The notion that the INA alone could examine new inventions reflects the institution’s attempt to establish the boundaries of its authority on naval architecture.114 INA meetings were held at the Royal Society of Arts in London and attracted hundreds of individuals from across the naval community. Reed believed it was ‘desirable to solicit the services of a number of noblemen and gentlemen of great ability and eminence . . . who might be willing to act as Vice-Presidents’.115 109 The remaining four from this group of eight were George Turner (Master Shipwright of H.M. dockyard, Woolwich), Alexander Moore, W. Braham Robinson and Philip Thornton (all Assistant Master Shipwrights). 110 The full list consisted of John Grantham and John White (shipbuilders), John Penn (president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers), John MacGregor (barrister), James Martin and J. Horatio Ritchie (Lloyd’s surveyors). [Edward J. Reed], ‘Introduction’, Transactions 1 (1860), xv. 111 ‘Objects of the institution’, Transactions 1 (1860), xxv. 112 Ibid., xxv. 113 Ibid., xxv. 114 The creation of expertise through exclusion demonstrates an important way in which expert status rests on socialisation into a defined community of experts, see Collins & Evans, Rethinking expertise, 79, 91. 115 [Edward J. Reed], ‘Introduction’, Transactions 1 (1860), xvii.

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The founders approached John Pakington, then Tory First Lord of the Admiralty, to become president.116 They also sought to gain legitimacy and influence with the Admiralty by appointing civilian officials like Paget, James Graham, Henry Corry and Francis Baring to vice-presidential positions.117 Inaugural addresses at the INA drew clear connections between material, naval power and the work of naval architects. In his presidential address Pakington observed that the ‘rapid improvements’ in physical science and engineering had levelled the navies of the world, in effect beginning a new naval race between France, Russia, the United States and England.118 Success in this naval race, Pakington argued, would be achieved only by: taking care that, by the exercise of the skill of our scientific men, our vessels shall be so constructed . . . as to enable them to carry, either, on the one hand, heavy guns and large crews, or, on the other, large cargoes, and still derive all the benefit which they ought to derive from also carrying steam-engines to propel them.119

Vice-admiral the Fourth Earl of Hardwicke (Charles Yorke) struck a similar tone in his introductory address, telling members that ‘It is with great satis­ faction that I come where I shall certainly see the practical art of maritime construction advanced.’120 Hardwicke noted the need for detailed, technical knowledge about these new ships and their behaviour in order that some uniformity could be employed in the navy. ‘Look at the exhibitions in the public dockyards,’ Hardwicke told the INA, ‘[w]e do not know how it is, but we see two vessels launched of the same nominal tonnage, but of entirely 116 Pakington was not the first choice to preside over the new institution. The vicepresidents and members of council requested Algernon Percy, the fourth Duke of Northumberland, but without success. Pakington was elevated from the vice-presidency to the presidency, which he held until his death in 1880. For Pakington see Paul Chilcott, ‘Pakington, John Somerset, first Baron Hampton (1799 –1880)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 117 For a classic study of the role of gentlemen and gentility within science see Steven Shapin, A social history of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, IL, 1994). In the nineteenth century consciousness of class was less rigid but there was still a widespread perception that the gentleman was the individual who would be deferred to in political and social problems, while gentlemen still saw that their burden was to govern and mediate disputes, see Jack Morrell & Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of science: early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), 21– 9, 119 –27. 118 John Somerset Pakington, ‘Inaugural address’, Transactions 1 (1860), 1– 6, esp. 3. 119 Ibid., 4. 120 Charles Yorke, ‘Introductory address’, Transactions 1 (1860), 7– 9, esp. 7– 8.



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different forms, and yet designed for the same purposes.’121 These speeches served to underline the INA’s claim that naval supremacy was dependent on the skills of specially trained naval architects. INA members primarily concerned themselves with drawing the boundaries of division between naval architects and shipbuilders. There was a second group that also presented a threat to their authority, civil engineers. In the early 1860s members of the Institution of Civil Engineers, specifically John Hawkshaw and George Bidder, turned their attention to the problems of designing and constructing iron steamships. The Institution of Civil Engineers had been in existence for over forty years, and had held a royal charter since 1828. In the pages of Reed’s Mechanic’s Magazine, a correspondent, possibly Reed, wrote about this ‘gratifying and amusing rivalry’.122 The article prescribed a test that anyone speaking about naval architecture needed to pass: the only people who can really improve our shipbuilding, and particularly our war shipbuilding, are those who are competent to step forth from the region of loose generalities, and grapple with the practical difficulties of the constructor’s business . . . We do not want . . . a mass of vague generalities and assertion, the reality and value of which vanish so soon as they are subjected to a scientific test . . . we are bound to require that every amateur naval architect shall comply with the laws of science, or rather the laws of nature, and shall have something new to state, before he sets himself up as a teacher and an innovator.123

The correspondent, identifying with the work of the INA, stressed the importance of bringing scientific insight to the practical work that naval architects undertook, singling out INA members in the process. In 1861 Russell took to the INA podium to examine the professional relationship between naval architects and naval officers. He began by acknowledging that iron complicated the existing tensions in the design process, making the productive collaboration between architects and officers more important than ever. Russell’s language to describe the collaboration demonstrated the wider process of institutionalising the authority of naval architects: inviting ‘those gentlemen who have naval experience, and who know what they want in a ship at sea and in action . . . to join with and assist us in the discussion of these professional points’.124 Russell believed that the best means of providing 121 Ibid., 8. 122 ‘Civil engineers as shipbuilders’, Mechanics’ Magazine (7 February 1862), 75 –7, esp. 75. 123 Ibid., esp. 76. 124 John Scott Russell, ‘On the professional problem presented to naval architects in the construction of iron cased vessels of war’, Transactions 2 (1861), 17–37, esp. 18.

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useful ships for the Royal Navy was to ensure that its officers consulted naval architects about what they wanted – recognising that it was within the power of the naval architect to design a better warship than an admiral or politician might prescribe. What must govern the ship is the object, aim, intention, and purpose of her existence; and it is her first purpose that she should be fit for the uses of the sailor. If it be true that the British sailor is the best in the world, it is the duty of the nation to see that he has the best ships in the world to fight in. I am, therefore, glad that this Society has been the means of bringing together on this occasion, not only so many members of my own profession, but also so many of the naval profession closely allied to it.125

Russell also hoped that the INA would provide a forum to nurture credibility for new ironclads. He believed that the free exchange of knowledge and experience would ‘confirm the conviction on the minds of those [i.e. naval officers] most able to judge’.126 Russell offered the INA as a place of mediation, but there were more aggressive strategies available where the institution might be used to codify and police the boundaries of naval architecture authority. Rankine, who became an important contributor to discussions on ship roll, used the annual meetings to set a hierarchy of knowledge gathering and analysis: ‘gentlemen who are constructors’ would profit from ‘gentlemen who are sailors [and] would collect actual experience for us’.127 Other INA members promoted the importance of naval architecture through alarmist rhetoric. In the INA’s first academic paper Woolley described the national dangers of neglecting the science of shipbuilding and relying on ‘rule of thumb’ approaches. He contended that without scientific enquiry ‘the practice of ship-building must on the whole be stationary, and the country where this state of things exists must be content to see her ships surpassed by those of a country where science is in more request’.128 INA founders sought to construct a united front against those groups with whom they competed for authority. An important strategy for solidifying that front was the institution of permanent educational provision for naval architects. INA members had emphasised the importance of theoretical and mathematical skills for the investigation of major problems like ship form and 125 Ibid., 23. 126 Ibid., 21. 127 W.J. Macquorn Rankine, ‘Remarks on Mr. Froude’s theory on the rolling of ships’, Transactions 3 (1862), 22– 45, esp. 43. 128 Joseph Woolley, ‘On the present state of the mathematical theory of naval architecture’, Transactions 1 (1860), 10 –38, esp. 11.



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resistance, roll and structural strength. Woolley, who specialised in geometry, told members: ‘if we consider the actual character of problems to be solved, can we fail in seeing that a very considerable amount of mathematical power is needful for their solution?’129 It made sense that the same members would ask how the government intended to provide instruction in mathematics and hydrodynamic theory. The Portsmouth school having been closed, the only government training for naval architects was on the job dockyard apprenticeships. Not until 1883 was the first university course in naval architecture offered by Glasgow University. In 1863 Russell led the INA in petitioning the government to establish a new school of naval architecture – the third such venture in the nineteenth century. In introducing the petition he revealed the current use of the original School of Naval Architecture (SNA) building. In 1863 it was home to a clerk and an accountant paying a ‘paltry’ £60 rent. Russell saw this use of resources as a reminder of how experience and ‘empiricism’, ‘an empiricism which pretended to despise the laws, methods, and the principles of science’, prevailed over ‘the cause of science and professional skill’ for authority in the Navy. The building also ‘typifies and represents the condition of the science of naval architecture, as it exists and is promoted by the Government of great naval England . . . It is the monument of a mutilated profession, holding up in sight of the British public the stump of its right arm.’ Russell painted a powerful image, closing his argument with the claim that the Admiralty funded the study of naval architecture only at moments when it ‘can no longer proceed in the routine of copying old plans and replacing old ships’.130 As with the Warrior, there were politics to be played in petitioning the government. Russell observed that promising naval architects, including Admiralty constructors and the sons of commercial ship designers, were sent to Toulon, L’Orient and Paris to learn mathematics and the science of naval architecture from French authorities like Dupuis de Lôme and M. Reesch.131 Citing Anglo-French naval rivalry may have been blunt, but it was effective. Russell also alluded to the belief that while Britain produced the world’s finest sailors, they were forced to fight in some of the world’s most poorly planned vessels, an argument that cited much the same material as his criticisms of Admiralty ship design policy. INA papers on education galvanised debate in 129 Joseph Woolley, ‘On the education of naval architects’, Transactions 5 (1864), 262–71, esp. 265. 130 John Scott Russell, ‘On the education of naval architecture in England and France’, Transactions 4 (1863), 163– 85, esp. 163, 165, 168. 131 Ibid., 164.

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Parliament and the press between those who looked to science and mathe­ matics or to common sense and empiricism to guarantee British naval power. Pakington met with Somerset on behalf of the INA and frequently raised the topic in Parliament when government interest in the petition ebbed.132 In June 1863 Paget informed Parliament that ‘the Admiralty were making inquiries with a view to a future supply of Architects, not only for the Royal Navy, but also for the private trade of this country; and all their inquiries tended to the establishment of a mixed system of education rather than of one confined exclusively to the Royal Navy’.133 Pakington and the INA required the support of a liberal coalition concerned with economic affairs. Augustus Smith, Liberal MP for Truro, believed that the small sum of £2,300 to establish the school would likely grow and become ‘a heavy expense in the end’.134 Smith, a philanthropist who established numerous social improvement projects and schools of industry, took issue with the government’s decision to ‘waste money’ on establishing a new educational facility while there were already sites in industrial shipbuilding towns (including laboratories at Portsmouth and Devonport).135 Money aside, the parliamentary debates reveal the deep tensions between MPs about whether science added anything to the craft practice of ship design (in some ways inverting the tone of parliamentary debates examined in Chapter 2).136 Smith continued: ‘The school ought to be established where there could be daily instruction in all the different practical operations of shipbuilding.’137 He perceived naval architecture to be a ‘practical’ art, dependent on craft, industry and skilled labour, not mathematics, metallurgy and methodologies used by men of science. Disagreements about what teaching naval architecture entailed impinged on the controversial question of where a new school should be based. Russell, through his connections with the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, 132 ‘School of naval architecture, question’, Hansard 170 (30 April 1863), 990. 133 ‘School of naval architecture, question’, Hansard 171 (8 June 1863), 518 –19. 134 ‘Discussion of science and the School of Naval Architecture during a session on Navy Supply’, Hansard 173 (29 February 1864), 1308. 135 ‘School of Naval Architecture. Resolution’, Hansard 176 (30 June 1864), 501. For Smith see Peter Mandler, ‘Smith, Augustus John (1804 –1872)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 136 For government ideas on education and industry see Martin Daunton, Wealth and welfare: an economic and social history of Britain, 1851–1951 (Oxford, 2007), 500 –7; Michael Argles, South Kensington to Robbins: an account of English technical and scientific education since 1851 (London, 1964), 15. 137 ‘School of Naval Architecture. Resolution’, Hansard 176 (30 June 1864), 501.



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Manufacturers and Commerce, forged connections with Earl Granville and Sir Henry Cole to explore basing the school in London. Granville, a Whig politician with connections across the political sphere, had been a VicePresident of the Board of Trade and Chancellor of the University of London (1856 –71).138 He advocated a link with the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington and Cole.139 Cole, a civil servant, had spent almost twenty years working to transform South Kensington into a national centre for the arts and sciences.140 Between the 1850s and 1870s the South Kensington Museum, Department of Science and Art, Albert Hall and gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society were built from the profits and successes of the Great Exhibition – all projects which united Granville, Cole and Russell.141 Paget supported the proposal, reminding Parliament that this would be a mixed educational institution: ‘If we put it [the school] at any of the dockyards or in any Admiralty building it would be looked upon as a Government school, and it would be said “This is a Government concern. It is not open to the public. We shall be too much in the power of Admiralty.” ’142 The focus was not to train shipwrights from traditional naval towns for government service, but to provide an education that was accessible to everyone in Britain for the benefit of industry. South Kensington was fast becoming a hub of scientific activity, but in parliamentary discussion the location served to highlight a lack of practical training. Seymour Fitzgerald, Conservative MP for Horsham, mocked the scheme, comparing it to basing ‘a School of Agriculture in the heart of London’.143 Captain Henry Jervis-White-Jervis, Conservative MP for Harwich, asked ‘what opportunity was there at Kensington to test the displacement of 138 Muriel E. Chamberlain, ‘Gower, Granville George Leveson, second Earl Granville (1815 –1891)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 139 ‘Discussion of science and the School of Naval Architecture during a session on Navy Supply’, Hansard 173 (29 February 1864), 1312. For Cole see Elizabeth Bonython & Anthony Burton, The great exhibitor: the life and work of Henry Cole (London, 2003). 140 Jeffrey Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1851: a nation on display (New Haven, CT, 1999), 199 –200. 141 D.S.L. Cardwell, The organisation of science in England (London, 1972), 75 – 85. For Cole and South Kensington chemistry see Robert Bud & Gerrylynn K. Roberts, Science versus practice: chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1984). 142 ‘Paget’s presentation of the navy estimate scientific branch’, Hansard 173 (25 February 1864), 1112. 143 ‘Discussion of science and the School of Naval Architecture during a session on Navy Supply’, Hansard 173 (29 February 1864), 1312–14.

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water?’144 He continued, ‘It was absurd to teach a number of boys to draw lines upon paper. What was wanted, was to enable them to lay down lines for ships – to become practical shipbuilders – and that could not be done at Kensington.’145 Critics of the location drew links between place, syllabus and their sense of what naval architecture involved. In contrast, the spatial division between South Kensington and the Royal Dockyards served the disciplinary division that members of the INA actively sought to draw between naval architects and shipbuilders. In February 1864, Paget announced in the navy estimates that £2,300 would be used to prepare rooms and pay for two lecturers at the Royal School of Naval Architecture (RSNA), South Kensington.146 The Admiralty placed the RSNA under the control of the Department of Science and Art, with Granville ensuring Department of Science and Art apparatus and apartments would be provided for the students.147 Woolley was appointed Superintendent, the office he had held at the Central School of Naval Architecture and Mathematics in Portsmouth.148 Charles Merrifield, a lawyer and examiner in the education department at Whitehall who had taught himself mathematics and become an influential member of the INA, was appointed Principal.149 Finally, Henry John Purkiss, a senior wrangler from the Cambridge mathematics tripos, was ap­pointed Vice-principal.150 Purkiss was one of many ‘brilliant younger graduates of Cambridge University’ who joined the teaching staff at South Kensington.151 144 Ibid., 1312. 145 Ibid., 1312. 146 ‘Paget’s presentation of the navy estimate scientific branch’, Hansard 173 (25 February 1864), 1112; ‘Discussion of science and the School of Naval Architecture during a session on Navy Supply’, Hansard 173 (29 February 1864), 1308 – 9. 147 For physics laboratory teaching and teaching at the Department of Science and Art, see Graeme Gooday, ‘Precision measurement and the genesis of physics teaching laboratories in Victorian Britain’ (Ph.D. thesis, Canterbury, 1989). Also see Argles, South Kensington, 21– 9. 148 ‘Discussion of science and the School of Naval Architecture during a session on Navy Supply’, Hansard 173 (29 February 1864), 1308. ‘Introductory proceedings’, Transactions 6 (1865), xvii–xxiv, esp. xvii–xviii. 149 Throughout the 1860s and 1870s Merrifield was a central figure in INA and section G of the BAAS. He joined Russell and Rankine in refuting Froude’s early theories on ship behaviour. For Merrifield see Adrian Rice, ‘Merrifield, Charles Watkins (1827–1884)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 150 Purkis died shortly after being appointed, while bathing in the Cam. ‘Introductory Proceedings’, Transactions 6 (1865), xxiv. 151 William H. White, ‘The history of the Institution of Naval Architects and of scientific education in naval architecture’, Transactions 53 (1911), 1–33, esp. 20.



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This connection was no doubt facilitated by Woolley, who was a fellow of St John’s College. In late 1864 the RSNA was opened with a short address by Woolley on the objects of the school, and a paper by Merrifield aptly titled ‘The Science of Naval Architecture’.152 The first class at the RSNA included sixteen apprentices from Royal Dockyards and four private students. The school subsequently advertised scholarships in the London newspapers, accepted students from abroad (who were, after some debate, permitted to compete with domestic students for Admiralty scholarships) and, at Woolley’s request, began to accept students who had already completed a training programme (of more than six years) as dockyard apprentices.153 The teaching texts used at the school included Rankine’s Manual of applied mechanics (1858), Rankine et al., Shipbuilding (1866), Woolley’s Elements of descriptive geometry (1850), Golding Bird and Charles Brook’s Elements of natural philosophy (1839), Stephen Parkinson’s An elementary treatise on mechanics (1863) and, later, Reed’s Shipbuilding in iron and steel: a practical treatise (1869).154 Students were also encouraged to read theological texts, including William Paley’s A view of the evidences of Christianity (1794) and Joseph Butler’s The analogy of religion (1734). The South Kensington course placed greater focus on ‘the higher branches of mathematics’ than did an apprenticeship training in craft practice.155 To this end, Woolley hoped that students at the school would be stimulated by the scientific networks and lectures in London, including, but not limited, to the INA. South Kensington’s proximity to the network of scientific experts that operated in London was also beneficial to the school’s teaching, and the superintendent and principal took advantage of the available talent. During the school’s first years of operation Woolley and Merrifield invited the Astronomer Royal, George Biddell Airy, to lecture on compass correction, William Fairbairn on the strength of iron ships, Captain Sir Leopold Heath on naval tactics and artillery, Rankine on propulsion and mechanics, Reed on ‘practical shipbuilding’, Barnaby, Barnes and Crossland on equipment and propulsion and William Froude on stability and oscillation.156 The Admiralty showed its willingness 152 Frederic Manning, The life of Sir William White (London, 1923), 10. 153 ‘Admiralty letter digests section 1.a, 1866’, Admiralty papers, ADM 12/788. 154 [Anon.], ‘Information concerning the school’, The Annual of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 1 (1871), 84 – 91, esp. 90 –1. 155 ‘Discussion of science and the School of Naval Architecture during a session on Navy Supply’, Hansard 173 (29 February 1864), 1308. 156 W[illiam].H. W[hite], ‘Three English schools of naval architecture’, The Annual of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 4 (1874), 7–26, esp. 15.

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to support the school by paying lecturers’ fees and making personnel avail­ able to the school, such as Thomas Moore and William Bridges, who taught modelling at the school.157 The Admiralty also provided professors and students access to their dockyards and the extensive model collections held at Somerset House. The choice of professors and teaching texts demonstrate the control that the INA was able to exert over the new school. Virtually all the personnel involved in teaching courses were members of the INA who shared Russell and Woolley’s views that mathematics, theory and practice could be harmonised in a way that prioritised theory and experiment over art and experience. The RSNA founders had hoped that private shipbuilders and engineers would be drawn towards the idea of a ‘national school’ and support it financially through donations and sponsoring their own apprentices to take courses. This never happened and the Admiralty grew concerned with its financial support of private shipbuilding. The financial administration of the school came under attack as early as 1865, when the Lord President of the Council requested that ‘if the school is to continue under the direction of the Science & Art Department’, the Admiralty should not be required to make any financial provisions except for Admiralty students. Reed, who was then Chief Constructor of the Navy, objected but the Duke of Somerset followed the Lord President’s suggestion.158 This marked the beginning of a series of reforms with which the Admiralty brought the education of naval architects and marine engineers back under its control. But come 1872, when the RSNA was moved to Greenwich, the perception of naval architecture and what was important in an iron, steam-powered navy had significantly changed (see Chapters 4 and 5). The founders of the INA and RSNA successfully instituted a new discipline of naval architecture as an engineering science. The decade of education provided in South Kensington transformed the training of naval architects and re-orientated the perception of what skills they required. The cultural significance of South Kensington and its physical separation from the Navy’s dockyards cemented the adjustments between theory and practice that members of the INA advocated. In the lecture theatre, classroom, meetings of the INA and the Admiralty constructor’s office social connections were formed that linked sites of theory, manufacture and spheres of control within government. Perhaps the most important contribution of the RSNA was the network of professional and professorial ship designers and engineers who graduated and took hold of institutions across the public and private sectors of shipbuilding 157 ‘Admiralty letter digests, section 1.a, 1866’, Admiralty papers, ADM 12/788. 158 ‘Admiralty letter digests, section 1.a, 1865’, Admiralty papers, ADM 12/762.



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across Britain: William H. White, Francis Elgar, John Harvard Biles, H.E. Deadman, William John, Josiah Richard Perrett and Frank Purvis. This group of con­ temporaries led the practice and continued study of naval architecture in the Admiralty, commercial yards and education sector. The INA and its initial members worked hard to raise the professional status of naval architects through institutionalisation and education, but the complex questions relating to the design of iron ships entailed a substantial amount of debate and conflict. Disagreements among Russell, Rankine, Woolley and Froude about the use of models to examine problems in ship stability proved to be particularly tense. These debates are examined in Chapter 5, but for now it is worth mentioning that naval officers like Fishbourne observed these debates and used evidence of disagreements to suggest that neither side understood the issue. This served his work of advocating theories of naval architecture that he drew from nautical experience and mathematics.

4

The Captain catastrophe and the politics of authority

The government of England has been making a large experiment, in which the whole English people take a profound interest, personal as well as national. That experiment has just concluded with a result absolute, decided, and overwhelming. The object of the experiment is therefore obtained: it has settled all the questions it was to decide – one way. The experiment has cost at the least £350,000, and some 500 human lives. That is no doubt an experiment on a sufficiently grand scale to warrant the deep interest the nation takes in its results . . . John Scott Russell sees the controversial HMS Captain as a costly experiment in naval architecture.1

On 27 March 1869, HMS Captain was launched from John Laird’s Birkenhead dockyard. The 320-foot iron screw turret ship left the slipway in a launching ceremony eagerly watched by Hugh Childers, the Liberal Party’s First Lord of the Admiralty, and the ship’s designer, Captain Cowper Coles.2 The Captain fully represented Coles’s ideas of what a turret ship should be, and her launch the culmination of over ten years’ effort, involving public engagements and political manoeuvres, to secure what he considered an ideal trial for demonstrating his design ideas. Coles had no formal training or connection to Admiralty naval architects. He was in fact a vocal critic of the Chief Constructor, Edward James Reed, and his designs. Coles formed his ideas on turrets and ship design from personal naval experience and by reading accounts of contemporary naval battles. Beginning in the Crimean War, he advocated new ways of delivering the firepower of heavy guns to shore and sea targets. Encouraged by accounts of the Monitors involved in the naval engagements of the American Civil War (1861– 65), and 1 John Scott Russell, ‘The loss of the “Captain” ’, Macmillan Magazine 22 (October 1870), 473– 80. 2 ‘Her Majesty’s Ship Captain’, The Times 26400 (1 April 1869), 4.



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in particular the Battle of Hampton Roads, he and a group of fellow naval officers and politicians utilised professional, public and political forums to promote an experiment in naval architecture with gun turrets. In this manoeuvring Coles was positioned as a skilled judge of ship performance, deserving of government authority to direct the design of a sea-going turret ship. In a series of articles in the Tory publication Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Captain Sherard Osborn analysed the recent history of material change in the Royal Navy, and highlighted Coles’s turret system as essential to the continued reconstruction of the Navy.3 Osborn had a public profile, thanks to popular publications on John Franklin’s Arctic expedition and his own service in China. He was appointed to Captain Coles’s first experiment with turrets, HMS Royal Sovereign, a 121-gun three-decker converted in 1862. Osborn promoted Coles’s design ideas throughout the 1860s and 1870s, and defended his fellow officer from the criticisms of naval architects and engineers. When called to testify to an Admiralty committee on warship design, he maintained Coles’s criticism of Reed’s turret ship HMS Monarch as ‘very seriously defective as compared with ships of the “Captain” class, or, again, as compared with the large Monitor turret-ships of America or of Russia’.4 Osborn also introduced Coles to Hugh Burgoyne, a naval officer who had accompanied him as secondin-command of an Anglo-Chinese flotilla in 1863. Burgoyne, Admiral Baldwin Walker’s son-in-law, was appointed to superintend the construction of the Captain and command her maiden voyage. The Captain received approval from various admirals and captains who followed her launch and trial (Figure 4.1). The main object of their attention was the ship’s four 12-inch, 25-ton turrets.5 The sheer weight of the turrets, combined with Coles’s desire for them to sit close to the waterline and the ship to have narrow form and fine lines, gave the Captain a low freeboard (the height of her deck above the water). This did not escape the officers’ notice, but Coles’s credibility within the Admiralty was such that it did not warrant concern. Moreover, the witnesses of the Captain’s sea trials judged her to be a good sailing vessel. The ship’s combination of heavy turrets, thick armour 3 [Sherard Osborn], ‘Iron-clad ships of war’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 88 (November 1860), 616 –32; [Sherard Osborn], ‘Iron-clad ships of war’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 88 (December 1860), 633– 49; [Sherard Osborn], ‘Iron-clad ships of war, and our defences’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 89 (March 1861), 304 –17; [Sherard Osborn], ‘The turret-ships of England and America’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 101 (March 1867), 199 –219. 4 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, 1872 (C477), 84. 5 In comparison, HMS Warrior, built earlier in the decade, was armed with ten 110-pounder, four 70-pounder and twenty-six 68-pounder broadside guns.

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4.1  HMS Captain (c.1870)

and three fully rigged masts appeared to be the latest example of the dramatic material changes that had begun in the Navy with the introduction of steam and iron. On 17 August 1870, a squadron of ships, including the Captain, Monarch and HMS Warrior, arrived off the west coast of Spain to join the Channel and Mediterranean squadrons under the command of Admiral Alexander Milne, Admiral Sir Hasting Yelverton and Rear-Admiral Henry Chads. Sometime after midnight on 7 September, the Captain, cruising off Cape Finisterre, disappeared from the fleet’s view. The ship had experienced heavy gales and capsized, taking over 500 officers and men to the bottom, including the ship’s designer. Others lost in this disaster, one of the costliest peace-time naval disasters in British history, included Hugh Burgoyne (the captain) and the sons of Admiral Walker, Hugh Childers and the Earl of Northbrook (undersecretary of war in the Liberal government). Milne wrote in his diary: ‘This sad catastrophe is a most dreadful affair. 509 officers and crew launched into eternity.’6 Memorials to the ship and crew were later unveiled in St Paul’s cathedral and Westminster abbey. The loss of the Captain in 1870 came as a shock to the Navy and the nation. The initial reporting in the press expressed surprise at the manner of the loss, 6 Alexander Milne’s diary, 7 September 1870, Alexander Milne papers, National Maritime Museum, London (hereafter Milne papers), 175/13.



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and suspected that the credibility of the turret ship would suffer: ‘The shock to public confidence in the new turret-ships is a part of the surprise with which people have received such an unparalleled event as the sudden sinking of a vessel of the tonnage of the Captain, and manned like her, in the very centre of a fleet.’7 A court martial concluded that the ship’s design was fundamentally flawed. The combination of a large canvas of sail and low freeboard seriously jeopardised the ship’s ability to resist heavy gales and waves that would push her to capsize. News of the judgement spread through the naval, engineering and political communities. It engulfed the three different Admiralty boards that ordered and oversaw the ship’s design and construction, the naval officers who had supported Coles and deemed the initial trial a success and the professional naval architects who cautioned against the ship’s design. After a decade of lobbying, developing political alliances and public support for the turret system, the loss of the Captain presented a moment of crisis for the authority of all those connected to this very public experiment. John Scott Russell used the tragic news of the shipwreck to reveal the powerful political authority at work in the ship’s construction. He was particularly drawn to the roles of the House of Commons, and of a group of politicians who shaped the House’s perception of naval ships: There has long been in the House of Commons a Turret-ship party, and the construction of the turret-ship Captain, under the superintendence of Captain Cowper Coles, was the culmination of success and the crowning glory of that party. For many years they have been in the habit of vilifying the performance of every ship of the Royal Navy which was not a turret-ship of this sort, and after many years of indefatigable perseverance they compelled a reluctant Admiralty to sanction and authorize the construction of the Captain.8

The lobbying efforts of Coles and his associates throughout the 1860s drove this political construction. Coles employed public and political pressure to gain authority over the naval architects and engineers who argued that there were fundamental problems in the ship’s design. The loss of the Captain became a focal point for contemporary debates on design authority. It has since been subject to a number of historical interpretations. Historians agree that her design was flawed, leaving much of the analysis to focus on why the ship was designed and allowed to go to sea. A number of interpretations have been offered, ranging from a ‘professionals’ 7 ‘The loss of the “Captain” ’, Spectator 43 (17 September 1870), 1112–13, esp. 1112. See also ‘Her Majesty’s Ship Captain’, The Times 26854 (13 September 1870), 3. 8 Russell, ‘Loss of the “Captain” ’, 473.

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vs. ‘amateurs’ thesis to overtly partisan explanations for the ship’s design.9 Nicholas Rodger, for instance, called the Captain ‘the Liberal’s answer to Tory naval architecture . . . she was designed to show the naval world the enlightened spirits of scientific progress at sea’.10 His explanation is questionable in a number of respects. The Duke of Somerset’s Liberal Board first entered into discussions with Cowper Coles, and the ship was sent to sea by Hugh Childers’ Liberal Board, but it was John Pakington’s Conservative Board that ordered the ship and gave Coles the authority to direct her design and construction. Furthermore, Coles was a captain in the Royal Navy with no background in mathe­ matics, naval architecture or hydrodynamics, and thus cannot be considered to have embodied a spirit of ‘scientific progress’ derived from the institutional study and practice of naval science. Unlike a previous Royal Navy captainturned-ship-designer, William Symonds, Coles made no attempt to nurture an aura of ‘enlightened spirits’. However, there was a powerful re-emergence of the notion that nautical experience was pivotal to establishing the credibility of naval architecture and ship design concepts. Existing scholarship on this episode is overburdened with Whiggish notions of ‘scientific progress’ and hypotheses about what went wrong in the design of the Captain. It might be more productive instead to ask the crucial question: why was Coles given the authority to design a ship? This opens up a number of further problems: precisely how did Coles gain authority with the Admiralty? Why did naval officers trust Coles instead of the staff of their own Constructor’s department? And how, on its initial trials, was the Captain found to be a safe ship? Coles developed substantial personal and professional credibility through the 1860s, which he transformed into authority with the help of members of a Tory lobby in the House of Commons and naval officers in the Royal Navy. A central element of this process was the sustained criticism that these groups made of the Admiralty Controller, Admiral Robert Spencer Robinson, and the Chief Constructor, Reed. A specific group of politicians and officers claimed that these technical officers lacked the knowledge, skill and judgement to produce a fleet of ships capable of maintaining British power at sea. This chapter builds on the analysis in Chapter 1 concerning naval experience and authority and in Chapter 3 relating to the professionalisation of   9 John Beeler, Birth of the battleship: British capital ship design 1870 –1881 (Chatham, 2001); John Beeler, British naval policy in the Gladstone-Disraeli era, 1866 –1880 (Stanford, 1997), 111– 40; Andrew Lambert, Battleships in transition: the creation of a steam battle fleet (Chatham, 1984); Stanley Sandler, ‘The emergence of the modern capital ship’, Technology and Culture, 11 (1970), 576 – 95, esp. 578 – 85. 10 Nicholas A.M. Rodger, The Admiralty (Lavenham, 1979), 110.



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naval architecture, to explore the tensions between authority and profession in ship design. It will be seen that the claims of professional naval architects, working within the Admiralty, could be neglected or negated if naval officers could bring political pressure to bear on their own claims to authority. Naval architects, naval officers and professional rivalry Chapter 3 examined how a particular group of naval architects worked to define their profession by distinguishing between naval architects, shipbuilders and other associated crafts practitioners. Through the INA they defined what a naval architect was and policed who could become one through their membership and schemes for education. Beyond the INA, however, the authority of these actors required the recognition of their skills and a conferral of power. How actors in positions of influence, such as the First Lord of the Admiralty and members of the House of Commons, perceived the work of naval architects was crucial to this. Prior to resigning the post of Chief Constructor in 1863, Isaac Watts commanded the respect of dockyard shipwrights with whom he had worked, and the trust of administrators and naval officers who recognised his many years of service. Observers associated Watts with the craft-work traditions of the dockyard and the existing order of authority and skill within the Royal Navy. His replacement, Reed (Figure 4.2), had no such experience, and thus cut a very different figure. Through his work with the INA, Reed advocated an approach to ship design that placed greater emphasis on theory and experiment than on the experiences and judgements of naval officers. Reed maintained his practice of naval architecture while editing the Mech­anic’s Magazine and in 1862 submitted plans for converting wooden sloops into armoured ships, and the following year the Duke of Somerset invited Reed to take office as Chief Constructor.11 MPs criticised the government for overlooking experienced master shipwrights like Oliver Lang, who had advanced through the dockyard over a long career. In parliamentary discussion, Frederick Smith, MP for Chatham, queried whether Reed had received any training for this position and reported that he ‘had never built a ship in his life, and was now building a ship which was only an experiment, and might be a failure’.12 Reed responded to what he saw as ‘slander’ and ‘personal abuse’ by writing letters to the MPs involved, agitating the situation and inducing 11 David K. Brown, ‘Reed, Sir Edward James (1830 –1906)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 12 ‘The Navy – Appointment of Mr. Reed. – question’, Hansard 169 (20 February 1863), 572–73; ‘The navy – estimates’, Hansard 169 (23 February 1863), 705 – 6.

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4.2  Sir Edward James Reed, by Wooyeno (1879)



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further criticism in Parliament, where calls were made for censure and resignation.13 Reed was forthright and, as a servant of the state, he refused to defer to his superiors in government or members of Parliament who, he believed, did not have sufficient knowledge to assess his work with any sophistication. He did not have amicable relations with admirals, except for Robinson, his superior in the Controller’s office. Reed fuelled antagonism with naval officers by expressing dismay at their views on ship design and behaviour. In an 1866 lecture at the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, Reed recalled his response to a naval officer concerned that loading extra cargo would bring the vessel ‘down to her “bearings” ’. Confused by the officer’s meaning, Reed explained: I assured him that the ship was all right; that she had so many tons per inch of displacement at and near her load draught, and that a ton taken on board would only immerse her to the extent of a ton, neither more nor less, whether she had got her “bearings” or not. He declared that this was all wrong. It might, he said, be science, but it was not fact, for in truth each ton now taken on board sank her six times as much as a ton had previously. If he had no science of his own, I could have hoped to convince him that a ship’s displacement in still water, and when she is unrestrained by lashings and otherwise, is an exact counterpart of the weight of herself and all on board, and that whether it was a pound, or a ton, or a hundred tons, that was added to her, no matter what her shape or her draught of water, her immersion would be exactly increased correspondingly by a pound, or a ton, or a hundred tons. But it was his science that stood in the way of my science, and that worthy officer probably believes as stoutly as ever in the doctrine of “bearings,” of which I avow myself wholly and absolutely ignorant. He no doubt regarded me as a theorist, and himself as a sound practical sailor down to the present hour.14

Reed believed that the ‘practical knowledge’ of naval officers was not to be trusted. He felt that years of tacit experience and making observations at sea, without detailed theoretical study, confirmed misguided doctrines and principles in the minds of naval officers. Doctrines like that described in Reed’s lecture may have contained a certain logic, or been supported by prima facie observation, but that did not mean they were accurate accounts of physical phenomena. 13 ‘Breach of privilege’, Hansard 169 (26 February 1863), 800 –2. 14 Edward J. Reed, ‘On the value of technical education to the shipwright and ship owner, 25 November 1886’, in [The Worshipful Company of Shipwrights] (ed.), The Worshipful Company of Shipwrights lectures (London, 1886 – 87), 3–28, esp. 19 –20.

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The previous chapter noted how Reed and the founders of the INA used membership of the institution to mark a distinction between naval architects and shipwrights. The same concern can be seen in many of the papers presented at the first sessions that sought a new basis of naval design in theory and experiment. This approach differed from that practised by shipwrights who had trained in the Royal Dockyard’s apprenticeship system of craftwork traditions. Reed and other members of the INA wanted a greater role in the conception, design and judgement of a ship’s behaviour. They considered ship design to be a delicate and complex activity that demanded more scrutiny, specialisation and sophistication – and, consequently, that naval architects needed to be more involved in all aspects of ship design. Members of the INA were aware of the powerful epistemological obstacles that lay ahead if they were to challenge successfully the ways that naval officers judged ship behaviour. They were acutely aware that their own judgements on ship design lacked the credibility that naval officers could derive from observations and tacit experience of ships at sea. The sea was a wild, romantic entity, made all the more dramatic by religious superstition and sailors’ stories.15 Alison Winter has demonstrated the powerful role of sea metaphors in nineteenth-century compass controversies, in which the Astronomer Royal George Airy largely failed to counter the Arctic explorer William Scoresby’s credibility.16 Individuals who experienced phenomena directly and visually have historically been considered a trustworthy class of witnesses. Men of science, however, could employ strategies for casting doubt on the credibility of the testimonies provided by such witness without discrediting the witness or the general reliability of testimonial sources. This point has been well made in Steven Shapin’s analysis of seventeenth-century debates over the physical causes of icebergs. Robert Boyle defended the principles of his ‘precise quantitative experimental hydrostatics’ against seemingly contradictory evidence seen by seafarers in the Arctic. Shapin describes how Boyle discredited those testimonies by drawing attention to the omission of essential information on which the

15 For mythologies of the sea see Cynthia Fansler Behrman, Victorian myths of the sea (Athens, OH, 1977); Bernhard Klein, ‘Introduction: Britain and the sea’, in Bernhard Klein (ed.), Fictions of the sea: critical perspectives on the ocean in British literature and culture (Aldershot, 2002), 1–12. 16 Alison Winter, ‘ “Compasses all awry”: the iron ship and the ambiguities of cultural authority in Victorian Britain’, Victorian Studies 38 (1994), 69 – 98.



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accuracy of the testimony would be judged, and without which the witness could be forgiven for misreading nature.17 Nineteenth-century naval architects, engineers and mathematicians similarly cast doubt on the testimonies of naval officers by examining how the physical experience of the ship at sea gave illusionary and misleading visual observations. The mathematician and engineer William Froude was particularly aware of how misleading the physical experience of ship roll could be. At sea ‘the scenery’, Froude argued, ‘which surrounds the phenomena of rolling motion (especially when these are developed on a very large scale), is for the most part so very striking, and appeals so forcibly to the imagination’.18 He described his own experience on board Brunel’s Leviathan: ‘In the Great Eastern, on a passage to America and back, I found that the angles indicated by a pendulum were always much in excess [of the ship’s roll] . . . and thus the chandeliers suspended on the cabin ceiling conveyed to the passengers who watched them a very excessive notion of the angles obtained.’19 A violent sea, gale conditions and visual means of judging ship roll produced an experience of greater, more dramatic, roll than Froude calculated took place. Years of naval experience did not nurture the type of trained judgement of ship roll that Froude pursued through mechanical measurement and calculation; rather, it reduced the naval officer’s sensitivity. Those ‘whose life is spent among such phenomena, and who have become familiarized to them by habit’, Froude believed, ‘have become accustomed chiefly to regard them under their impressive aspect’. He noted that even the phrases naval officers used to describe waves and settle the ship reinforced the delusory sensation of roll.20 He thereby constructed the argument that naval officers were not credible witnesses, not because their skills of observation and judgement were inferior, but because they were compromised by the environment in which such witnessing occurred. INA members employed strategies to show how the knowledge, skills and practices they brought to ship design were more credible than those of naval officers. However, as Reed acknowledged, the interests that naval officers held in ship design were ensconced within their profession’s own fabric of epistemological, ontological and institutional concerns. Many of these were expressed at the Royal United Service Institution (RUSI). If the INA was the hub of 17 Steven Shapin, A social history of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, IL, 1994), 253– 8. 18 William Froude, ‘On the rolling of ships’, Transactions 2 (1861), 180 –230, esp. 181. 19 Discussion following W.J. Macquorn Rankine, ‘Remarks on Mr. Froude’s theory on the rolling of ships’, Transactions 3 (1862), 22– 45, esp. 41. 20 William Froude, ‘On the rolling of ships’, Transactions 2 (1861), 181.

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scientifically orientated ship design, then the RUSI was the forum for naval officers to express their own views on design to a generally sympathetic audience. It was also an older and more established institution. Unlike the INA, the RUSI had a royal charter and an extensive list of aristocratic and government patrons, including the Prince of Wales, William Gladstone, Edward Cardwell, George Goschen, Charles Beresford and Charles Napier. The vicepresidents and council members were generals, colonels and admirals. The RUSI was a powerful and politically connected forum for the discussion of naval policy, free from the technical specialisation and vocabulary that could alienate the lay audience at the INA. Reed was particularly concerned to promote the INA’s involvement in British naval architecture. Not content for his criticisms of ‘sailor science’ to be waged at specific individuals, he provided a universal dismissal of the discussions of ship design and behaviour that took place at the RUSI: The United Service Institution itself has not infrequently been made the channel of spurious science and dangerous doctrine; and it is obvious that a local association of junior officers [based in London], while on the one hand it would experience great difficulty in procuring a constant supply of sound scientific papers, on the other might very easily become the instrument of charlatans.21

Reed’s partisan, post-Captain criticisms aside, the nature of the RUSI’s authority and role in nineteenth-century ship design requires attention. The RUSI was founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington to study the ‘professional art’ and ‘science’ of naval and military topics. On opening the 1857 annual meeting, Colonel James Lindsay encouraged members to ‘discuss professional and scientific questions’. ‘All the other professions have establishments for imparting professional knowledge and general information’, he observed, but ‘[i]n the learned and scientific societies of the country, naval and military science has been hitherto unrepresented and unrecognised; it is the province of this Institution to fill that vacancy and become to the services what the museum in Jermyn Street [Museum of Practical Geology] is to Geology, and that of Kew to botany’.22 Thus, Lindsay understood ‘science’ as a vital way of ordering knowledge and developing inventions. Scientific knowledge, as many contemporaries perceived it, involved ordering facts in order to understand the relationships between them. It was not primarily a technical discourse controlled by a group that constantly monitored 21 Edward J. Reed, ‘Naval science: editor’s introduction’, Naval Science 1 (1872), 3– 8, esp. 7. 22 James Lindsay, ‘Chairman’s address’, Royal United Service Institution Journal [hereafter RUSI Journal] 1 (1857), 1– 6, esp. 4.



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its boundaries and membership through institutions.23 Various conceptions of science overlapped within the RUSI. These ranged from Lindsey’s notion of science as ordered knowledge and the mathematician-turned-historian John Knox Laughton’s scientific study of naval history, to the concept that ‘science’ was opposed to practical knowledge and Admiral Edmund Fishbourne’s project to develop a sailors’ science of naval architecture.24 These various meanings of ‘science’ require further examination, particularly with regard to claims of authority. For the present study of naval architecture it will suffice to unpack what Fishbourne understood by science. Fishbourne (1811– 87) was a prolific writer on naval architecture, evangelism and China. In 1858 he published a pamphlet of observations on naval architecture which he addressed to the then first lord of the admiralty, John Pakington. He presented himself as someone who had studied naval architecture for ‘many years . . . Both ashore and afloat’, and used ‘facts’ gained while serving and observing experimental squadrons to examine the problem of steadiness in ships of great breadth.25 Through the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s Fishbourne presided over RUSI meetings, providing papers on ship design and naval catastrophes, leading discussions and offering himself as the institution’s de facto authority on naval architecture. In the 1860s, the RUSI provided a forum to discuss the decade’s main naval engineering topic: the value of arming ships with turrets. This topic divided naval architects and naval officers, but not solely along professional lines. Instead, the matter rested on the question of who would govern experiments with turrets, and whether they gave the armament a fair trial. In the RUSI, the turret question was frequently represented in terms of the Admiralty’s opposition to technological change and the tensions, professional and personal, between supporters of the turret and supporters of the broadside. A similar 23 Richard Yeo, ‘Scientific method and the image of science, 1831–1891’, in Roy MacLeod & Peter Collins (eds.), The parliament of science: the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–1981 (London, 1981), 65 – 88, esp. 65 –7. Also see Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian frame of mind, 1830 –1870 (New Haven, CT, 1957), 13; John Brooke, Science and religion: some historical perspectives (Cambridge, 1991), 6 –7; Theodore Porter, ‘How science became technical’, Isis 100 (2009), 292–309. 24 John Knox Laughton, ‘The scientific study of naval history’, RUSI Journal 18 (1874), 508 –27; Andrew Lambert, ‘The development of education in the Royal Navy: 1854 –1914, in Geoffrey Till (ed.), The development of British naval thinking: essays in memory of Bryan Ranft (Oxford, 2006), 34 –59. 25 Edmund Fishbourne, Observations on the present state of naval architecture addressed to the right honourable Sir John Pakington (London, 1858), 1, 3.

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sentiment existed in the press coverage of the turret question. An article in the Saturday Review remarked, ‘[it] is a matter of history that every modern improvement in the construction and armament of ships of war has been condemned in the first instance by official wisdom.’26 The accusation of ‘technological conservatism’ was not limited to engineers struggling to gain support for their work.27 Indeed, Rear-Admiral Charles Webley Hope (1829 – 80) specifically targeted Reed as the source of conservatism at the Admiralty, arguing in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine that the Navy’s openness to experiment drastically shifted when he was appointed Chief Constructor.28 In 1868, Coles presented a paper at the RUSI antagonistically titled ‘The turret system versus the broadside system’. Fishbourne, chairing the paper, invited Reed and Robinson, who were present in the audience, to respond in discussion. He referred to them as the ‘anti-turret party’, and Reed objected to ‘speak[ing] under that form of invitation’.29 The Saturday Review reported the meeting and expressed regret at the tone of the debate: ‘the mischief of these entertaining combats is that the really interesting question in what form a turret-cruiser ought to be built is lost sight of ’.30 During the debate, Reed reminded the audience that he had encouraged Coles to work with the Admiralty on a turret ship built on the dimensions of HMS Bellerophon, but it was Coles who ‘repudiated that idea . . . with no great expression of personal respect for myself ’ on the grounds that the ship would be too large. Reed went on to note that the design of the Captain was larger still.31 The RUSI tended neither to invite members of the INA to present papers nor to express support for the engineering science of naval architecture that INA members developed. A change took place in the 1870s when Nathaniel Barnaby sought to reconcile the institutions, but during the 1860s the rela­ tionship remained tense. The RUSI welcomed consecutive papers on hydrodynamics and ship design written by officers of the Royal Navy who sought to confirm fellow sailors in their observations and judgements concerning ship design. These papers varied in content and partisan rhetoric. An 1867 paper on the laws governing the transition of curves, delivered by Commander B. Sharp, provided a very dense survey of contributions to the topic from Augustin 26 ‘Turret ships’, Saturday Review 20 (8 July 1865), 48 – 9, esp. 48. 27 See the discussion of ‘technological conservatism’ in the Introduction. 28 [C.W. Hope], ‘Our ironclad ships’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 107 (June 1870), 706 –24, esp. 707. 29 Cowper Coles, ‘The turret versus the broadside system’, RUSI Journal 11 (1868), 434 – 84, esp. 457. 30 ‘Turret v. broadside’, Saturday Review 23 (4 May 1867), 558 – 9, esp. 588. 31 Coles, ‘Turret versus broadside’, 458.



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Creuze to Russell. Sharp approached hydrodynamics through a molecular framework and examined the causes of friction involved in pushing water out of the way of the ship.32 Sharp’s intention in addressing his audience on this ‘confessedly difficult subject’ was to demonstrate ‘the entire absence of any reliable rules for producing the actual form of the vessel’, thus undermining the project taking place within the INA.33 Fishbourne, who led the criticism of naval architects and the hydrodynamic theories of mathematicians and engineers, thanked Sharp for having ‘very justly shewn [sic] that owing to the lines of ships not being drawn according to any definite law, all calculations, whether for contents or any other objects, are but approximations’.34 Fishbourne, however, was not just a critic. He suggested his own theories and calculations to prove members of the INA wrong. At the core of his notion of a science of ship design was the practitioner’s tacit experience of the ship at sea. This type of ‘practical experience’ could not be attained by naval constructors who were, as naval officers called them, ‘men of theory’ and ‘landsmen’. In the aftermath of the loss of the Captain, Fishbourne combined nautical experience with the instrumentation of mathematical analysis to provide an alternative understanding of ship stability (as is demonstrated in Chapter 5). Uncertainty and the want of war Many questions which embarrass shipbuilders would be settled by a naval war. The survivors, if there were any, of a battle would know much more clearly than can now be known what sort of ship or other engine would be desirable for fighting. The Admiralty makes experiments which have a distressing unreality; and, under the guidance of little beyond theory, it is obliged to incur vast expense.35

When the Captain was lost it was estimated that nearly £9,000,000 had been spent on the ironclad fleet.36 Despite this expenditure, Britain could not boast a reconstructed iron battle fleet; rather, a fleet of experiments. The uncertainties and experiments in ship design were most evident when parts of the 32 B. Sharp, ‘Naval architecture, as affected by the laws governing the transition of curves’, RUSI Journal 10 (1867), 109 –22, esp. 117. 33 Ibid., 121–2. 34 Ibid., 122. 35 ‘Mr Goschen’s difficulties’, Saturday Review 36 (2 August 1873), 143– 4, esp. 143. 36 E[dward].F[rancis].C[hapman]., ‘Our iron-clad navy’, Cornhill Magazine 23 ( Jan­ uary 1871), 55 – 69, esp. 56.

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British fleet came together, as they did in July 1867 for a naval review to honour the visit of the Sultan of Turkey. Thirty-three warships took station in the sea off Portsmouth, presented in two lines. The port line consisted of seventeen wooden ships, including one paddle ship, HMS Terrible, and the starboard line of sixteen iron-plated ships, including one paddle ship, HMS Gladiator.37 This fleet varied greatly in age, size and manoeuvrability. The heaviest vessel, the ironclad screw ship HMS Minotaur, was completed at the Thames Ironworks in 1863. With a displacement of 10,690 tons over a length of 400 feet, the Minotaur represented the Navy’s latest attempt to combine screw steamships of great length with full sailing canvases. This was a great contrast with one of the oldest ships in the review, HMS St George, laid down over a quarter of century earlier as a first-rate sailing line-of-battle ship, only to remain on the stocks in Plymouth for thirteen years before being fitted with a screw propeller and undocked in 1859. Half the length and a third the displacement of the Minotaur, the St George was a ship from another time, but, due to the constant alterations ordered during the 1840s and 1850s, she entered service just four years before the Minotaur. The 1867 naval review fleet depicted an uncertainty and disarray in comparison to the fleets commanded by Nelson during the Napoleonic Wars. For centuries the broad design principles of fighting ships had remained relatively unchanged and new ships generally fitted within the tiers of first-, second- and third-rate line-of-battleships. But by the mid-1860s, after various experiments with steam engines, propelling machinery, iron and armour, the Royal Navy’s fleet represented a range of design possibilities, some to be pursued, others like the paddle-wheel battleship a relic of previous experiments. A consensus developed around steam and iron as components of the ship’s technological system, but questions of form, armament and armour remained unresolved. For example, in 1868, the House of Commons asked a number of serving ship captains for their views on the choice between broadside and turret armaments. Captain William C. Chamberlain, Captain E.W. Vansittart and Rear-Admiral Frederick Warden expressed their favour for the turret; while A.W.A. Hood, Captain of HM gunnery Ship Excellent stated a preference for broadsides on board sea-going ships, as did Captain George Willes.38 This lack of consensus over the optimum warship of the future continued through the decade. Uncertainty led to a great deal of speculation, projection and introspection about ship design. It also meant, as the previous two chapters have shown, that the existing designs available to the Admiralty, which 37 ‘The Naval Review’, Examiner 3103 (20 July 1867), 459. 38 Opinions of naval officers on merits of turret ship, 1867/8 (501).



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were familiar and more trusted by naval officers, continued to offer a more credible alternative. Decisions on the design of future warships would rest, now more than ever, on the authority that the social networks proposing them could yield. This last point demands further consideration. Historians who have examined the Captain controversy as a dispute between professional engineers and amateur naval officers have failed to appreciate that naval architects were not guaranteed authority in the mid nineteenth-century Navy. For all the elements of professional status developed through the INA and RSNA, along with discussions of specialisation within the community of naval architects and marine engineers, members of Parliament and the Board of Admiralty did not substantially alter the levels of authority they granted to naval architects. The process of gaining authority rested in a large part on the social and political connections that an actor could marshal, and the manner in which they made their appeal for authority. The narrative behind Coles’s appeal for authority began with his experience in waging combat against forts during the Crimean War, 1853–56. In 1853, he joined the crew of HMS Agamemnon (the first battleship designed for screw propulsion) as Lieutenant and served in the attack on Sevastopol. He was promoted to Commander, and then Captain in 1856. In 1855, while commanding HMS Stromboli in the Sea of Azoff (Azov), he constructed a raft, the Lady Nancy, to navigate shallow coastal waters and bring Russian forces at Taganrog into range for one of the Stromboli’s heavy guns (Figure 4.3). The Times devoted an editorial to Coles’s improvised rig, juxtaposing his innovative and energetic response to the situation with the ‘blunders’ and ‘long series of errors’ committed by the Admiralty. News of problems with supply lines, administration and the strength of British artillery consumed debate in Britain from an early stage of the war.39 Against a litany of complaints concerning the Admiralty’s failure to provide vessels capable of reaching the forts on the shores of the Sea of Azoff, Coles received praise for overcoming the logistical problem caused by poor management of the war.40 Coles returned to England looking to build on his newfound fame. He sent two models for artillery rafts to the Admiralty, including one propelled by a steam engine. These models were then placed on display at the RUSI, where they attracted the attention of the naval community. In 1859, 39 Jeremy Black, A military history of Britain (Westport, 2006), 77– 9. On strategy see Andrew Lambert, The Crimean War: British grand strategy against Russia, 1853–1856 (Manchester, 1990). 40 ‘The theory which we have propounded of heavy mortars . . . ’, The Times 22095 (2 July 1855), 8.

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4.3  ‘Raft in the Sea of Azoff ’

Coles altered his design following a suggestion by Isambard Kingdom Brunel that the shielded turret be placed on a turntable to provide greater control over the turret’s direction of fire.41 He successfully applied for a patent, which he sold to the Admiralty for £5,000 and a further £100 for every turret installed during the period covered by the patent. He also requested a paid position to advise the Admiralty Board on turret ships. The Admiralty’s first experiment with Coles’s ideas was to convert the Royal Sovereign into a turret ship.42 Coles’s alterations to the ship attracted the attention of the future Admiralty Chief Constructor. Reed contended that the converted Royal Sovereign represented poor value for money. The ship’s original arrangement provided 130 broadsides that could be carried to any point of the globe, while Coles’s alterations reduced the ship to five guns that were so heavy that Reed doubted whether the ship would be seaworthy. The 41 [Anon.] The Son of an Old Naval Officer, Captain Coles and the Admiralty: with an enquiry into the origin and qualities of the turret system of armour-clad war vessels (London, 1866), 5. 42 Cowper Coles, ‘[Letter to the editor] A Good Suggestion’, The Times 23241 (28 February 1859), 12; J.K. Laughton, ‘Coles, Cowper Phipps (1819 –1870)’, rev. Andrew Lambert, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.



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turrets either would adversely affect stability or they would have to be placed high up, which would present a clear target to enemy ships. Reed maintained that the Royal Sovereign could safely undertake only coastal defence. She could not go to sea without endangering her crew.43 Coles rejected Reed’s claims and responded that a broadside ship could not compete with the destructive power of a turret ship of the same tonnage – a compelling point for some. He largely ignored Reed’s concerns about how the weight of a turret would alter the ship’s existing balance of design features.44 The Admiralty continued to investigate Coles’s ideas and placed an order with Joseph Samuda’s London yard for HMS Prince Albert, a coastal defence turret ship. In The Times, Coles complained of his arduous effort to gain official support for his designs from the then Controller and Chief Constructor, Robinson and Watts: ‘I soon found out how useless it was for me to argue against prejudices and theory, and how hopeless it was to try and introduce into the navy a novel invention, the offspring of practical observations in actual warfare.’45 Coles received vocal support from Sherard Osborn. In the press Osborn expressed his personal faith in Coles’s skills: ‘a more competent judge could not have been chosen’.46 He also praised the converted Royal Sovereign, which he commanded on its initial trials, calling her ‘the most formidable vessel of war which he had ever been on board’.47 With support from Osborn, and in spite of resistance from the Admiralty’s leading technical officers, the Admiralty Board continued to fund Coles’s work and provide opportunities for him to experiment with his turret design. Coles’s work took place against a backdrop of naval policy and engineering trials concerning coastal versus blue-water security and artillery power. In the aftermath of the Crimean War, Viscount Palmerston formed a Cabinet Defence Committee to study artillery and the relative benefits of forts and iron ships. Secretary of State for War Sidney Herbert, Commander-in-Chief of the army the Duke of Cambridge, First Lord of the Admiralty Somerset and naval officers Astley Cooper Key and George Elliot (1784 –1863), advocates of forts, presented a case for constructing forts that played on invasion fears, 43 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, 74, 137; [Edward J. Reed], ‘On the further reconstruction of the navy’, Cornhill Magazine 4 (December 1861), 715 –24, esp. 715. 44 Cowper Coles, ‘Turret versus broadside’, 439. 45 Cowper Coles, ‘[Letter to the Editor] Cupola ships’, The Times 24212 (5 April 1862), 5. 46 ‘Turret ships’, Saturday Review 20 (8 July 1865), 48 – 9, esp. 49. 47 ‘The Royal Sovereign and the turret system in iron ships’, London Reader 6 (16 December 1865), 200 –2, esp. 201.

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the security of Britain’s dockyards and the experience of fort bombardments during the Crimean War. A fort programme was significantly less expensive than the potential costs incurred in the construction and manning of a large ironclad fleet. In response, Coles led a pro-turret ship lobby that derived strong support from a series of contemporary firing tests at Shoeburyness. Tests with an Armstrong 110-pounder revealed its failure to penetrate the ‘Warrior’ target, a plate of 4½ inches of iron hull armour representing that fitted on HMS Warrior, which suggested the invulnerability of ironclads against fort artillery.48 Coles was also able to gain credibility from reports of the naval engagements of the US Civil War (1861– 65) in which armoured turret ships destroyed wooden battleships and forts.49 On 9 March 1862, the ironclad USS Monitor engaged CSS Virginia (an ironclad built on the hulk of USS Merrimack) and a number of wooden ships at the Battle of Hampton Roads. The ironclads inflicted massive damage and provided a devastating demonstration of the superiority of iron vessels. Coles sought credibility for armoured turret ships in the reporting of the battle, but this rested on the perception that US Civil War engagements portended the future of naval warfare. Many calls for Britain to build turret ships implicitly accepted this premise. In a then anonymous article in the Cornhill Magazine, Reed responded to these assumptions. He noted with great caution that studying the Battle of Hampton Roads to provide guidelines for British construction policy would ‘lure us from our glorious course [of naval warfare] in the last Continental war’.50 Drawing on the popular legacy of the Napoleonic Wars, Reed rejected the notion of basing British policy on any analysis of ships involved in a coastal battle. American Monitors were ‘inventions suited only to a species of warfare which we, by wisdom and foresight, may easily avert’. Reed proposed that British naval supremacy and Britain’s empire rested on its control of the oceans, not the defence of coastal regions – and that construction policy ought to reflect Britain’s historic and strategic concerns, rather than the whims of technological innovation. 48 Michael J. Bastable, Arms and the state: Sir William Armstrong and the remaking of British naval power, 1854 –1914 (Aldershot, 2004), 67–73. 49 Justifying British naval policy with reports of global conflicts was a common feature of naval discourse, and indeed became more common with increasing interest in didactic naval history towards the end of the nineteenth century, see Philip Towle, ‘The evaluation of the experience of the Russo-Japanese war’, in Bryan Ranft (ed.), Technical change and British naval policy, 1860 –1939 (London, 1977), 65 –79. 50 [Edward J. Reed], ‘The great naval revolution’, Cornhill Magazine 5 (May 1862), 550 – 9, esp. 550.



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We fearlessly assert that nothing whatever has happened that should make us think so much of our ports and so little of our possessions, so much of our mere security and so little of our honour and renown. The introduction of iron armour into navies need have no such result.

Thus Reed painted the turret ship as a merely coastal defence vessel. He urged the Admiralty that if it wished to follow the course recommended by Coles, it must do so in addition to building sea-going vessels. To build heavily armoured turret ships as alternatives would be an affront to the way that Briton had won its seaborne empire while endangering its future security.51 On 9 April 1862, the question of forts, broadside and turrets became more complicated when Armstrong’s latest gun, a 300-pounder, was tested on the Shoeburyness range and destroyed the ‘Warrior’ target. The Times reported that ‘even the fondest believers in the invulnerability of our present ironclads were obliged to confess that against such artillery . . . their plates and sides were almost as penetrable as wooden ships’.52 No longer was the ironclad considered an invulnerable instrument of national defence. Recognising a shift in the fort-versus-ironclad debate, Coles began a new campaign in the press to build momentum around the design of a fully rigged turret ship capable of patrolling the sea. In November 1863, he sent to The Times a letter from the Birkenhead shipbuilder and Tory MP John Laird. In this letter Laird urged the Admiralty to support Coles’s work: in the speech I made at Birkenhead on Friday last I intended to convey to the public my conviction that, unless the Admiralty allow the vessels they are fitting with your cupolas to be properly masted and rigged, they would not be doing justice to your invention. . . . The American iron-clad Monitors have hitherto been built for river and coast service, and are not adapted for regular sea-going work. They cannot, therefore, be at all classed with the ships you have been urging this country for so long a time to adopt.53

Coles now shifted his focus from the Monitors to projecting an ocean-going ship armed with heavy turrets that would be capable of engaging enemy craft and forts around the British Empire. In a letter to The Times, he explained that his design for a turret ship ‘daily becomes more developed by practical results at sea and in warfare’.54 51 Ibid., 553, 557, 558 – 9. 52 ‘Important experiments at Shoeburyness’, The Times 24216 (10 April 1862), 9. 53 Cowper Coles, ‘[To the editor] Guns and ships’, The Times 24709 (6 November 1863), 5. 54 Cowper Coles, ‘To the editor of The Times’, The Times 24659 (9 September 1863), 7; Coles, ‘Cupola ships’, 5.

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As the war in America continued, anxiety increased in Britain over how to resist an assault from a Monitor. There was no immediate strategic need to address the threat of a sea-going Monitor until 1865, when news spread of the successful Union attack on Fort Fisher and another new ship in the Union Navy, USS Monadnock. The American Admiral David D. Porter’s report on the battle in North Carolina, reprinted in The Times, asserted: The Monadnock is capable of crossing the ocean alone (when her compasses are once adjusted properly), and could destroy any vessel in the French or British navy, lay their towns under contribution, and return again (provided she could pick up coal) without fear of being followed. She could certainly clear any harbour on our coast of blockaders in case we were at war with a foreign Power.55

Responding to this news, Coles emphasised the threat of the latest American Monitor (reigniting the fort-versus-ironclad question), but confidently maintained that the Royal Sovereign could withstand the Monadnock’s attack. Again, he found the opportunity to promote his turret ship design to the political and naval communities, now with the additional threat to Britain’s ports acting on public opinion.56 Public and political construction Coles possessed an uncommon ability to promote his work and shift discussion to the question of whether his turret system was given a fair trial (or, rather, the most favourable trial he thought possible). Eight years after the decision to construct the Captain, William Froude reflected on the difficulty that naval architects and engineers experienced when competing for authority with naval officers such as Coles: Captain Coles had many friends; he was a very able seaman, and he had the faculty of inducing people to believe in him, and it was then believed that his practical knowledge as a seaman enabled him to judge of questions which were entirely beyond the cognisance of mere practical seamanship.57

Coles developed a social network, more extensive and influential than Robinson or Reed could assemble, to petition the government for authority. In the press and in Parliament, he and his associates built a positive profile around his 55 ‘The capture of Fort Fisher’, The Times 25102 (7 February 1865), 5. 56 Cowper Coles, ‘[To the editor] The Federal attack on Fort Fisher’, The Times 25108 (14 February 1865), 6. 57 Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and Advancement of Science volume II, 1874 (C958), 150.



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turret ideas, while questioning the skills of his opponents and their reliability to secure the future of British naval power. In 1865, the House of Commons requested the Admiralty to form a committee to investigate the claims that Coles and Osborn had made in the press concerning the ‘lessons’ of Hampton Roads and the qualities of the converted Royal Sovereign. Chaired by Admiral the Earl of Lauderdale, the committee broadly investigated the merits of turret and broadside ships, along with a specific proposal from Coles for a warship fitted with a single turret. Senior naval officers and constructors were called to provide evidence, including RearAdmiral George Elliot (1813–1901), superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard. He supported turret ships, placing his support behind Coles’s assessment of the turret and the superior qualities of a turret over broadsides within the proposed ship’s overall design.58 The committee was less convinced, and concluded: We fully appreciate the great advantages of the revolving turret system of armament as applied to floating batteries, and harbour and coast defence ships to which they are in a great measure confined . . . But in a sea-going cruising ship these great advantages would be materially curtailed, because all sea-going ships of equal speed and tonnage and carrying the same weights must be of the same height out of the water to enable them to possess the same good sea-going qualities, and to be equally dry.59

The committee expressed its broad support for Reed’s position and its specific concerns with Coles’s design for a turret ship, outlined in a document containing thirty-one objections to his proposal. Nevertheless, the committee pursued a conclusive trial of a sea-going turret ship, and proposed that the Admiralty construct a ship with two turrets. The committee urged that more than two would endanger its sea-keeping qualities, and any less would compromise the viability of the trial if the sole turret became inoperable.60 Coles privately responded to each of the committee’s objections, but the Admiralty chose not to take the matter further. Instead, it authorised the Controller to direct the proposed trial of a turret warship. An article in the London Review interpreted this decision as a sign of inertia and an attempt to block the development of turret ships. The article, penned by one of Coles’s supporters, depicted Robinson’s office as ‘avowedly hostile to the principle’ of turret ships. It claimed that after building ‘unsuccessful’ broadside ships Reed was ‘encouraged to spend more money in building more ships’, while 58 Report of Admiralty committee on turret ships, 1866 (87), 77– 83. 59 Ibid., 8. 60 Ibid., 8.

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‘Coles is still left to beg for only one fair experiment’.61 The trial turret ship, the Monarch, designed by the Chief Constructor did not settle the dispute. She came under heavy attack by Coles, who had begun publicly attacking individuals at the Admiralty. He did not believe the ship was representative of his idea of a sea-going turret ship. Specifically, the height of the turrets above the waterline, the absence of a full arc of fire around the ship, the bow armour and wide breadth were all ‘antagonistic and fatal to seagoing qualities and high-speed’.62 Coles went to the press to bring the weight of public opinion against the Chief Constructor. In 1866 the Standard published two letters by Coles that heavily criticised the Admiralty’s shipbuilding programme. One letter compared the first twelve broadside ironclads with the first twelve turret ships constructed for the Royal Navy: [Combined,] this fleet of broadside ships [will] only throw 210lb. more from their guns . . . [yet] they require 6710 more horse power, 33,689 tons more shipping, and 4687 more men! Supposing that iron-clads average a cost of 60l. per ton in the first outlay alone, there would be a saving of 2,041,340l., to say nothing of the great saving in fuel, wear and tear of these smaller vessels, and this saving in men, which is something to be considered when we are talking of retrenching and cutting down the navy.63

Coles reasserted the superiority of turret ships over broadsides. He also attempted to undermine Robinson and Reed’s authority over the Admiralty’s experiments with turret ships by emphasising the idea that Reed was opposed to the concept, and consequently not fit to supervise such trials. He also discredited Reed more generally, attacking his latest ships, HMS Enterprise and HMS Research, on account of their poor sailing qualities and speed. These broadside ships employed a central battery, or box battery, that consisted of heavy armour plates surrounding the central section of the ship where powerful broadsides were housed. Following the publication of these letters the Admiralty censured Coles for his conduct and terminated his employment as a technical advisor.64 The Admiralty’s arrangement with Coles had permitted him to publish and lecture with the aim of ‘diffusing and extending the reputation’ of his invention. Yet 61 ‘Admiralty antipathies’, London Review 11 (7 October 1865), 375 – 6. 62 Cowper Coles to the Admiralty, 17 April 1866, quoted in Letters from Admiralty to late Captain C.P. Coles, 1871 (163), 19. 63 Cowper Coles, ‘Turret ships. To the editor’, Standard 12925 (10 January 1866), 5. 64 W.G. Romaine to Cowper Coles, 26 January 1866, quoted in Correspondence on turret ships, 1866 (395), 4.



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his present strategy involved advocating his ideas and credibility as a designer through the denigration of the broadside battle fleet and Reed’s design work.65 Coles defended his actions, noting that he would be of little service to the Admiralty were he to remain silent over designs for turret ships ‘which I might consider not calculated to give that system a fair trial’.66 Forgiving Coles for his public criticism, the Admiralty recommenced his employment and made the following promise: the Controller of the Navy will be instructed to afford you every facility for examination of the design of the proposed cupola ship, “Monarch”; and you are at liberty to make any observations and suggestions thereon to their Lordships, which you may think fit.67

Coles offered a substantial redesign of the Monarch. His changes ranged from the placement of the turrets to the distribution of armour and the ship’s lines. He concluded: ‘the “Monarch,” as now designed, cannot be said to represent my views of a sea-going turret-ship’.68 In order to construct the turret trial he desired, Coles modified the broader technological system in which it functioned. That Coles was able not only to return to the Admiralty after publicly criticising its ships and the Chief Constructor, but to go on to gain the authority to oversee the construction of the Captain is illustrative of the support that he had beyond the Admiralty. Coles was backed by an influential group in Parliament that lobbied on his behalf. The members of this predominantly Conservative group of politicians mobilised to encourage the then Liberal government to consider, fund and expedite trials with turret ships. The core of this group consisted of Sir John Pakington, Sir James Elphinstone, Sir John Hay and John Laird. Coles utilised this Conservative lobby both in and out of Parliament. In 1864, he employed his brother-in-law Captain Geoffrey Hornby to ‘prime’ the Earl of Derby and Pakington ‘with awkward questions to ask the Government’.69 In 1865, Elphinstone, Conservative member for Portsmouth, lobbied in Parliament and the press for the construction of a turret ship on Coles’s principle. In a 65 Letter dated 7 August 1862, quoted in Correspondence on turret ships, 4. 66 Cowper Coles to W.G. Romaine, 28 February 1866, quoted in Correspondence on turret ships, 7. 67 W.G. Romaine to Cowper Coles, 1 March 1866, quoted in Correspondence on turret ships, 7. 68 Cowper Coles to W.G. Romaine, 28 February 1866, quoted in Correspondence on turret ships, 7– 9. 69 Mrs Fred Ward, Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Geoffrey Phipps Hornby, G.C.B., a biography (London, 1896), 109.

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letter to The Times, he asked why Coles had not been permitted to build a ship to his specification while Robinson and Reed were permitted to continue to ‘waste the public money on ships which do not fulfil any condition of their specifications, and whose reconstruction begins the day they are launched’. In contrast, the MP for Portsmouth presented Coles’s ideas for a turret ship as ‘the most valuable mode of national defence which has been matured in our day’.70 In discussion following Coles’s 1867 RUSI paper, Reed addressed the work of this lobby, and the influence it had over shipbuilding decisions at the Admiralty: I feel placed at a disadvantage in this matter, not so much by Captain Coles, as by a singular, a strange, and a sad conjunction between what I believe to be an excessive Parliamentary activity on the details of shipbuilding, and an unfortunate yielding of Admiralties to pressure of that nature.71

In 1866 Lord Russell’s Liberal government fell over its failure to pass a second major parliamentary Reform Bill. Derby became prime minister and appointed Pakington First Lord of the Admiralty, who decided ‘in concert with my gallant Friend (Sir John Hay)’ to provide Coles with the ‘opportunity of building a turret-ship in accordance with his own opinions. He was allowed to select his own builder, and to have the ship constructed as he liked.’72 Coles was given unlimited authority to design a ship for his gun turret, and after consultation with the Admiralty over selecting a commercial shipbuilder for the contract, chose his ally John Laird, Conservative MP for Birkenhead. Lairds of Birkenhead had significant experience with turret warships, having constructed two such vessels for the Confederate Navy, in defiance of the British position of neutrality in the American Civil War. These ships were confiscated by the government and added to the Royal Navy as HMS Scorpion and HMS Wivern (1863). Coles’s political support did not solely come from this Conservative turret lobby, although it was the most powerful political component of his network of backers. He found support in the Radical MP Richard Cobden. Coles met Cobden as early as 1863, when he joined him on an inspection of the fortifications and dockyard at Portsmouth during the height of the fort-versusironclad question. Cobden recorded the visit in his diary: ‘[I] came away with the conviction that we are now wasting our money on iron-cased vessels with 70 James Elphinstone, ‘To the editor of The Times’, The Times 25368 (14 December 1865), 7. 71 Coles, ‘Turret versus broadside’, 459. 72 ‘Supply’, Hansard 194 (8 March 1869), 929.



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broadsides, whilst a new invention is in the field which will entirely supersede them.’ Cobden’s reference was to the turret and Coles’s work, which ‘must render broadside guns useless’,73 In 1866, Charles Seely, Liberal MP for Lincoln, placed a letter before the House which revealed the private association that Cobden had enjoyed with Coles prior to the former’s death. The letter contained a plan to utilise Coles’s turret principle to produce a fleet that could economically secure Britain’s home sea security: If you and I and Captain Osborn had the power we could, by a competent outlay of national capital which the nation can well afford, contrive such a coast defence as would make us absolutely unassailable by sea, and the cost of which, after the first outlay, need not be one-third of what we are now spending. My own conviction is, that if our whole fleet was what it ought to be, 30,000 men are as many as you could possibly employ in a time of peace.74

Coles’s arguments concerning the economic advantages of coastal-orientated defence found a receptive supporter in Cobden, who had been a vocal opponent of British intervention in the Crimea. Coles and Cobden shared the belief that the Admiralty wasted money in the construction of Royal Navy’s fleet. On 22 July 1864, Cobden gave a speech to the House of Commons recommending that the government cease its public works and construction activities, and become a buying institution: If, instead of a construction department in your dockyards, you had a buying department, then Mr Reed, or Admiral Robinson, or whoever were the heads of it, would seek out such men as Captain Cowper Coles, or the hon. Member of Birkenhead (Mr Laird), and confer with them, would look abroad and avail themselves of inventions and improvements as they arose, without any feelings of rivalry arising from their own personal interest as inventors.

Cobden believed that the personal stakes involved in heading government departments unduly hindered engineering activities, while adding to their cost. Using the example of the turret ship he noted that Reed would have needed to be ‘more than a man; he must be an angel’ to have entered the Constructor’s department and not attempted to demonstrate that he could build a better turret ship than Coles.75 More significantly, Cobden considered Coles a credible inventor of whom the government should avail itself in order to ‘improve’ ship design. The speech revealed Coles’s success in developing his claims to 73 John Morley, The life of Richard Cobden (2 vols., London, 1881), II:410. 74 ‘Royal dockyards’, Hansard 184 (26 July 1866), 1513. 75 Richard Cobden, Speeches on questions of public policy (2 vols., London, 1870), I:603.

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engineering credibility. Intervening in the technical debate, Cobden also stated that Reed’s work on central batteries did not yield results that matched efforts with turrets. Reed responded to this high-profile vote of confidence in Coles’s work with a letter to the editor of The Times. He focused specifically on the explicit trust that Cobden had placed in Coles’s engineering knowledge, and returned again to the theme of integrating the turret into ship design. Reed also raised his concern that only naval architects could bring the various components and tensions within ship design into balance and produce an effective warship. Writing about the recently completed HMS Research, he maintained that: the form of her battery, however important, is but one of many features of a warship; and it is, if I may be allowed to say so, on questions of dimensions, speed, form below water, mechanical construction, and so forth, – questions which can only be dealt with by persons who have had the necessary training, and which Captain Coles does not, I believe, undertake to regulate, – that I necessarily have to expend most of my time and attention.76

Reed’s rebuke did not, however, convince Cobden. The Chief Constructor’s professional training and acknowledged authority within the engineering community was not enough to combat the political support that Coles was able to marshal. Reed’s public dispute with Coles through the 1860s reveals the extent to which he found his authority undermined by Coles and the pro-turret lobby in Parliament. This challenge to authority reached breaking point with Pakington’s decision to request Coles and Laird to design and construct the Captain. The Chief Constructor voiced his distress with Pakington’s decision. His main issues were the notion that Coles, a gun-mounting and turret designer, should direct the design of an entire ship in order to give his turret the most favourable trial, and that the ship be designed and constructed in a private shipyard, away from his sphere of influence. Reed perceived these issues, embedded in the decision, as an attack on the position of civilian officers within the Admiralty. He urged that ‘while I am an admirer of the Navy, I hope that all the gallantry does not belong to the Navy, but that a civilian may be considered to have some sense of integrity and some consciousness of the respect due to him and to his position’.77 76 Edward J. Reed, ‘[To the editor] Mr. Cobden’s speech’, The Times 24933 (25 July 1864), 7. 77 Cowper Coles, ‘Turret versus broadside’, 471.



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The Chief Constructor closely observed the design and construction of the Captain from London, following the decision of the Board on 24 April 1866 to back Coles. In July Reed reported to the Admiralty on the ship’s design, noting the high centre of gravity proposed in the latest plans, and the possible danger of the large sails Coles was proposing.78 On 15 January 1867, he wrote to Robinson, outlining his concerns with the design, specifically noting that her freeboard would be ‘5 feet 6 inches only. I shall be glad to learn whether such a ship will be considered satisfactory’. He concluded, ‘In my own opinion this ship of about 3000 tons could not be effectually fought or worked as a sailing ship with so low a freeboard.’79 In 1868, Reed advised the Admiralty to withhold final payment to Lairds until his reservations about the low freeboard and weight of the ship were addressed. Nathaniel Barnaby and Frederick Barnes, members of Reed’s staff, visited the Captain during construction and reported their concerns to the Admiralty. Barnaby noted that ‘if I were responsible for the weight of the ship, I should be greatly alarmed at the appearance everywhere of extravagance in the use of material’. However, the Admiralty refused to pass these reports on to Coles and Laird.80 Lairds received payment on 27 March 1869 when the Captain was launched.81 Reed offered his resignation, claiming that ‘[t]he Admiralty have, in my humble opinion, made a grave mistake in not giving me proper recognition & support’.82 He believed that his authority as a technical specialist within the government had been undermined. He remained in post, but his relationship with the Admiralty Board failed to improve. He eventually left public service in July 1870, a month before the Captain disaster. In a final protest, he censured ‘all governments’, whether Conservative or Liberal, for the ‘the very low estimate . . . put upon mechanical and scientific skill in this country, as compared with its value in private life’.83 Childers appointed assistant constructor 78 Summary of correspondence relating to the design and construction of the late ‘Captain’, 26 September 1870, Milne papers, 161/18, 5. 79 Edward J. Reed to Robert Spencer Robinson, 15 January 1867, Milne papers, 148/1. 80 Summary of Correspondence relating to the design and construction of the late ‘Captain’, 26 September 1870, Milne papers, 161/18, 12. 81 Ibid. 82 Edward J. Reed to Alexander Milne, 20 April 1868, Milne papers, 165/11. 83 ‘Navy – resignation of Mr. Reed’, Hansard 203 (18 July 1870), 413–14. Following the loss of the Captain, Reed claimed that Childers had driven him out of the Admiralty by seeking to appoint Coles to a permanent position to rival his own. See Edward J. Reed, ‘The loss of the Captain [letter to the editor]’, The Times 26939 (21 December 1870), 12.

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Nathaniel Barnaby to lead the office temporarily while he sought to bring his first choice, John Laird, to the Admiralty.84 Judgement, authority and the loss of HMS Captain After completion the Captain proceeded to join the Monarch in Rear-Admiral Thomas Symonds’s channel squadron for firing and rolling trials (Thomas was William Symonds’s son).85 His impression of the ship was very favourable, noting that the low freeboard did not inconvenience the use of the turrets at sea, despite the ship’s wet decks.86 Symonds’s report was one of a number of testimonies that spoke to the Captain’s safety, stability and success. This did much to nullify concerns over her low freeboard. Rear-Admiral Cooper Key, who witnessed Symonds’s trials with the ship, declared her safe, even superior to the Monarch in how she handled.87 Hugh Burgoyne, the ship’s captain, sent a similar testimony to the Admiralty.88 The faith of these officers in the Captain counterbalanced any loss of credibility in the ship following Reed’s resignation – although there is no evidence to suggest any senior naval officers, except the Controller Robinson, lamented Reed’s departure. Naval officers and naval architects, as has been established, differed in how they understood the physical behaviour of a ship as it rolled. Evidence of the Captain’s early voyages seemed to placate doubts about freeboard and stability. Reports drawn from tacit experience were deemed the most credible sources of information in the Admiralty regarding the Captain. These supported the naval officer’s view that his testimony provided a superior guide to judging ship behaviour than did the practices and theories of naval architects working within the INA. Captain J.E. Commerell, for example, testified that ‘[f]rom what I have observed of the “Captain”, I should consider her rather a stiff vessel under sail, a very easy and slow roller, perhaps in this respect having a 84 David K. Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought: warship design and development, 1860 –1905 (Chatham, 1997), 51. 85 Vernon Lushington to Alexander Milne, 26 November 1869, Milne papers, 143/4. 86 Copy of reports of the Admiral in command of the Channel Squadron as to the Trials of the Ships ‘Monarch’ and ‘Captain’ after joining the Fleet in May last; with any reports received from the Captains of the respective Ships made either to the Lords of the Admiralty or the Admiral in Command, Milne papers, 161/11. 87 Observations of Rear-Admiral Cooper Key, CB, respecting ships of the combined squadrons (1870), 143/4, Milne papers. 88 Summary of correspondence relating to the design and construction of the late ‘Captain’, 26 September 1870, Milne papers, 161/18, 17.



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slight advantage over the “Monarch” ’.89 Significantly, Commerell believed that easy, slow roll was a sign of a smooth and stable ship. Yet to Reed, William Froude and other INA members, long and slow arches of roll were a sign of a dangerous one. Quick oscillation may have seemed more violent and unbalanced, but naval architects believed it was safer than long, slow rolls. On 7 September, after more than a year at sea, the Captain sank off the west coast of Spain. The professional dimension of the controversy surrounding her escalated to new levels as witnesses, authorities, reputations, skills and ways of knowing ship behaviour were publicly scrutinised, attacked and defended. The Admiralty assembled a court-martial board, as was the practice following the loss of a ship, chaired by Admiral James Hope, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. Members of the board heard testimonies from fifty-seven witnesses, including the eighteen survivors, and concluded that the Captain capsized due to a fatal combination of her low freeboard, top-heavy superstructure, large canvas and heavy winds that combined to heel the Captain to a point at which her stability was insufficient to recover.90 The court martial set the public and political agenda for discovering who was responsible for the tragedy. In August 1866 Coles and Laird had accepted the Admiralty’s request that they take ‘the entire responsibility of the design, the efficient construction of the ship, and the satisfactory accomplishment of your undertaking to complete her’.91 Yet Coles’s associates, tainted by their lobbying, defended the role of the deceased ship designer and laid the blame elsewhere. Similar efforts to avoid responsibility were made by the politicians. While Childers had sent the ship to sea in the face of objections that led Reed to resign office, it was Pakington who had originally ordered the ship. A number of senior naval officers and naval lords who had supported Coles and declared the Captain a success on observing her performance now looked for cover. Those concerned with their accountability in the affair developed various strategies to avoid blame, from the production of ambiguity to the insinuation that Reed had maliciously neglected to warn them of the Captain’s design flaws – a case that surviving documents cannot adequately account for. Reed strenuously 89 Copy of reports of the Admiral in command of the Channel Squadron as to the trials of the ships ‘Monarch’ and ‘Captain’ after joining the fleet in May last; with any reports received from the Captains of the respective Ships made either to the Lords of the Admiralty or the Admiral in Command, Milne papers, 161/11. 90 Minute by First Lord of Admiralty, with reference to H.M.S. Captain; with Minutes of Proceedings of Court Martial, 1871 (C254). 91 Summary of correspondence relating to the design and construction of the late ‘Captain’, 26 September 1870, 161/18, Milne papers, 5 – 6.

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rejected the (mis)representation of his role, telling readers of The Times that the Board had acted upon the ‘assumption that the opinions of Sir S. Robinson and myself were not to be trusted’.92 It is possible to form a thorough picture of the response to the loss of the Captain from the public statement in the press and the private correspondence of those directly involved in the affair. The Tory First Lord, Pakington, who had ordered the ship built in 1866, privately discussed the loss of the Captain with Milne. They were specifically concerned by Reed’s letter to The Times regarding the Admiralty’s distrust of technical professionals, and discussed whether to draft a public response in the hope of protecting themselves from future political attacks. Pakington wrote that his aim had been to give Coles ‘a fair trial’ for his ‘invention which had attracted so much attention’. He ‘never felt that their [Reed and Robinson’s] opinions were not to be trusted’. Pakington acknowledged that he had given Coles a free rein; this implied that he believed a naval officer and turret designer could be trusted to direct the design of a warship. He also believed that Reed and Robinson had been unconcerned by his decision, especially as it had ‘nothing to do with them’. Pakington also recalled the process of judging the merits of Coles’s design: ‘I stipulated of course that the designs should be sent to us for inspection & consent, and when they came in (were not you with me in my room at the time?) I objected to that low freeboard of eight feet – I reluctantly gave way upon this point.’93 Milne offered a slightly different account. He denied that Reed and Robinson had made ‘any special representation of want of stability in the Captain’. Instead, he expressed his perception that they merely ‘did not approve the “plan” and Coles did not approve of “them”.’94 Milne also recalled that Coles had been allowed to act at his discretion so that the Admiralty would avoid the types of disputes that had emerged around the Monarch. The Tory Board recognised that adverse criticism of Coles’s design could spark further undesirable public controversy: ‘if the Admiralty interfered in any manner with Coles views it would be considered that he had not his own plans carried out’.95 Thus, Milne acknowledged the public and political pressure operating on the Board’s actions, 92 Edward J. Reed, ‘The court-martial on the Captain [letters to the editor]’, The Times 26873 (5 October 1870), 6. Naval historians have tended to accept this line of argument, see Eric Grove, The Royal Navy (Basingstoke, 2005), 50; Beeler, British naval policy, 69 –70. 93 John Pakington to Alexander Milne, 11 October 1870, Milne papers, 165/10. 94 Alexander Milne to John Pakington, 13 October 1870, Milne papers, 165/10. 95 Ibid.



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and that he had been personally reticent to question Coles’s plan. He did not, however, make similar excuses for Reed: ‘it was his duty to have written to the Controller’ if he had any concerns with the Captain.96 It was of course possible that both sides in the dispute were correct. That Reed and Robinson did not explain, to a satisfactory level, that if the freeboard was too low the ship would be unsafe (and that administrators and admirals were ignorant of the connection), while a reason why Reed and Robinson were non-confrontational during the ship’s construction was because Pakington had ordered them not to interfere with Coles’s work. There were organisational problems and questions of authority that complicated the task of charging anyone with overall responsibility for the ship. Even the ultimate responsibility of the First Lord was made ambiguous, as three different politicians held that office during the ship’s construction. Particular emphasis should be given to Milne’s perception that Reed and Robinson’s opposition to the design of the Captain was rooted in personal controversy rather than professional concerns, and his subsequent decision to ignore their complaints on those grounds. Hugh Childers, the Liberal First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Earl of Northbrook, under-secretary for war, suffered more than others in the loss of the Captain. Each lost a son when the ship sank. Childers initially blamed the previous Conservative Board of Admiralty, led by Pakington, for rejecting Robinson’s professional opinion concerning the ship: I fully agree with Sir F. Grey that the order to build a ship not sanctioned by the Controller is unintelligible. From what I hear it was settled off hand by Pakington & Wm Lennox, Milne now dissentiences; & Pakington blew a very loud trumpet in the House of Commons soon afterwards.97

Childers’s remarks were not without irony, for he had sent the Captain to sea against Robinson’s professional opinion. The First Lord soon changed his target after considering Reed’s testimony at the court martial. The former Chief Constructor explained that upon hearing the ship was lost he suspected that it was probably because of pressure on the sails causing the ship to exceed its stability. Childers accused Reed of keeping these reservations from his superiors.98 The First Lord published a special minute to precede the report of the court martial, in which he outlined his case against Reed, specifically Reed’s failure 96 Ibid. 97 Hugh Childers to Charles Wood, 15 November 1870, Halifax papers, Borthwick Institute, York University, York, A4/90 Part I. 98 Minute by First Lord of Admiralty, with reference to H.M.S. Captain, 40.

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to inform the First lord of the results of experiments to calculate the Captain’s curve of stability. Naval architects produced a ship’s curve of stability by performing an inclining experiment and a series of calculations based on her displacement, centre of gravity, centre of buoyancy and metacentre. The distance on a vertical axis between the centre of gravity and centre of buoyancy, a value referred to as GZ, provided a ship’s stability lever at various angles of heel. The more the ship heeled, the greater the length of the stability lever, until a point was reached when the length began to decrease. This point marked a ship’s maximum stability lever, after which the ship would not resist heeling, and thus capsize. Reed’s assistant, Frederick Barnes, who designed these pro­ cesses in the constructor’s office, performed inclining experiments on the Captain after her first trial. The Captain was found to have a very small maximum stability lever of 20° (the Monarch’s was 38°).99 The Mechanic’s Magazine asserted that Childers’s minute was ‘eminently adapted to mislead the unwary’.100 Members of Reed’s team defended the Chief Constructor’s decision not to bring the Admiralty’s attention to the results of the experiment. Instead, they believed that in the Captain affair greater value had been attached to practical experience than to experiment and calculation. Assistant constructor Nathaniel Barnaby told the court-martial board: ‘I should not have presumed to press those calculations in the face of the officers who tried the Captain. It would be presumptuous to do so.’101 In the Gentleman’s Magazine, another member of the constructor’s office, William H. White, supported these remarks, reiterating that ‘[b]efore the calculations were made the vessel had been tried at sea, and had, as we have seen, been reported upon most favourably as respected her “seaworthiness” ’.102 Reed’s assistants sought cover in the argument that the Admiralty traditionally placed greater faith in the judgement of naval officers than naval architects. Reed, however, sought controversy. He responded to Childers’s ‘extraordinary minute’ in The Times, explaining for the public that the Admiralty had given Coles and Lairds entire responsibility for the Captain, despite his protestations before and during the construction.103 It is productive to read these public utterances that took place  99 Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought, 51. 100 ‘The Admiralty’, Mechanics’ Magazine (17 February 1871), 109 –10, esp. 109. 101 Minute by First Lord of Admiralty, with reference to H.M.S. Captain, 158 – 9. 102 [William H. White], ‘The story of the Captain’, Gentleman’s Magazine 5 (November 1870), 700 –14, esp. 713. 103 Edward J. Reed, ‘The loss of the Captain [letter to the editor]’, The Times 26939 (21 December 1870), 12.



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after the loss of the Captain as simultaneously assigning blame, protecting reputations and establishing credibility for future disagreements regarding judgement and authority in matters of ship design. The court martial cleared Reed of responsibility for the design of the Captain, but public debate continued to focus on the intrigue of whether Reed had pur­ posefully sought to obscure the results of an experiment that proved (as he had already warned the Admiralty) that the Captain lacked stability. The Earl of Northbrook, whose interest in the loss of the Captain stemmed partly from the personal loss of his son, did not believe that the findings of the court martial were central to the matter. He asked his superior at the War Office, Edward Cardwell, to transmit to the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, a request to reopen the investigation. He offered to lead the enquiry himself, ‘however painful and at whatever personal sacrifice’ it would be.104 Northbrook felt that ‘the terrible responsibility, which appears from Mr. Reed’s evidence to exist somewhere, should be brought home’.105 The Earl soon attracted support from naval officers who disliked Reed. Sidney Dacres, First Sea Lord, encouraged Northbrook to build a platform to investigate Childers’s claim that Reed had acted with malice.106 Dacres noted that ‘[y]ou must take Mr. Reed’s evidence with a great deal of dilution[;] he never in his life expressed fears of the Captain’s safety to any one . . . if there has been even a hint of such a thing I would not have sent my greatest enemy to sea in her’.107 These correspondences provide further evidence of the extent to which Reed’s concerns regarding the Captain had failed to impress senior politicians and naval lords during the 1860s. Russell chose to emphasise the political dimension in an article on the Captain catastrophe in Macmillan’s Magazine. A long-standing critic of polit­ ical influence over the Admiralty’s construction department, he placed responsibility for ordering the Captain, and the authority given to Coles, with the parliamentary turret lobby. Russell located responsibility with Coles’s political

104 Lord Northbrook to Edward Cardwell, quoted in Cardwell to William Gladstone, 16 October 1870, William Gladstone papers (hereafter Gladstone papers), British Library, London, vol. xxxiv, add. ms. 44119, f. 166 and f. 168. 105 Lord Northbrook to Algernon West, 8 October 1870, Gladstone papers, vols. clxxxi, add. ms. 44266, f. 7. 106 Lord Northbrook to Sidney Dacres, 6 October 1870, Gladstone papers, vols clxxxi, add. ms. 44266, f. 13. 107 Sidney Dacres to Lord Northbrook, 5 October 1870, Gladstone papers, vols clxxxi, add, ms. 44266, f. 15.

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allies, but he did not excuse the Admiralty for granting Coles the broad authority he had over the design of the Captain. To make the case for less political interference in matters of ship construction, Russell returned to themes of institutional management and control by engineers familiar from his writings during the construction of Britain’s first ironclads (see Chapter 3). Determined to see naval architects gain greater authority to direct their work, he asked: ‘Is it wise to place over a purely technical department like the Navy a merely political head . . . Is it patriotism or want of patriotism which makes English citizens elevated to the rank of legislators dabble most earnestly and pertinaciously in those matters of public safety of which they understand least?’108 In contrast, an article in Once a Week articulated a favourable account of Coles and the turret ship. The article took its lead from the response of Sherard Osborn, who was referred to as ‘a great naval authority’, to the disaster. He had deemed the Captain a successful trial of Coles’s ideas for a sea-going turret warship in every regard except its excessive rigging.109 Coles had privately acknowledged concern over the rigging, Osborn wrote, as if to suggest that the circumstances of the Captain’s loss had not been entirely overlooked. Subtler still, Osborn sought to remove Coles from responsibility by blaming the Captain catastrophe on the Royal Navy’s culture of sail mania: the mania for sailing all our fleet, and endangering valuable ironclads, and still more precious lives, by manoeuvring under canvas as in days of Benbow has wrought its evil. The topsails of the Captain threw her on her beam ends, and fate of that gallant ship and crew ends in a melancholy way indeed the tardy and sad experiment taking a ship of an entirely novel form and distribution of weights and masting, and attempting to sail her on the pattern of the useless wooden ships of bygone days.110

Following this quote from Osborn, the article concluded that ‘A vessel like the Captain ought never to have had heavy masts and rigging,’ and that ‘The best monument to the memory of her designer will be another Captain which we will suggest to the Admiralty should be called the Cowper Coles.’111 The defence

108 Ibid., 477– 8. 109 It was not uncommon to declare engineering failures successful experiments, see Ben Marsden, ‘Blowing hot and cold: reports and retorts on the status of the air-engine as success or failure, 1830 –1855’, History of Science 36 (1998), 373– 420. 110 ‘[Concerning the loss of the Captain]’, Once a Week 143 (24 September 1870), 176. 111 Ibid., 176.



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of Coles’s reputation and the production of ambiguity over who was responsible for the design of the Captain was a strategy common to a number of periodical articles and political documents. The Captain continued to capture public interest, and the controversy over her design and loss continued to rage through the 1870s. It remained relevant to Admirals Edmund Fishbourne, George Elliot and Alfred Ryder as they built a campaign to discredit Reed’s reputation and the ships he designed for the Admiralty. The Captain was never far from the mind of Childers, who formed a committee on designs to examine warships lately built for the Admiralty, in an effort to restore faith in the fleet. Meanwhile, association with the Captain affair seemed to be too toxic for Robinson, as his tenure as Controller was brought to an end by the prime minister. The Controller served a five-year term, and Robinson’s second term was due to end in 1871. Private discussions between the Controller and First Lord left Childers with the impression that Robinson was ready to step aside. Childers notified Gladstone by memo, and the prime minister wrote to Robinson thanking him for his service.112 This letter came as a shock to Robinson, whose impression from his meeting with Childers was that he would wait for the report of the recently formed committee on designs before deciding on his future. He was prepared to stand aside if the committee found fault with the department, but if not his desire was to remain. Either way, he was not yet ready to leave the Admiralty. One of Robinson’s reasons for wishing to remain Controller was that he would be unable to adequately defend the work of his department if he left office.113 Gladstone replied in a memo that it would ‘not be possible’ to depart from Childers’s memo. Robinson again rejected the implication that he had agreed to resign, but instead considered Childers’s actions to be a subversive attempt to remove him from office. ‘I should look upon my dismissal from office at present as a singularly unjust slur upon my past service,’ Robinson asserted, and requested that he be told ‘the grounds on which I am to be removed from office’.114 Gladstone responded, again backing Childers, and asserting that it was neither his place nor duty to explain why Robinson needed to leave office, to do so ‘would only revive the whole of a painful

112 William Gladstone to Robert Spencer Robinson, 30 January 1871, quoted in ‘The Admiralty’, The Times 26988 (16 February 1871), 10. 113 Robert Spencer Robinson to William Gladstone, 31 January 1871, quoted in ‘The Admiralty’, The Times 26988 (16 February 1871), 10. 114 Robert Spencer Robinson to William Gladstone, 1 February 1871, quoted in ‘The Admiralty’, The Times 26988 (16 February 1871), 10.

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discussion’. While not allocating blame for the loss of the Captain, Gladstone was eager for the parties involved to withdraw from the public eye. Unwilling to comply, Robinson copied his correspondence with Gladstone to The Times for publication.115 The loss of the Captain was caught in a complex web of social relations, political intrigues and technical questions regarding who was trusted to design, build and test a safe, efficient and powerful ship. The question of who entailed further questions about what skills and knowledge were equated with safety, efficiency and naval power. This chapter has mapped and explored a number of important aspects of this topic relating to public experiments in naval architecture and the politics of authority. The decision in 1866 to approve the construction of the Captain marked the combination of three particularly significant aspects. The first is the implicit notion that Coles had the requisite knowledge, skills and credibility to direct the design and construction of a first-class Royal Navy vessel. Second, it contested the notions of specialisation and analytical skills developed by members of the INA. Third, it revealed the role of political authority, public opinion and powerful perceptions about what naval architects did in the mid nineteenth-century shaping of the Royal Navy. The Admiralty’s shipbuilding policy increasingly depended on public support, shaped by pressures within Parliament and the press. Coles and his associates successfully turned naval publications and the daily press into an agent of support for their pro-turret agenda. An anonymous 1875 article in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, penned by ‘An Old Sailor’, looked back on the events of the previous decade, reflect­ ing on the limitations of naval architects and naval officers. The article located the inception of the Captain disaster with ‘the vain idea of a man who did not know a single iota of mathematics, and who endeavoured to link the possible to the impossible, by building a ship which at the same time should prove an efficient cruiser and a floating battery of unrivalled power.’116 But the greatest source of concern for the author was not Coles’s actions, but those who had given him authority and denigrated the work of naval architects. So little did naval officers care for mathematics and naval archi­ tecture that he reported having ‘heard an officer in the senior ranks of the service thank God he did not know what the curve of stability meant’.117 In an 115 William Gladstone to Robert Spencer Robinson, 2 February 1871, quoted in ‘The Admiralty’, The Times 26988 (16 February 1871), 10. 116 An Old Sailor, ‘Notes on the navy’, Fraser’s Magazine 12 (November 1875), 674 – 86, esp. 682. 117 Ibid., 679.



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uncharacteristically nonpartisan turn, the author also criticised naval architects who built solely on theory without engaging naval officers in a discussion of what they wanted in a battleship. Lacking trust in the Royal Navy’s expanding fleet of experiments, he wanted ships to be designed by a naval architect and supervised by an educated naval officer who listened to the experiences of other sailors.118 While the Captain catastrophe continued to be discussed in the British press and learned societies, debate continued over the question of whether ‘science’, as practised by men of science, engineers and naval architects, could guarantee a safe, efficient and powerful ship. At the 1870 meeting of the BAAS in Liverpool, Edward James Reed, having resigned from the Admiralty and now free from parliamentary censure, addressed Section G with the argument that ‘[i]f we value the [naval] property of the country and our national security we should bow down to the altar of science’.119 Reed’s address caught the attention of Admiral George Elliot, who responded in The Times by defending seamanship and practical knowledge. The admiral argued that ‘those who have to handle the tools are the best judges of their merits, and that seamanship is a science which enters largely into shipbuilding’. Elliot objected to Reed’s attempt to gain greater authority to shape the Royal Navy and empower naval architects as the final arbiters of what was desirable and safe in ship design. He concluded his letter: ‘Mr. Reed will yet have to perform the same act of homage to practical experience which he proposes . . . admirals . . . to do [to] . . . “science”.’120 These discourses increasingly contested the value of experiment and experience in ship design. The episodes of the 1860s reveal that naval officers alone could no longer direct the conception and design of naval ships. The extent to which naval architects were seen to possess essential skills and knowledge for the design of ships – skills that could not be directly judged by naval officers – would be contested. Naval officers, unconvinced by the experiments they witnessed in the 1850s and 1860s – and the discussions taking place in the INA – were eager to ensure that engineers did not gain a free hand to design the ships upon which they would extend British power across the oceans. A new dynamic between naval officers and naval architects in the design process slowly emerged. But first the essential tensions between two groups of professionals contesting the authority to shape the Royal Navy required resolution. 118 Ibid., 684 –5. 119 Quoted in George Elliot, ‘Mr E.J. Reed, C.B., on the loss of the Captain [letters to the editor]’, The Times 26867 (28 September 1870), 12. 120 Ibid., 12.

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These tensions continued into the 1870s, revolving around the Admiralty’s latest battleship, the Devastation. ‘An Old Sailor’ grew concerned that if the ship was deemed a failure, as a number of naval officers believed she was, ‘men will grow suspicious of every new design of ship however great its peculiar merits may be’.121

121 An Old Sailor, ‘Notes on the navy’, Fraser’s Magazine 12 (November 1875), 685.

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A scientific problem of the highest order

[Admiral George Elliot] claimed for the [twin-hulled] Dicey ship that she would be able to realise the full power of her engines on all occasions, and he contended that ‘the twin canoes of the Indian seas’ afforded abundance of proof of ‘the efficiency of this system of designing for obtaining the minimum of motion from the action of the waves.’ Now, if Admiral Elliot were a scientific officer, or if he cultivated a scientific method of thought, he would see how seriously statements like these operate against public confidence in a man. Edward James Reed uses his periodical Naval Science to maintain a partisan controversy between the forces of ‘science’ and naval experience in the judging of ship behaviour.1 When the committee presided over by Lord Dufferin was appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to examine the designs upon which ships of war have recently been constructed, the point on which the public were most anxious to be satisfied was whether our ironclad ships were safe against such disasters as had just before overwhelmed the Captain. This was a scientific problem of the highest order, with which few men could deal, but fortunately the scientific was by far the strongest side of the committee, which comprised the name of Sir William Thomson, Dr. Woolley, Professor Rankine, and Mr. Froude. Engineering emphasises the scientific nature of the design problems facing the Royal Navy.2

On 12 July 1871 the latest addition to the Royal Navy was launched at Portsmouth. The usual launch ceremony drew the local population to cast their eyes over a most unusual specimen of naval architecture. The popular press understood HMS Devastation to represent the ‘triumph of the turret over 1 Edward J. Reed, ‘Three recent critics of naval architecture’, Naval Science 3 (1874), 429 –38, esp. 436 –7. 2 ‘Naval Architecture – No. XI: The development of the science of naval architecture from the 1860 to the present time’, Engineering 13 (17 May 1872), 323.

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5.1  HM Turret Ship Devastation at Spithead on the Occasion of the Naval Review in Honour of the Shah of Persia, 23rd June 1873, by Edward Cooke

the broadside principle of carrying guns of exceptionally large calibre at sea’.3 But the Portsmouth crowd were surely struck less by the four 12-inch turrets than by the ship’s overall appearance (Figure 5.1). Described in Chambers’s as ‘the strangest of all sea-monsters’, the Devastation shed the masts, yards and sails associated with the ship of the line for over a millennium and took its entire propulsive power from engines and screws.4 The loss of HMS Captain less than a year before had shattered trust in the Navy’s newest battleships. An author in Fraser’s Magazine wrote that the disaster had ‘sowed a feeling of distrust amongst seamen which this generation will not see eradicated’.5 The outward appearance of the Devastation did little to improve levels of trust. Three years after the launch of the Devastation, yet before the naval service had been persuaded to place its faith in the ship, a reporter from Chambers’s gained special access to write about life on board this naval curiosity. The article began with the reporter’s first impressions of the ship: 3 ‘Her Majesty’s Ship Devastation’, The Times 27114 (13 July 1871), 10. 4 ‘On board the Devastation’, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts 548 (27 June 1874), 409 –13, esp. 409. 5 An Old Sailor, ‘Notes on the Navy’, Fraser’s Magazine 12 (November 1875), 674 – 86, esp. 682.



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Right ahead of us lies the Devastation itself, looking like anything but a ship. She seems to be as much like what one is accustomed to consider a ship as a turtle is like a fish; there is nothing ship-shape about her, except that she floats on the water, and carries guns and men. As we approach her, our idea as to her unlikeness to a ship becomes more and more confirmed; and as we step on board, we realise the fact, that we never before saw anything at all like her.6

The author, truly confounded by his experience, struggled to decide on a noun for the ship, switching between the traditional ‘her’ and ‘monster’, while at other times fixing on the ship’s mechanical and electrical ‘vitals’. Most strikingly, the author was unsure which end was the ship’s bow and which the stern.7 On an aesthetic level the author was all at sea: ‘the Devastation moves slowly ahead, and glides through the water as easily as if she were a ship, instead of being a sort of infernal machine created by some tremendous engineering mind, when in a state of nightmare’.8 The machine imagery that surrounded the Devastation was more than aesthetic. It reflected the ship’s design as an ‘engine of war’. The London Journal perceptively asked ‘why should any of the instruments of destruction be clothed in any of the panoply pleasing to the eye and glittering to the imagination’.9 The Devastation was truly a machine. The Chambers’s correspondent’s exclusive report from on board the Devastation noted that ‘the turrets are turned by steam, the guns themselves are raised or lowered by steam, the ship is ventilated by steam, steered by it, the cable is washed by it, and the vessel, of course, is moved by it’.10 This dependence on engines, unprecedented in the Royal Navy, brought themes of authority, material and control firmly into public view. Chambers’s identified the chief engineer as the ‘great presiding genius of the ship’ and noted that without him and his assistants ‘the Devastation becomes the veriest [sic] hulk in the navy’.11 Indeed the ship’s steam made light work for the common sailor. Devastation, with a displacement of over 9,300 tons and a length of 285 feet, required a complement of just 358 men. The Captain,   6 ‘On board the Devastation’, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts 548 (27 June 1874), 409.  7 Ibid., 409 –13, esp. 410. It was common to refer to the Devastation as a monster or monstrosity, also see An Old Sailor, ‘Notes on the Navy’, 684.   8 ‘On board the Devastation’, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts 548 (27 June 1874), 410.   9 ‘Our war ships of the future’, London Journal 56 (December 1872), 376. 10 ‘On board the Devastation’, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts 548 (27 June 1874), 410. 11 Ibid., 412.

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laid down two years earlier, had a displacement of 7,767 tons and a crew of between 500 and 600 men.12 Of the Devastation’s complement only around 100 were bluejackets, while of the 1,100 crew of the Victoria, a first-rate woodenwall launched in 1859, 600 were bluejackets. The comparison between the mastless Devastation and the fully rigged ships of the 1870s – let alone 1850s – underlined the altered nature of seafaring in the machine ship. Intrigue in the Devastation’s unique arrangements soon turned into anxiety and distrust. The ship was dependent on her engines. She was not a cruising ship, nor was she built for coastal defence. Her hull held only enough coal for one transatlantic crossing. In many reports, this ship, the most expensive, powerful warship in the Navy, was talked of as an ‘adjunct to the fleet’, ‘never [to] be allowed to go ocean-cruising alone’.13 These lines, written six years after the Devastation’s launch, reveal the suspicion and uncertainty that surrounded this class of ship for so much of the 1870s. Actors contending for authority in ship design drew her into the wake of the Captain catastrophe and Reed’s resignation from the Admiralty. In Parliament George Goschen, First Lord of the Admiralty, faced questions, innuendo and intrigue about this unfamiliar vessel. On a number of occasions he was drawn to remark that if the Admiralty were unable to prove the Devastation’s stability in heavy seas, she would be a failure.14 The ship was kept close to Britain’s harbours until this question, and the future of naval architecture, was settled. By 1873 distrust within the service and parliamentary intrigue over the Devastation had become a source of great embarrassment to the Admiralty Board. In the Commons John Hay and Henry Corry questioned the secretary of the Admiralty whether ships lately constructed and in construction at the Admiralty would be examined by a third party to ascertain their safety. Gossip about the Devastation’s safety escalated to the point that Goschen had to address the Commons to deny reports that her crew constantly wore cork jackets.15 The ship had been removed from the active list while a committee on designs sat to consider its safety. The Admiralty was keen to end public intrigue and rebuild faith in the fleet. So too were the ship’s builders. The success of the Devastation was vital to the future authority of Admiralty constructors and the naval architecture they practised. Now led by Nathaniel Barnaby, another founder of the INA, the Admiralty staff ventured their reputations to build 12 David K. Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought: warship design and development, 1860 –1905 (London, 1997), 53. 13 ‘Our ironclads’, Leisure Hour 1309 (27 January 1877), 56 – 8, esp. 57. 14 ‘The ship of the future’, Saturday Review 35 (24 May 1873), 672–3. 15 ‘House of Commons, Thursday, March 21’, The Times 27331 (22 March 1872), 5.



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credibility around the ship. Also implicated in the ship’s success or failure was a new site of naval science, William Froude’s test tank, established a few years earlier to investigate ship behaviour through 12-foot models. Committee on the design of warships In April 1873 Henry Lennox, Duke of Richmond, made the Devastation subject to a parliamentary speech condemning the design work of Reed and his successors at the Admiralty. Lennox had served as Secretary to the Admiralty in Lord Derby’s Conservative administration from 1866 to 1868. Having spoken to a number of naval officers and commentators, he felt it necessary to bring to the First Lord’s attention the ‘unfavourable rumours’ and ‘dis­ approval of a ship of this character being sent to sea, relying only on her steam power, and having no masts and sails’.16 Sir James Elphinstone, Conservative MP for Portsmouth, joined Lennox, asserting that the Devastation was ‘totally incapable of sea voyages. He came to this conclusion after a personal inspection of her, and was confirmed in it by the opinion of competent men. . . . This was one of the most audacious experiments in hydrodynamics which had ever been attempted.’17 While George Bentinck, Conservative MP for Whitehaven, suggested that ‘[e]veryone must admit that the Devastation could not be regarded as a sea-going vessel’.18 Conservative politicians felt that the ship was too large for its purpose, believing that the design was suited only to harbour defence, and accused the Liberal government of refusing to take responsibility for the original design. Controversy had surrounded the Devastation since before she was launched. Criticism had been levelled against the ship prior to launch. In 1871 Reed, no longer a public servant, offered to respond on the Admiralty’s behalf. Following the nature of his departure from the Admiralty, a series of critical letters in The Times on the Captain and a public dispute with Hugh Childers, the Liberal government did not seek his involvement. Instead the Admiralty appointed a committee to examine the design of ships of war, consisting of leading naval officers, engineers, physicists and mathematicians. There was a clear political dimension to the committee’s work. The Spectator suspected the Admiralty, in forming this ‘Committee of philosophers’, of hoping to discredit Reed and Robinson.19 The Admiralty had already suspended work on all the 16 ‘Navy – H.M.S. “Devastation”. Observations’, Hansard 215 (3 April 1873), 568. 17 Ibid., 577. 18 Ibid., 578. 19 ‘The “Devastation” Debate’, Spectator 46 (5 April 1873), 434.

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ships Reed had designed and cancelled all those he had planned.20 With the aim of investigating the design of ships lately constructed for the Royal Navy, Robinson saw the mere act of forming the committee as an aspersion on his and Reed’s credibility: [It is] in itself an expression of doubt on the part of the Admiralty of the day, [as to] whether they, their predecessors, or their servants, were competent to fill the posts entrusted to them. It was in some respects an act of accusation against all the public officers who had administered the Naval Service during the period over which the Committee was to extend its investigations, and it was specially pointed against the Controller and the Chief Constructor of the Navy (then out of office), who were even more responsible than the Boards of Admiralty for these designs.21

The committee of designs, formed in January 1871, was charged with investigating the Admiralty’s previous warship designs and its future construction policy. The Admiralty permitted a broad study of ship design with the aim of producing a focused report that would provide reassurance as to which designs offered the ‘highest attainable efficiency’.22 The committee heard evidence from the designers of the first decade of ironclad steam warships and the officers who commanded them. It also took evidence from committee members on the state of naval architecture and naval operations. Frederic Rogers, a civil servant and friend of William Froude, noted in his correspondence: Froude is up and down here, about an Admiralty commission on which he is sitting. It is to discuss, as far as I see, ship-building in general, shapes, armour, sizes, etc. etc. He seems to like it much and says that the sailors and men of science it is composed of work well together. It is to be hoped they will keep us straight, and make our ditch impassable to Prussians or any one else.23

Froude was joined by naval officers including Admirals George Elliot and Alfred Ryder, and technical authorities including Joseph Woolley, Thomas Lloyd, W.J. Macquorn Rankine, George Bidder (a former president of the Institution of Civil Engineers), the mathematician and physicist William Thomson (who would develop a powerful influence at the Admiralty by the end of the 20 Frederic Manning, The Life of Sir William White (London, 1923), 53. 21 Letter of Admiral Sir Spencer Robinson, K.C.B., to the First Lord of the Admiralty on the Report of the committee on designs for ships of war, 1872 (C487), 3. 22 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, 1872 (C477), v. 23 Frederic Rogers to his sister, 30 January 1871, quoted in George Eden Marindin (ed.), Letters of Frederic Lord Blachford: under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1860 –1871 (London, 1896), 293.



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century) and three commercial shipbuilders.24 The committee was chaired by the imperial diplomat and dedicated sailor Lord Dufferin. Responding to the formation of the Committee, the Mechanic’s Magazine expressed its approval of the appointment of men of science ‘to whom such a subject may be safely and satisfactorily referred’, but anxiety that the naval members might not be similarly ‘free from prejudice’.25 The opposite view was held by certain naval officers suspicious of what benefits ‘men of science’ could bring to the problem of ship design. The Devastation figured heavily in the committee’s deliberations, given her high-profile character as an experiment in ship design, and the ongoing distrust in Admiralty constructors. If the naval and scientific specialists on the committee found in favour of the Devastation – or even proposed alterations to correct any design faults – the Liberal government might silence the Conservative critics of the Board of Admiralty that had sanctioned the Captain and other recent experiments in shipbuilding. Alterations had already been made to Reed’s design by Barnaby, which added to the complex array of claims and counterclaims about the ship’s safety. The Chief Constructor had extended the breastwork, which protected the base of the ship’s turret, to the sides of the ship with a lighter iron superstructure. The Times reported this alteration as ‘a partial condemnation of the original plan of the ship as a low freeboard sea-going monitor, but it must be remembered that Mr Reed, the designer of the ship, was answerable for the soundness of his calculations in laying down her design’.26 This reporter evidently felt Reed’s name now lacked credibility. The committee, examining the matter more closely, believed ‘the “Devastation” will prove a formidable and efficient warship, a safe and stable vessel, and a valuable addition to Her Majesty’s Navy’ with the superstructure or without it. The members of the scientific subcommittee, led by Thomson, expressed their preference for the superstructure, but primarily because of the extra cabin capacity and comfort it would afford to the crew.27 With the Captain still fresh in mind, the Devastation’s 9 feet of freeboard received special attention. Reed and Barnaby were ultimately satisfied with the height, but the former declared a preference for a higher freeboard. He complained that the Admiralty’s orders on the size and tonnage of the Devastation 24 For Thomson’s early work with engineers and the Admiralty see Crosbie Smith & M. Norton Wise, Energy and empire: a biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), 722– 98. 25 ‘The Admiralty’, Mechanics’ Magazine (17 February 1871), 109 –10, esp. 109. 26 ‘Her Majesty’s Ship Devastation’, The Times 27114 (13 July 1871), 10. 27 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, xxx.

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limited the possible height of freeboard and speed.28 Vice-Admiral Thomas Symonds expressed grave doubts: ‘I have no affection for those low freeboard vessels myself, I am positively afraid of them.’ To illustrate his concerns, Symonds drew on stories of how the American Monitors behaved at sea, implying that high-ranking members of the naval service saw the Devastation as a Monitor, destined but not appropriately designed for sea-keeping.29 Admiral the Right Honourable Earl of Lauderdale voiced similar concerns with regard to the angle of maximum roll that the constructors had calculated for the ship: ‘until it is made clear to me that it would be safe, I shall consider that it would be unsafe as a maximum angle’.30 Looking towards future ship design, the committee made a point of asking witnesses whether they felt the Devastation represented the fighting ship of the future. After hearing evidence they could not agree, the engineering and scientific members of the committee, along with a number of naval officers, found in the Devastation’s favour. Writing for the majority, Dufferin summarised that ‘the “Devastation” class represents in its broad features the first-class fighting ship of the immediate future’.31 He and others believed that ship design was a series of compromises between armament, armour, speed and strength. There was no perfect ship, despite newspaper reports and remarks in Parliament that suggested that discovering such a ship was the committee’s mission.32 ‘A perfect ship of war is a desideratum which has never yet been attained’, Dufferin wrote, ‘and is now further than ever removed from our reach. Any near approach to perfection in one direction inevitably brings with it disadvantages in another.’33 The tension between notions of a ‘perfect ship’ and the compromises required in the practice of naval architecture helps explain some of the controversy surrounding the Devastation. The Devastation was designed for a specific function. She carried the heavi­ est guns yet taken to sea, and could deliver her firepower in coastal attacks by steaming into ports. Dufferin recognised that the Devastation embodied the Admiralty decision to give up the pursuit of compromise: ‘the power of sailing was entirely given up in favour of that of carrying thick armour and very powerful guns’.34 Yet the ship’s critics did not limit themselves to how well the 28 Ibid., 137, 141. 29 Ibid., 82. 30 Ibid., 164. 31 Ibid., xiii. 32 ‘Navy – H.M.S. “Devastation”. Observations’, Hansard 215 (3 April 1873), 569. 33 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, viii. 34 Ibid., viii.



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ship fulfilled the requirements of a heavily armed steam warship, but how well she served the defence of Britain by patrolling the oceans. As the 1873 parliamentary debate on the Devastation reveals, criticism of the ship tended to rest on her qualities for cruising and sea keeping, which, by design, were minimal. The committee and various witnesses attempted to separate the issues, stressing that fast sailing frigates would continue to be employed to patrol the world’s oceans.35 Robinson’s evidence stated that the unmasted ship was the most powerful machine of war if fighting qualities were the only consideration: ‘You must sacrifice some of their efficiency as fighting ships the moment you come into large masts and sails.’36 In this regard, much of the Devastation controversy really concerned strategic thinking, although it manifested as a technical debate with questions of trust in professional groups. If no perfect ship existed, then it was more important than ever for naval officers, naval architects and engineers to acknowledge this, agree on the purpose of a ship and its specifications and then avoid extensive revision during construction. On one level this entailed a greater awareness on the part of naval officers and administrators of the problems facing naval architects, and vice versa. It also called for the respective groups to trust in each other’s knowledge and skills. This was problematic, as illustrated by Admirals Elliot and Ryder’s dissenting report. They proposed an extensive series of specific structural alterations to the Devastation that added 520 tons in armour and additional armaments, the result of which would immerse the ship a further 14 inches into the water. The majority of the committee did not disagree in principle with what the Admirals suggested, but they did not believe that the alterations were necessary for the ship to be safe and efficient at sea. They also acknowledged that the alterations would affect the overall design.37 To study this disagreement as a question of trust is to ask whether the ship should be sent to sea on the authority of a scientific subcommittee that found in its favour or whether the design should first be corrected by Admirals. It is evident from the Admirals’ report that they felt the mathematical theories of ship behaviour were inconsistent with their experience of navigating ships at sea: We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the investigations of the Scientific Sub-Committee, or of the calculations of the Constructor’s Department; but we feel doubtful whether the theory adopted can embrace such exceptional cases as occur when the vessel is beset by unruly cross seas.38 35 36 37 38

Ibid., 142. Ibid., 70. Ibid., xxxvi–xxxviii. Ibid., xliii.

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Elliot and Ryder’s view was not shared by all naval officers. Sherard Osborn, who had played an important role in Coles’s work, exhibited greater trust in the calculations that naval architects made in their design work. The main criticism he made of the ships under construction at the Admiralty was the lightness of their armour. Osborn, who was firmly wedded to the idea that armour could resist the most powerful armaments, demanded greater protection around the ship’s machinery. Dufferin pressed him on how he would achieve this, to which the he responded: ‘I would distribute the armour as much as possible.’ On first sight this sounded similar to Elliot and Ryder’s general call for more weight, but Osborn believed ‘[t]hat [this] is a question for naval architects. I only say, give me the maximum spread as fairly as you can over my battery, protecting my guns and men at the battery, and protecting the ship as low as you tell me she can be protected.’39 Osborn’s suggestion provided naval architects with an idea of what their users looked for in a ship, while also expressing trust in the skills of naval architects to do their best with the requirements of naval officers. Such a dialogue might lead to collaboration and consensus over ship design. A working relationship between naval officers, naval architects and engineers required trust. As the previous chapters have demonstrated, this tended not to exist, and so had to be nurtured. Robinson underscored the lack of trust between the Admiralty Board and its constructors in his testimony about how design authority and autonomy was spread across the design process: ‘[it] is a very great mistake that the Board of Admiralty has always made, in limiting the naval architect to tonnage and dimensions. . . . I hardly know of a case in which we have built a ship in the manner we should have liked to build it.’40 Displaying great faith in the work of naval architects, Robinson trusted in their authority and described the ‘folly’ of altering their work after the design had been completed. Reed echoed this point: ‘I think it is always an extremely extravagant thing to interfere with the design of such a vessel when she is in a state of great advancement.’41 Giving such authority to the naval architect necessarily meant de-authorising the naval officer to some extent in the design process. It also implied a trust in the tools which naval architects increasingly utilised to produce their designs, tools such as the test tank, a model basin presided over by Froude, in which the mathematician and engineer undertook resistance and rolling experiments with 12-foot ship models.

39 Ibid., 84. 40 Ibid., 71. 41 Ibid., 138.



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Model ships, model science Knowledge of ship behaviour was traditionally gathered at sea through observation. When such knowledge was employed in ship design, as it was by William Symonds, it could become a source of tension with shipwrights educated in the mathematics and theories of hydrodynamics. Within natural philosophy ship behaviour was even more divorced from the visual observations of naval officers. In the 1860s INA members increasingly drew connections between knowledge of ship behaviour, ship design and the work of scientists and mathematicians. Yet even in the INA the notion of gathering data about ship behaviour from alternative sources was controversial. When William Froude introduced his plans to examine ship resistance and roll with models, he encountered great opposition. Froude (1810 –79) began his career as a civil engineer with Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Possessing a degree in mathematics from Oxford, he was an ideal assistant to the engineer, whose own mathematical skills were limited. Froude also became a close friend, helped in part by his gentrified background, which appealed to Brunel.42 In 1844, he left Brunel’s service and retired to Dartington to care for his ailing father. There Brunel commissioned him to undertake piecemeal engineering work on the Bristol and Exeter Railway, which is suggestive of the trust that Brunel placed in his ability.43 In 1857, shortly prior to the launch of the Great Eastern, Brunel sought reassurances that the design was safe. He commissioned Froude to undertake a series of experiments and mathematical analyses on the ship’s design, particularly with regard to stability and roll. Froude continued work on these subjects for the remainder of his life. Together with a number of scientifically inclined ship designers, he believed that shipwrights need not watch their ships ‘with as anxious and uncertain an eye as if she were an animal he had bred . . . not a work which he had himself completed, and whose performance he could predict’.44 Wanting an alternative to doubt and instinct, he developed a system of model tests to predict the

42 R. Angus Buchanan, The engineers: a history of the engineering profession in Britain (London, 1989), 162, 201. 43 Isambard Kingdom Brunel to William Froude, 22 July 1845, Isambard Kingdom Brunel papers (hereafter I.K. Brunel papers), Bristol University Special collections, Bristol, Letter Books, 4; Brunel to Froude, 3 October 1846, I.K. Brunel papers, Letter books, 5. 44 [Anon.], ‘William Froude’, Nature (12 June 1879), 148 –50, esp. 148.

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speed and stability of specific ship designs.45 This practice enabled the naval architect to take the ship further into the domain of ‘science’, as Reed and other advocates construed it, and test with models the effects of various alterations to ship form. Compared to experiments with naval vessels, model experiments possessed great benefits in their considerably cheap cost and low levels of risk. However, they were not at all credible to naval officers, let alone naval architects, when Froude began to discuss them in the early 1860s. Opposition to model testing within the scientific community was largely based on the absence of a proof or past success with modelling. How accurately could the behaviour of 12-foot models represent the sailing qualities of fullsized warships? Woolley expressed concern that the proportionality between a model and a wave was not a credible reflection of ‘a real vessel . . . [and] the waves of the ocean’.46 John Scott Russell remarked that ‘we should entirely agree within the narrow limits of the hypothetical case set up by Froude . . . where I differ from Mr. Froude is, that his theoretical float is not a ship, and his hypothetical waves are not a sea’.47 Resistance continued throughout the decade, and in 1869 a committee of his peers, including Rankine, James Robert Napier and Charles Merrifield, principal of the RSNA, reported to the BAAS that model experiments could not be trusted.48 Froude’s fellow INA members, including Russell, a past advocate of model experiments, saw the value of model tests as little more than interesting. Naval officers also questioned the value of Froude’s model science, doubting, as they did, that there was a relationship between the behaviour of models in a test tank and of ships at sea. At a meeting of the RUSI, Admiral Edmund Fishbourne gave the following description of Froude’s work with models: ‘Mr. Froude has made an experiment in a tin-dish; to this exceptional kind of 45 For the significance of doubt in Froude’s engineering work see Don Leggett, ‘William Froude, John Henry Newman and scientific practice in the culture of Victorian doubt’, English Historical Review 128 (2013), 571– 95. 46 Joseph Woolley, ‘On the present state of the mathematical theory of naval architecture’, Transactions 1 (1860), 10 –38, 37; Joseph Woolley, ‘On the rolling of ships’, Transactions 3 (1862), 1–7, esp. 6. 47 John Scott Russell, ‘Postscript to Mr. Froude’s remarks on rolling’, Transactions 4 (1863), 276 – 83, esp. 278. 48 Charles Merrifield, ‘Report of a committee on the stability, propulsion, and seagoing qualities of ships’, Reports, 1869 (London, 1870), 10 – 47. Also see Ben Marsden, ‘The administration of the “engineering science” of naval architecture at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–1872’, Yearbook of European Administrative History 20 (2008), 67– 94.



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experiment he has applied his mathematics, and he has got a result which really means nothing.’49 Froude appreciated the difficulties that actors in many different professions had in placing their trust in model testing: ‘public opinion is much more easily satisfied by experiments on the scale of 12 inches to the foot than on a smaller scale’.50 He also acknowledged that he did not ‘have name enough . . . to be trusted with such an important job by the public’, and thus could not be an authority to reconcile the diverse professional groups divided over ship design.51 Froude could only respond to his critics with model tests verified by the results of corresponding full-scale tests. Froude’s supporters were few in number, but one important advocate was Reed. In 1868, Froude approached the then Chief Constructor with the idea for a systematic investigation of ship resistance with models. He argued that ‘(i) Experiments duly conducted on a small scale will give results truly indicative of the performance of full size ships. [And] (ii) There are very important defects and inaccuracies in the received views concerning the resistances of different forms.’52 Froude also approached Hugh Childers, then First Lord of the Admiralty. His correspondence emphasised the savings in waste and greater economy for the Royal Navy that model experiments would yield. By identifying inefficient hull forms, the Royal Navy would save on coal consumption. Making a direct reference to the mid nineteenth-century ‘coal question’, he borrowed from contemporary discourses on industrial economy and efficiency to emphasise the importance of hull shape for the ship’s propulsive power.53 Members of the INA may have been unconvinced of the value of 49 Fishbourne in discussion following S. Barrass, ‘Armour-plated ships, and the stability of ships in a sea-way, considered in relation to the principle of the lever and the laws of motion’, RUSI Journal 8 (1864), 199 –216, esp. 214. 50 Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science. Minutes of evidence, appendices and analyses of evidence, vol. II, 1874 (C958), 151. 51 William Froude to Edward J. Reed, 20 January 1869, Admiralty papers, ADM 116/137. 52 William Froude to Edward J. Reed, December 1868, Admiralty papers, ADM 116/167. 53 William Froude to Hugh Childers, 11 December 1868, Admiralty papers, ADM 116/167. William Stanley Jevons, The coal question: an inquiry concerning the progress of the nation, and the probable exhaustion of our coal-mines (London, 1866), v–xxvi, 85 –138, 370 – 6. For the coal question and the steam ship see Crosbie Smith, Ian Higginson & Philip Wolstenholme, ‘ “Imitations of God’s own works”: making trustworthy the ocean steamship’, History of Science 41 (2003), 379 – 426, esp. 405 –17.

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model experiment, but Childers responded positively to the promise of greater economy in the steam navy. With a grant of £2,000 Froude constructed his test tank: a waterway approximately 300 feet long, a railway, hauling engine and carriage to propel ship models, automatic measuring and plotting instruments and model-making equipment.54 With the remaining money he paid his son, Edmund Froude, and a number of RSNA graduates to assist him. He requested no remuneration for his own services. Froude used this delicate mechanical testing system to commence a systematic study that would test his ideas on ship resistance. Froude’s stream-line theory claimed that most ships with fine lines would experience no resistance when passing through a ‘perfect fluid’. This contradicted the common-sense view that a ship expended energy by pushing water out of its path, as Russell had described in papers on the wave-line theory. Froude refuted this assumption by mechanically proving it to be a visual illusion that had no basis in experiment. He demonstrated the theory through small experiments that replicated the basic physical conditions experienced during ship resistance. In one such experiment performed during his 1875 presidential address at section G of the BAAS, he ran water through a suspended length of curved piping (taking the place of the side of a ship). Because the suspended pipe did not move, Froude concluded, there was an absence of resistance properties in fluid passing the side of a body. Instead he contended that resistance was caused by friction between the ship and the waves that formed around it.55 From this basis, Froude proceeded to undertake an extensive number of model tests that sought to identify hull forms that experienced little resistance. The Admiralty left Froude to direct work in the test tank, but in 1872 called on him to investigate a proposal for a ‘polysphenic’ rocket ship. In April 1872, the Reverend Charles Meade Ramus contacted the Admiralty, claiming to have invented a ship capable of reaching speeds of between 40 and 60 knots. Ramus had undertaken a series of model experiments that he believed demonstrated the great speed of a polysphenic hull form (a shape of two inclined steps, like two scalene triangles in sequence). He believed that when the ship reached a specific speed it would lift out of the water, reducing the resistance profile of 54 For further details on the test tank machinery and operations see Don Leggett, ‘Replication, re-placing and naval science in comparative context, c. 1868 –1904’, British Journal for the History of Science 46 (2013), 1–21. For Froude’s early work in the tank see Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought, 70 –1. 55 [William Froude], ‘The British Association: address to the mechanical section’, The Engineer 20 (1875), 191–2, 215 –17.



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the vessel and enabling it to skim the surface of the water.56 Froude studied the proposal, using the test tank to manufacture models and try them as Ramus prescribed. His report on the polysphenic ship form noted that although the idea seemed plausible from visual examination and prima facie analysis, the reality of ‘obliterating resistance at extreme speed is altogether illusory’.57 Froude concluded that Ramus had miscalculated the power needed to propel an actual ship, highlighting flaws in how the results had been scaled up. A speed of approximately 250 knots would have been required before the ship’s resistance profile was lowered. Ramus responded in print to the report, deferring to Froude’s general skill but accusing him of miscalculations in his own method for scaling up.58 ‘I am convinced’, he wrote, ‘that no such exorbitant amounts of power as those mentioned by Mr. Froude will even be required.’59 He continued to suggest ship shapes, inventions and model data to the Admiralty for investigation, and it in turn continued to consult Froude to ascertain their accuracy.60 Only through such consultation could the Admiralty publicly dismiss the value of Ramus’s work, and in the process Froude was able to slowly nurture institutional credibility for his own.61 Froude also found support in William Thomson, who, like him, served on the committee on designs. They corresponded about hydrodynamics and the procedures that Froude used to mechanically examine ship resistance and roll. Thomson held that ‘I never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model 56 Charles Ramus to the Lords of the Admiralty, 12 April 1872, in Correspondence between Admiralty and Rev. C.M. Ramus on certain Experiments, 1874 (313), 3– 4. 57 [Report of] Experiments to determine the resistance at various speeds of a ship of 2,500 tons, designed by the Reverend C. Meade Ramus, in Correspondence between Admiralty and Rev. C.M. Ramus on certain Experiments, 24. 58 Ramus to Lushington, 20 December 1872, in Correspondence between Admiralty and Rev. C.M. Ramus on certain Experiments, 29. 59 Charles Ramus, The Polysphenic Ship: or, the possibility of a greatly increased speed at sea proved by new experiments with an appeal to the government to publish the experi­ ments made by the Admiralty to test the inventor’s proposals (London, 1874), 7. 60 These inventions included a polysphenic ship propelled by rockets that Froude found would not skim but launch out of the water, spinning around as it elevated. Engineering followed the developments, noting, ‘Mr. Froude wouldn’t like to say how or with what result the ship would come down again.’ See Charles Ramus to the Lords of the Admiralty, 15 February 1877, Admiralty papers, ADM 166/167; ‘The Ramus Experiment’, Engineering 19 (29 January 1875), 90; ‘Admiralty Alternative’, Funny Folks 108 (1879), 108. 61 William Froude to Vernon Lushington, 13 April 1872, in Correspondence between Admiralty and Rev. C.M. Ramus on certain Experiments, 5.

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5.2  Diagram of Froude’s model rolling experiment, 14 May 1871

of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model I can understand it.’62 Froude developed a number of self-measuring mechanisms for the test tank that enabled him to treat a ship as part of a mechanical model for understanding hydrodynamics. He made precise measurements of ship model behaviour, which he described in his correspondence with Thomson. Around the same time Thomson invited Froude to join him for a trip on his yacht.63 Dufferin’s committee on designs employed Froude and the test tank in the hope of intervening on the question of ship stability and the safety of the Devastation, were she sent to sea. He began by devising a system for measuring the rolling of models and ships, focusing on the point of maximum roll, together with the number and speed of rolls required to right a vessel from a given angle (Figure 5.2). Froude’s apparatus used a pendulum to give a representation of 62 Smith & Wise, Energy and empire, 464; M. Norton Wise & Crosbie Smith, ‘Measurement, work and industry in Lord Kelvin’s Britain’, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 17 (1986), 147–73. 63 William Froude to William Thomson, 18 March 1873, William Thomson papers (hereafter Thomson papers), Glasgow University Special Collections, Glasgow, GB 0247 MS Kelvin F48.



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the angle rolled. Attached to the pendulum was a pen that rested on a piece of paper, ‘travelling at a regulated speed at right angles to the swing of the pendulum’. ‘[I]t will be readily understood by all who are familiar with indicator diagrams and similar mechanical records,’ Froude reported to the INA in 1873, ‘that a line will be drawn on the paper, which will give an exact record of the relative angular position of the pendulum and the ship.’64 Employing this practice, he examined the stability of a model of the Devastation and explored the benefits to be gained from fixing bilge keels to the hull. Froude’s site of calculation provided committee members with a resource that might subdue rumour and anxiety. The results supported the view of the Constructor’s department that the Devastation had a maximum roll of 43°.65 Using the parameters of the worst ocean waves observed by the charismatic whaler William Scoresby, the scientific subcommittee calculated that the Devastation had the stability to avoid the Captain’s fate.66 The ship’s stability also benefited from bilge keels. The subcommittee reported that these would ‘have a very important steadying effect, but as a precaution against capsizing, they are not at all necessary’.67 This conclusion was similarly based on a series of experiments Froude performed on a model of the Devastation. The results demonstrated that the best arrangement, a single set of large keels on each side of the hull, had only a small effect on the period of roll but significantly reduced the number of rolls required before the ship came to rest.68 Lord Dufferin urged the Admiralty to trust in Froude’s rolling experiments and adopt the suggested bilge keel arrangement. He did, however, temper this endorsement with a cautious view on whether model tests fully represented 64 William Froude, ‘Description of an instrument for automatically recording the rolling of ships’, Transactions 14 (1873), 179 – 90, esp. 179. For trust and indicator diagrams see David Philip Miller, ‘Testing power and trust: the steam indicator, the “Reynolds controversy”, and the relations of engineering science and practice in late nineteenth-century Britain’, History of Science 50 (2012), 212–50. 65 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, xxxi. 66 The committee also concluded that the Captain would have been safe if she had not been fitted with sails, and ‘comparatively safe’ had the vessel been built as designed but with 8 feet of freeboard. Ibid., xxxi–xxxii, xlvii. For Scoresby see Alison Winter, ‘ “Compasses all awry”: the iron ship and the ambiguities of cultural authority in Victorian Britain’, Victorian Studies 38 (1994), 69 – 98. 67 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, 47. 68 With no bilge keels the Devastation double rolled 31.5 times from being heeled at an angle of 8.5° to resting. With a 6-foot keel on each side, the Devastation would double roll just four times. John Harvard Biles, The design and construction of ships: stability, resistance, propulsion and oscillation of ships (2 vols., London, 1908), II:412.

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a ship in the midst of the ocean.69 The committee’s final report suggested that the Admiralty should allow the Constructor’s department more independence to use experiments and calculations to find every ship’s distinct points of instability. The committee also advocated fitting apparatus to measure trim and speed on board ships across the Navy, so that officers had quantifiable data regarding the behaviour of their vessels.70 The episode helped to secure Froude’s authority with the Board of Admiralty as someone who could potentially be called upon to respond to technical problems and uncertainties as they developed, but further efforts were required to extend that authority generally to the practitioners of naval science. The Admiralty Board and members of the committee on designs had begun to place their trust in model science, but the broader naval community continued to question Froude’s work in the test tank. Froude hoped to continue working through the committee to alter opinions, but the Admiralty never intended the committee on designs to become a standing committee. Froude believed this to be a mistake because only a permanent body provided its members a direct line of communication with a government department. Once the committee on designs stopped meeting, the engineers and scientists who made up part of its membership lost the authority which they had been granted. Without a standing committee, the majority of the civilian members lost their voice with the Admiralty, until they were next called on. Although Froude was the exception to this rule, as he worked in close collaboration with the Constructor’s department, he drew attention to this issue later in the 1870s: At present the highest scientific knowledge in the country has no direct method of making itself felt; it can only make itself felt at rare intervals, when the Government has incidentally been led to call on it for assistance; and then it does not act as a constituted assemblage of the highest scientific knowledge, but only as one or two individuals who may have been invoked for the particular occasion when help has been wanted.71

Froude cited his experience with the committee on designs in 1874 when testifying to the Duke of Devonshire’s Royal Commission on scientific instruction and the advancement of science. He believed the work of the committee served as a model for how government departments might attain the benefit of scientific knowledge. Noting that shipbuilding, like many industries, was ‘carried on on traditionary principles’, he felt it beneficial to form a permanent 69 Committee on designs for ships-of-war, xii. 70 Ibid., xix. 71 Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science. Minutes of evidence, appendices and analyses of evidence, vol. II (1874), 147.



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committee of scientific advisors ready to resolve professional disputes and address industrial problems, such as the safety and stability of Britain’s ships.72 Science on the line The majority of members of Dufferin’s committee had found the Devastation to be a safe and effective vessel for the naval operations she had been designed for. Admirals Ryder and Elliot disagreed, and articulated their reservations and proposed alterations that they felt would make the ship safe. After failing to convince other members of the committee, they took their case public, seeking to drive a wedge between naval officers and men of science. A memorandum by Elliot on the 1872–73 navy estimates complained that the committee on designs had consisted of too many civilians and government officials, and that ‘it cannot be said that the recommendations of the majority of the Committee are any practical guide for the Construction Department of the Navy’.73 Ryder and Elliot’s claim to authority through their professional experience as naval officers was undercut, however, by their split from the other officers on the committee: Rear-Admiral G. Phipps Hornby, Rear-Admiral William Houston Stewart, Captain A.W.A. Hood and Captain James G. Goodenough. Once again, ship design and engineering became subject to broader discussions of authority and control. This time the controversy was deeply connected to the credibility of Froude, the test tank and the constructors who had placed their trust in model experiments that concluded the Devastation to be a safe ship. Elliot and Ryder were alone on the committee on designs, but had supporters in the Navy and Parliament. Fishbourne published essays and delivered lectures at the RUSI on the errors in naval architecture as it was practised in the Admiralty. He published three works on ship design in the 1870s, in which he cast suspicion on the safety of the Royal Navy’s fleet and levied fierce criticisms against the ‘radically erroneous systems of design and of calculation’ perpetuated by Reed and Barnaby.74 He saw the Devastation as the embodiment of their and Froude’s work. He absolutely believed that Froude’s theory of ship roll was wrong. He acknowledged Froude’s ‘superstructure of superior 72 Ibid., 149. Froude’s opinion was shared by Thomson, see Ibid., 105. 73 George Elliot, ‘Remarks on vote 100, navy estimates, for 1872–3’, Milne papers, 148/4. 74 Edmund Fishbourne, A letter to the Rt. Hon. G.J. Goschen, M.P., First Lord of the Admiralty, etc. etc., on our ironclad fleet (London, 1872), iv. Also see Edmund Fishbourne, The loss of H.M.S. “Captain”, illustrating a new principle of naval architecture for the first time enunciated (London, 1870); Edmund Fishbourne, Our ironclads and merchant ships (London, 1874).

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mathematics’, but maintained that the theory was ‘baseless, his conclusions could not be otherwise than erroneous, and proportionately deceptive’. His conclusion on the Devastation was damning: ‘to build such mastless things . . .  devoid of sea-going qualities, . . . is to waste public money, . . . imperil numerous lives, and in time of war to court national disaster’.75 In making his criticisms Fishbourne expressed an anxiety that other naval officers had not. No longer, Fishbourne argued, could officers say, ‘ “Because I have been at sea and have got practical experience, I do not need any architectural knowledge; I do not need to understand the principles of mechanics, nor do I need to understand the theory of naval architecture.” ’ He acknow­ ledged that there was authority in mathematical discourse, regardless of how it was wielded. At a RUSI meeting he suggested that ‘Mathematics are very powerful, something like a dentist’s instrument, which if not rightly applied, pulls out the wrong tooth; and then the dentist has to convince the patient that he has not got the tooth-ache.’76 Mathematics were thus a tool, a coded language, through which the ‘truths’ that sailors ‘knew’ through tacit experience could be covered up. Fishbourne’s concession revealed an important shift in the naval community. He implored his fellow officers to claim the authority to shape ship design by taking ownership of its science. ‘[I]f that be not done, and we are to be led away by the great mathematical talents and knowledge of such persons as Mr. Froude,’ he told the RUSI, ‘we shall be landed in the greatest absurdities, and our ships will be utter failures.’ He thought that naval officers were wrong to represent their skills in opposition to mathematics and ‘scientific method’. Fishbourne used his influential podium at the RUSI to advocate ‘a combination of two things, mathematical knowledge, and common sense, or practical know­ ledge applied to that’.77 He felt that the naval community could no longer simply offer an alternative to scientifically informed practices and expect to maintain past levels of authority. Fishbourne’s warning to the naval service helps explain his attempt to controvert Froude’s theory of roll on a mathematical level. Froude held that rolling was often the result of too much stability (added weight) and that stability was linked to the period of a ship’s roll (time taken and angle of a complete roll, the slowness of which indicated dangerous behaviour) and the 75 Fishbourne, A letter, 6, 26. 76 Fishbourne in discussion following S. Barrass, ‘Armour-plated ships, and the stability of ships in a sea-way, considered in relation to the principle of the lever and the laws of motion’, RUSI Journal 8 (1864), 215. 77 Ibid., 215.



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shape of waves. He saw the sharp roll of the ship as a sign of stability and not as a sign of instability and potential danger, as naval officers saw it. A vertical oscillation, for example, ‘seems rather a matter of personal discomfort than of mechanical stress’.78 Fishbourne rejected this conceptualisation of stability as a force of motion designed to right the ship, stating ‘[s]tability . . . is not, nor can be the cause of instability, or of rolling motions’. He also referred to the experiments that Froude used to demonstrate his ideas as little more than disproportionate illusions. Conversely, Fishbourne stated that his own authority came from being ‘an amateur architect . . . [and] a sailor, having therefore a double qualification for understanding the subject which is largely a sailor’s question’ – an argument that echoed controversies from the 1830s.79 Through publicising these ideas Fishbourne continued to fuel professional distrust of the Devastation and Froude’s experiments. In 1874, Henry Watkin, MP for Hythe and a prominent railway speculator, took Fishbourne’s concerns into Parliament, where he asked whether scientific advisors like Thomson, ‘a distinguished man of theoretical science’, were ‘safe advisors’ in practical matters regarding the art of ship design.80 He specifically compared Froude’s skills and credibility to Fishbourne’s, noting that the former’s theories had been rejected by his peers. He quoted directly from the INA model debates, citing John Scott Russell’s belief that ‘the cure [Froude offered for stability] is worse than the disease’. Fishbourne, in contrast, was referred to as someone who had ‘spoken and written on the result of a life of practical experience’.81 Fishbourne and Watkin’s claims to practical knowledge appealed to their audience’s common sense and everyday experiences. Watkin sought to persuade the Commons that Fishbourne was the proper authority on ship design by asking MPs to remember a familiar childhood experience. We had our little boats in childhood, and what was our experience? We cut out a piece of wood in the form of a boat, and we put in masts and sails. We launched it on the Serpentine, and it toppled over at the first puff of wind. Learning by experience, we then nailed a bit of lead upon its keel. It stood then valiantly upright and resisted its enemy, the wind.82

In a debate that echoed the appeal to practical knowledge and common sense made by MPs considering establishing the RSNA at South Kensington, Watkin 78 William Froude, ‘Remarks on Mr. Russell’s paper on rolling’, Transactions 4 (1863), 232–75, 244. 79 Fishbourne, Letter, 3, 12–13, 31. 80 ‘Naval Construction of Ironclads’, Hansard 219 (18 May 1874), 409. 81 Ibid., 410. 82 Ibid., 405 – 6.

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rejected Froude’s conceptualisation of stability in his theory of roll and denied that special knowledge and skills were required to become a naval architect. ‘[I]n one sense we all have been naval architects,’ Watkin told the House.83 He concluded his speech by urging the Commons to legislate on where the centre of gravity in a ship should be placed. This legislation would limit the authority of Froude and Barnaby by making their calculations, model experiments and inclining tests redundant, thus returning naval architects to the sole function of building what the Board of Admiralty told them – just as William Symonds had initially been told how long and wide his ships should be. Watkin’s alarmist statements in Parliament were just the latest in a long stream of rumours concerning the Devastation. The whimsical paper Fun felt that the continual comment and innuendo on the safety of the ship was fit for parody: The Devastation cannot be said to have been properly tested until we have set her coal stores on fire, blown up her boilers, broken down her engines off a lee shore, smashed her armour with thirty-five-ton guns, ‘lifted’ her with a patent nitroglycerine, gun-cotton, torpedo, run her on a sunken reef, and had a mutiny on board.84

With material safety and trust in the Royal Navy subject to repeated rumour, even after the committee on design’s conclusions, the Admiralty was desperate to end the intrigue and rebuild faith in the fleet. Froude, Thomson and Rankine had been supportive of the Admiralty, publicly refuting the claims of officers that the Devastation was unsafe. These men of science were eager to help the Admiralty and demonstrate the fleet’s safety, given the pressure on the Constructor’s department to prove the claims made by the committee on designs. Barnaby conveyed to Henry Marc Brunel his concern ‘that if they [the constructors] do not establish the position of this type of ship in the eyes of the general public, and of their own unscientific superiors as a success’, the mastless ship, together with the authority of science, would suffer severely. Brunel, who had nurtured a good working relationship with the Constructor’s department while assisting Froude in the test tank, told the mathematician that Barnaby believed the board had become more concerned with pleasing the public than scientifically proving the credibility of the fleet.85 83 Ibid., 405. 84 ‘How to test an ironclad’, Fun 17 (31 May 1873), 224. 85 Nathaniel Barnaby quoted in Henry Marc Brunel to William Froude, 14 July 1873, Henry Marc Brunel papers, Bristol University Special collections, Bristol, Letter book 14.



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In 1874 Froude made a formal approach to the Admiralty for permission to undertake ship-rolling experiments that Dufferin had recommended in 1872. A successful series of ‘experiments’ with the ship would nurture trust in the Devastation class, while also validating Froude’s model experiments.86 ‘[I]t should I think go far to establish in the minds of many who still hesitate to place confidence in it,’ Froude wrote to Vernon Lushington, secretary to the Board of Admiralty, ‘it might [also] induce their Lordships to place [model experiments] on a less restricted basis . . . [and] with a somewhat larger scale of expenditure’.87 Froude was given permission to proceed, but the continuing criticism of naval officers threatened the experiment. ‘The entire navy, outside the Admiralty, and highly placed persons at Court’, Barnaby later wrote, ‘held that to send such a ship to sea, would be criminal.’88 Even as Froude was ready to get underway he was held back. ‘[T]here is reason to fear that “their Lordships” are getting frightened by the clamour of unscientific naval officers,’ Froude told Napier. He even considered asking Thomson to ‘fire a shot at them [the Admiralty Board]’ to galvanise support.89 Froude took the Devastation to Gibraltar, where he performed the same rolling experiments as he had with a 12-foot model of the controversial ship. Simulating roll on a model was a reasonably easy mechanical task, but to simulate roll on the ship Froude ordered 400 men to run back and forth across the deck till the vessel oscillated to the necessary degree. The results of Froude’s experiments provided him with demonstrable evidence that the behaviour of a rolling model corresponded with the behaviour of a rolling ship. Froude’s rolling experiment also turned out to be a minor spectacle, thus helping news of the event spread. The King of Portugal learnt of how Froude was causing the Devastation to roll, and requested to board the ship and see the process for himself.90 86 William Froude to Vernon Lushington, 16 October 1874, I.K. Brunel papers, DM1986/2.5. Froude had previously complained to Thomson that he had not had an opportunity to undertake rolling experiments at sea. William Froude to William Thomson, 2 October 1872, Thomson papers, GB 0247 MS Kelvin F46. 87 William Froude to Vernon Lushington, 16 October 1874, I.K. Brunel papers, DM1986/2.5. 88 Nathaniel Barnaby, Naval development in the century (London, 1902), 75. 89 William Froude to James Robert Napier, 15 November 1874, Napier papers, 90/2/4/51. 90 Navy (H.M.S. ‘Devastation’). Copy of reports of the behaviour of H.M.S. ‘Devastation’ on her passage from England to Malta, 1876 (104); David K. Brown, ‘William Froude and “the way of a ship in the sea”, Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts 124 (1992), 207– 31, esp. 216.

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Froude was eager to build trust in his measuring methods, and so prior to the trial displayed his equipment to the INA and provided a commentary on their construction and use. He explained in detail the problems involved in measuring the horizontal line in ship roll, discussing the various ways of recording the constant level from which rolls were measured, from human observers operating pendulums to auto-reading gyroscopes.91 ‘Froude’s machine’, the press’s name for his eventual solution used on the trial, was a concealed box in which roll and pitch were automatically recorded with pens. Charles Merrifield, once a sceptic of Froude’s work, testified to the accuracy and orderly working manner of the roll-recording apparatus. ‘[I]t is well known that the principles on which his machine is arranged are scientifically correct’, Merrifield told members of the INA, and Froude ‘derives immense advantage from being not merely a good theoretical mathematician but a thorough mechanical engineer, accustomed to work with his own hands to such an extent that when he requires accurate work he prefers to do it himself instead of trusting it to workmen.’92 Admiral Edward Belcher provided a less technical testimony of Froude’s ‘valuable invention’, but his comments carried the authority of fifty years’ making observations on the rolling of ships. Froude’s audience at the INA was not wholly supportive of his work. Admiral the Earl of Lauderdale, who declared himself to the meeting as a ‘seaman’, was impressed by the ‘sensitive’ nature of Froude’s apparatus but doubted that any mechanical device was more sensitive to the behaviour of a ship than the body of an experienced sailor: ‘There are such jerks when a ship is steaming or sailing against a head sea that no man but a seaman who has been in a ship can possibly tell what the motions are.’93 In contrast, Robert Spencer Robinson placed faith in Froude’s ability to build an instrument for understanding ship behaviour in a quantitative manner. ‘[I]t is a machine which will, if successful, record accurately all the motions of the ship,’ he told the INA, ‘and enable sailors and naval architects to supply science to the practical work which they have to do.’94 Robinson thus made the vital distinction that experience might guide sailors, but that professional, scientifically trained designers (and perhaps sailors) preferred to produce and utilise mechanically made, numerical knowledge to build ships on.

91 William Froude, ‘Description of an instrument for automatically recording the rolling of ships’, Transactions 14 (1873), 179 – 90, 180 –2. 92 Ibid., 185. 93 Ibid., 186. 94 Ibid., 189.



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The full-scale trial of the Devastation had provided a type of proof which was demonstrable and visual, and that took Froude’s ideas out of the domain of test tanks and into the arena previously dominated by sailors who could stress that they had experience and solid evidence on their side. The success confirmed that naval architecture was not just a mathematical construction, as Fishbourne proffered, but a practice that could guide and guarantee naval power. The validation of Froude’s work demonstrated that engineering and scientific specialists did not lack practical knowledge, as Eliot and Ryder had charged, and could in fact be trusted to judge whether a ship was safe – without the risk of testing against nature’s elements in an experimental squadron. Finally, the Devastation’s success established further credibility for Dufferin’s report and the Admiralty made stability tests mandatory for ships prior to launch. It also encouraged naval officers to understand the ‘Statements of Stability’ that constructors produced, rather than dismiss them as the products of ‘theorists’.95 These reforms shifted the source of authority in judging ship behaviour from experience to experiment, and distinguished the naval constructor, mathematician and engineer as the authoritative professional groups for judging ship stability (and safety more generally). Naval science and naval authority The success of the Devastation’s trial gave a boost to the authority of naval architects and engineers within the Admiralty. The legitimacy that the Admiralty had bestowed on them by following the recommendations of the committee on designs was a major development. Institutional authority of this kind was not, however, immediately useful to silence any future criticism from beyond the Admiralty – be it from Parliament or the press. In the wake of the Devastation affair three of Britain’s senior naval architects sought to improve the status of their profession and garner greater authority by nurturing legitimacy with a wider audience. Key strategies involved disseminating their work through a series of publishing activities, interacting with naval officers through the RUSI and introducing lecture courses at the Royal Naval College. The wider public recognition of the knowledge and skills of naval architects brings our attention back to debates surrounding the rhetorical use of words like ‘science’ and ‘experience’ to nurture authority that had been so important in the early years of the INA. In publishing and lecturing to new audiences, naval architects utilised a range of strategies pertaining to the scope of their instructive material, its 95 William H. White, ‘The Austral judgement’, Nature (15 November 1883), 49 –51.

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accessibility and the mode in which they thought it would appeal to respective audiences. Comparing the work of Barnaby, Reed and William H. White, the success of these strategies can be assessed. These actors had the difficult task of describing their work in a complicated branch of physics and engineering in order to establish the specialised nature of their skills and the legitimacy of the institutional power they had gained with the Admiralty, doing so in the eyes of a naval community and interested public largely uneducated in science and mathematics.96 Reed complained that the ‘practical sailor’ resisted ‘the beautiful science of the late Mr. William Froude’ because it appeared to be too theoretical.97 The following case studies highlight different approaches to addressing this problem. Barnaby, in his capacity as Chief Constructor of the Navy, reached out to the naval community by actively encouraging naval officers to examine the state of naval architecture. In two papers presented at the RUSI, Barnaby util­ ised a shared knowledge between officers and constructors to establish a forum between the two groups. In 1874 he presented a sketch of ‘developments’ in ship design since the Warrior, emphasising that no naval commentator could say with accuracy in what direction design was heading. The naval architect acknowledged that the armour of vessels such as the Warrior was inadequate protection against the guns employed in the 1870s. Admitting these problems, he sought to examine how ‘efficiency’ in ship design was a construct of many design features, not just protection. Citing the example of the Devastation class, Barnaby praised the spirit of ‘boldness’ lately employed by the Admiralty in testing new modes of design and ship shapes. He illustrated his points with reference to the extensive collection of ship presentation models (unlike Froude’s test tank models) held by the institution and with which RUSI members were familiar.98 The following year, he used the much-publicised HMS Hotspur–HMS Glatton ramming experiment to examine the value of rams as part of a ship’s offensive system, and discuss the knowledge produced by such experiments. His paper clarified the view of naval architects that the only adequate proof for certain conclusions 96 For engineering education in the Royal Navy see H.W. Dickinson, Educating the Royal Navy: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century education for officers (London, 2007), esp. 131–51, 177– 98. 97 Edward J. Reed, ‘On the value of technical education to the shipwright and shipowner, 25 November 1886’, in The Worshipful Company of Shipwrights lectures (London, 1886 – 87), 3–28, esp. 20. 98 Nathaniel Barnaby, ‘Modern ships of war, as illustrated by the models in the Royal United Service Institution’, RUSI Journal 16 (1873), 58 –77, esp. 60, 63– 4.



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was through scientifically managed experiments, while keeping open a dialogue with naval officers over their concerns for offensive and defensive power.99 Barnaby’s strategy of open discussion and reaching out to the RUSI established a fresh relationship between constructors and officers. Barnaby’s outreach scheme was extended by his assistant and eventual successor, William H. White. White sought to engage with naval officers and their concerns in a way that did not antagonise. Key to this process was White’s extensive output of articles on ship design and naval matters for the major Victorian periodicals, including Westminster Review, Gentleman’s Magazine, Nineteenth Century and Fortnightly Review.100 White’s articles provided a space to distribute a perspective on the ship from the point of view of the architect. Such a perspective had hitherto been absent, or limited to criticism of Reed’s aggressive pursuit of his own agenda. White’s first articles concerned the design of American Monitors and the Captain. He dealt with the technical complexities that these subjects embodied in a way which general readers could understand and appreciate, articulating and justifying a scientific view of ship design.101 In 1914, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford commended White’s role in transforming perceptions of naval architects by educating naval officers and restoring ‘to the ship of war the symmetry and beauty of design which had been lost during the transition from sail to steam’ (for White’s tenure as Director of Naval Construction see Chapter 6).102 White undertook an ambitious programme to shape younger naval officers’ appreciation of technical and engineering problems. When the Admiralty moved the RSNA to Greenwich in 1872, in order to fold it into the Royal Navy’s new educational establishment, White recognised the opportunity to speak directly to naval cadets. He had long provided lectures on naval architecture in South Kensington, and now designed and delivered a complementary series of lectures on ‘The behaviour of ships’ that attracted naval officers. If naval constructors could shape the attitudes of young naval officers to the science of naval architecture and the skills of constructors, then perhaps they  99 Nathaniel Barnaby, ‘Lessons from the “Hotspur-Glatton” experiment’, RUSI Journal 17 (1874), 294 –309, esp. 294 –5. 100 White also published work for the scientific community in Philosophical Trans­ actions of the Royal Society and Nature, and the naval community in RUSI Journal and Colburn’s United Service Magazine. 101 William H. White, ‘The story of the Captain’, Gentleman’s Magazine 5 (1870), 700 –14. 102 Charles Beresford, The memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford (2 vols., London, 1914), II: 350 –2.

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could nurture a stronger working relationship and shape attitudes to ship design policy. Influential admirals like Astley Cooper Key encouraged White to turn the lectures into a book, a Manual of naval architecture (1877).103 Years later, in a letter to a naval officer, White explained that the book ‘was written, as far as was possible, in popular language for the benefit of naval officers, yachtsmen and others’.104 ‘Writing largely for the information of seamen’, White explained in the preface, ‘it was my endeavour to awaken in their minds an intelligent interest in the observations of deep sea waves and the behaviour of ships.’105 White’s Manual of naval architecture covered a range of issues concerning waves, the ship, armour, armaments and engines. The chapters on resistance provide a particularly useful way to appreciate how the major late nineteenthcentury theories on hydrodynamics were conveyed to the reading public. White described Rankine’s research and the elaborate experiments with models that Froude undertook in the test tank. A review in Fraser’s Magazine emphasised that a ‘notable feature of the book is the full explanation of the modus operandi of making experiments on the qualities and performances of ships, as well as of the purposes for which such experiments are undertaken’, reflecting the significance of teaching a context for naval architecture.106 The manual became a required textbook for students at Greenwich and was placed on board every ship in the Navy.107 Barnaby and White reached out to naval officers to instruct, inform and implicitly mark their authority. The key to their conciliatory approach in publicising and disseminating knowledge about naval science was that they simultaneously taught content and context. Explanations of technical issues like stability, resistance, armour protection and propulsion were placed within the context of larger design questions and how naval architects understood their 103 William H. White to John Murray, 17 May 1875, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 63– 4. 104 William H. White to Captain Robinson, 16 May 1911, [miscellaneous letter attached to a 1900 edition of William H. White, Manual of naval architecture for the use of officers of the Royal Navy, officers of the mercantile marine, yachtsmen, shipowners, and shipbuilders (London, 1877, Fifth Edition, 1900)], London. National Maritime Museum. 105 White, Manual of naval architecture, vi. 106 [Anon.], ‘The science of naval architecture’, Fraser’s Magazine 99 (1878), 269 –76, esp. 275. 107 The book was also translated into Italian, German, Russian, French and Japanese at the request of foreign navies who also wished to use the Manual as a textbook for officers. Manning, Life of White, 61.



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subject. Barnaby and White addressed sailors at RUSI, listened to their concerns and actively, even directly, shaped their appreciation of science and mechanics. Reed employed a very different approach which instead pivoted to the engineering community, dismissed sailors’ experiences and preached that the next war would be won on scientific knowledge and mechanical skill. Reed pursued an antagonistic strategy designed to mark the position, rightly in his mind, of naval architects and engineers as designers and guarantors of naval power. In this regard he did not seek legitimacy but recognition of the authority he believed was already his. This campaign began with a series of letters in The Times criticising the Board of Admiralty and those naval officers who rejected the authority of engineers. Reed developed this theme in letters concerning the Captain, his resignation from the Admiralty, the decision not to renew Robinson’s tenure as Controller and the controversy over the Devastation. White hypothesised that the reason for Reed’s seemingly constant stream of letters ‘is to be found in his desire to keep himself before the public as an authority on naval affairs . . . Mr. Reed’s ultimate object is no doubt to get into Parliament’.108 Reed unsuccessfully contested Hull as a Liberal in 1873, and then in 1874 was elected in Pembroke. As a parliamentarian Reed presented himself as the resident authority on naval architecture, and even naval affairs in general. It was from within the Commons that he repudiated Edward Watkin’s criticisms of the Devastation in 1874. Reed also utilised his experience as an editor of the Mechanic’s Magazine to carry on his campaign against naval officers in writing. In 1872 he established Naval Science, a periodical ‘for the purpose of diffusing a knowledge of naval science, in the broadest sense of the words, throughout the world at large’.109 The periodical ran for only four years, but during that time attracted some key authors, including Woolley and Froude, and was frequently cited in other publications.110 Aiming at a wide audience, Reed hoped that the periodical would shape public discussion of naval science, but also identify those authors who were authorities in their subject and warranted attention – as well as those who did not. He specifically remarked that ‘[w]e shall not deprive ourselves of the pleasure, or our readers of the advantage, to bring to account some of

108 William H. White to Jane White, 2 November 1872, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 46 –7. 109 Edward J. Reed, ‘Naval science: editor’s introduction’, Naval Science 1 (1872), 3– 8, esp. 3. 110 William Froude to James Robert Napier, 18 October 1872, Napier papers, 90/2/4/51.

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those gentlemen who make the Navy a stock subject of their extravagant attacks and misrepresentations’.111 In reporting subjects such as Ramus’s polysphenic ship, Reed focused on the knowledge and skills possessed by a group of naval architects, men of science and naval officers connected through the INA. Reed, who had been instrumental in establishing Froude’s position at the Admiralty, paid more attention to the methods Froude used to dismiss the validity of Ramus’s idea than to the idea itself. Such reporting helped describe what Froude did with his models and demonstrate ‘the very high esteem in which Mr. Froude is deservedly held by the Admiralty and by the country at large as an investigator of Naval Science’.112 He also used the publication to attack Fishbourne’s views on naval architecture. In 1874, Fishbourne published Our ironclad and merchant ships. This was a detailed account of hydrostatics and hydrodynamics, written with the use of algebraic representations of theories and diagrams. Fishbourne even sought a foreword for the book from George Stokes, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Stokes declined, but this did not stop Fishbourne from continuing to press the Cambridge professor with urgency that the public be made aware of ‘the danger of following Mr. Froude’s views’.113 The technical press devastated Fishbourne’s work and his attempt to cast aspersions on Froude and the safety of the Navy. One article in Engineering compared the admiral to Don Quixote in his ‘vain, prideful opposition to authority’.114 Reed similarly mocked Fishbourne. ‘The whole book from beginning to end,’ Naval Science

111 Edward J. Reed, ‘Naval science: editor’s introduction’, Naval Science 1 (1872) 6. For the power and duties of the editor in transferring knowledge and techniques by ‘monitoring’, ‘digesting’, ‘abstracting’ and ‘translating’ specific sciences for wider audiences, see William H. Brock, ‘The making on an editor: the case of William Crookes’, in Louise Henson, Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth and Jonathan R. Topham (eds.), Culture and science in the nineteenth-century media (Aldershot, 2004), 189 – 98. 112 ‘Admiralty experiments upon forms of ships and upon rocket floats conducted by Mr. Froude’, Naval Science 4 (1875), 37–51, esp. 51. 113 Edmund Fishbourne to George Stokes, 19 January 1877, George Stokes papers, Cambridge University Manuscripts Room, Cambridge (hereafter Stokes papers), F182. Fishbourne to Stokes, 14 March 1877, Stokes papers, RS1275. 114 ‘Sir Edward Watkin on naval architecture’, Engineering 17 (22 May 1874), 373. An earlier, but similarly dismissive review of Fishbourne’s work can be found in ‘Literature’, Mechanics’ Magazine (21 April 1871), 265.



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noted, ‘forms the funniest volume which has ever fallen under our notice.’115 Reed’s periodical aligned Fishbourne with the RUSI and noted the credibility the admiral had among sailors. For that reason numerous articles in Naval Science sought to ‘correct’ Fishbourne and ‘all the violence which these novel theories offer to sound science’. This was partially attempted by explaining in laymen’s terms the work of Froude, Reed, Barnaby, Woolley and Russell.116 Reed saw Naval Science as a tool for instructing the public in how to judge between competing ‘authorities’, be they naval constructors or officers. His editorial style carried a heavy notion of mastery and subservience regarding the naval constructor–officer relationship. He painted Fishbourne, Elliot, Ryder and the RUSI members who followed them as unaware and unready to deal with technical issues, leaving many naval officers offended and their superiors at the Admiralty aggravated. Reed suggested in his editorial introduction to Naval Science that, There is many a captain at this moment in command of an important iron-clad, costing from a quarter to half-a-million sterling, who is ignorant even of the thickness of his ship’s armour . . . This ought not to be; it hurts the spirit and sense of responsibility of our officers; it lowers their respect for the sea lords of the Admiralty, who ought, as they reasonably think, to understand the value and necessity of such knowledge to those in command of ships; and it would impose needless risks[.]117

George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty to Lord Salisbury (1885 – 86, and then 1886 – 92 following the formation of a new government), believed Reed was ‘a man of considerable ability’, but had ‘became a bully of the Admiralty’.118 Hamilton’s point seems fair when Reed’s approach to publicising the skills of naval architects is compared to Barnaby and White’s. The Admiralty was not the only party involved in building credibility around the Devastation. The infamy, duration and depth of the controversy provided naval architects with ample opportunities to prove the claims that had been made in the INA since 1860 and in the press since the beginning of Coles’s conflict with Reed over the Captain. Proving the Devastation to be safe validated the work of the Constructor’s department, established the accuracy of model testing and supported the case that naval architects possessed knowledge and 115 ‘Admiral Fishbourne on naval architecture’, Naval Science 3 (1874), 138 – 44, esp. 144. 116 Ibid., 366. 117 Edward J. Reed, ‘Naval science: editor’s introduction’, Naval Science 1 (1872), 6. 118 Manning, Life of White, vi.

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skills that were not only essential for producing safe ships and realising the plans of those responsible for setting the operational specifications of Britain’s warships, but also vital for judging whether a ship had achieved those qualities. The role of the naval officer in the design and assessment of ship design was diminishing. Fishbourne had made the perceptive argument that naval officers needed to learn about naval architecture, lest they continue to lose their authority over the shaping of the Royal Navy. He was not alone. Naval architects, engineers and mathematicians who sought to work in tandem with naval officers on designs wanted officers to have a better appreciation of what they did. At the inception of the INA Russell had expressed the view that ‘[t]he sailor is even more deeply concerned, if possible, than the shipbuilder [in the theory and practice of ship design and behaviour]. The admiral even more than the architect.’119 Charles Merrifield, principal of the RSNA, similarly felt that the awareness of the officer was linked to what naval architects would be authorised to do. In 1872 he complained that the training of naval officers was insufficient preparation for taking a role in ship design: ‘It is idle to talk of good naval designs so long as a topman is looked upon as the ideal of a sailor, and cruising as the duty of the fleet. The sailor we now want should be boatman, gunner, and stoker, rather than reefer.’120 The remaining chapters examine how the transformation of ship design increasingly involved the shaping of new naval officers.

119 John Scott Russell, ‘On the professional problem presented to naval architects in the construction of iron cased vessels of war’, Transactions 2 (1861), 17–37, esp. 22–3. 120 Charles Merrifield, ‘Review of the present conditions of naval design for commerce and for war’, The Annual of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 2 (1872), 29 –36, esp. 34 –5.

6

The politics of management and design

Respect for authority, as it was truly said by Dr. Johnson, was more easily granted to one whose father has had it than to an upstart. While on the one hand deference was not so readily yielded by workmen to a chief promoted from the ranks, as to an officer possessing greater social advantages, on the other hand, officers not born to command were frequently afraid of the responsibility of the position to which they had been raised. The politician and naval writer Thomas Brassey reminds his readers of the deep connection between effective authority and social background, especially in the Navy.1 This is in its way a very curious state of affairs. It is a unique state of affairs. If twenty millions were to be spent on the construction of railways, for example, or a fleet of mercantile steamers, there would be little or no room for discussion. Why should naval construction present so remarkable an exception? The men who design ships of war, admirals, captains, engineers, are shrewd and intelligent, and intellectual enough. Are we to assume that the problem presented for solution is really insoluble? It is the tendency of many men to say this. The Engineer emphasises the peculiarities involved in settling engineering questions in the Navy, the latest being how to spend the £21.5 million granted for ship construction by the Naval Defence Act.2

On 26 February 1891, Queen Victoria presided over a spectacular naval double-header, the launch of HMS Royal Arthur and floating out of HMS Royal Sovereign. It had been thirty-six years since the monarch had launched a ship, HMS Marlborough (1855). This was a newsworthy occasion, made all the more interesting to spectators by Victoria’s now customary avoidance of public ceremony. The Admiralty ensured that the event befitted the occasion, dressing the ships in flags, manning the topsides with bluejackets and the upper works with marines. Onlookers, including representatives of the aristocracy, 1 Thomas Brassey, The British Navy (5 vols., Cambridge, 1882, rpnt 2010), IV:42. 2 ‘An experimental warship’, Engineer (3 May 1889), 375 – 6.

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Parliament and the German imperial navy, observed the spectacle and reflected on the contemporary debates regarding imperial defence and naval power.3 The Royal Sovereign was one of the Royal Navy’s first warships built under the 1889 Naval Defence Act, which provided £21.5 million for ten battleships, thrity-eight cruisers and other smaller vessels. The Times, which was one of a number of national papers that had become an organ for the new navalist agenda, reported the proceedings, stating that ‘[n]o one who thought about it could fail to be impressed with the momentous issues involved in the relation[s] between the Navy and the defence and security of the Empire . . . the country had now definitely resolved that the naval history of the future shall not be unworthy of its past’.4 The Royal Sovereign linked contemporary imperial politics with Britain’s naval past and ongoing questions about ship design. In 1884 the journalist W.T. Stead had published a powerful article on ‘The truth about the navy’ in the Pall Mall Gazette. He critiqued the frugal naval spending of the past decades and contended that the Navy was ill-equipped to protect Britain’s vast trade networks and imperial interests that spanned the globe. Utilising the grow­ ing imperial consciousness within British society during this period, Stead impressed on the public the need for a strong navy and system of logistical support to protect the Empire from potential rivals.5 Stead’s public was a different entity from the one that various first lords and admirals had addressed in the preceding decades. He wrote for the newly enfranchised electorate of the 1884 Representation of the People Act (the third Reform Act), for whom the Navy had become a popular and important issue.6 The concern was to secure the future of the British Empire, a subject that evoked the legacy of Britain’s Navy. The Royal Sovereign was part of the response to this challenge, beginning with the choice of name. Many ships had carried the name Royal Sovereign (or Sovereign), including Charles Brandon’s Sovereign, which fought 3 During this period ship launches took on new dimensions as spaces of international cultural politics. See Jan Rüger, The great naval game: Britain and Germany in the age of empire (Cambridge, 2007), 198 –250. 4 ‘Yesterday was a day memorable beyond all . . . ’, The Times 33259 (27 February 1891), 7. 5 Matthew Thompson, The empire strikes back: the impact of imperialism on Britain from the mid-nineteenth century (Harlow, 2005); John M. MacKenzie (ed.), Propaganda and empire: the manipulation of British public opinion, 1880 –1960 (Manchester, 1984); John M. MacKenzie (ed.), Imperialism and popular culture (Manchester, 1986). 6 Rüger, The great naval game, 50 – 92; Mary A. Conley, From Jack Tar to Union Jack: representing naval manhood in the British Empire, 1870 –1918 (Manchester, 2009), 123–59.



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against the French in 1512, and Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood’s flagship at Trafalgar, launched in 1786. The name also figured in the history of nineteenthcentury naval architecture, being used for a Symondite design of 1844 that the Admiralty later cancelled and an uncompleted three-decker that became the site of Cowper Coles’s first turret experiments. An article in The Times provided the weights, dimensions and number of guns of all these ships, and concluded that a ‘complete collection of models of the vessels named above would form an admirable object lesson in the progress of naval architecture’.7 The continuities of nomenclature aside, the Royal Sovereign marked a number of distinct breaks in the shaping of the Royal Navy. Since the start of the steam and iron reconstruction of the navy, the system of designating ships into classes had been marginal, resulting in the criticisms of a lack of standardisation noted in Chapter 4. In contrast, six of the seven ships of the Royal Sovereign class were ‘practically identical in speed, coal-supply, armament, and defence’. Their designer, William H. White, felt this meant that they were ‘consequently capable of acting together’.8 The design was also distinct. White had successfully convinced the Admiralty to focus on sea-keeping qualities and permit him a substantial increase in freeboard, 18 feet in total (HMS Captain had less than 6 feet). The Royal Sovereign also featured a barbette armament system. Unlike the much heavier turret structures and central citadels of the 1870s, the barbette provided a lighter, more open, pear-shaped shield. The ship was 380 feet long, capable of 17½ knots speeds and fitted with an armoured belt 8 feet 8 inches wide, 5 feet of which was below the waterline. She was also constructed in a remarkably short time of 17 months, thanks in part to the management efforts of the Admiral Superintendent at Portsmouth, Rear-Admiral John Fisher. The Times stressed that the rapid construction was ‘extraordinary proof of the material and mechanical resources of the country and of the new spirit of energy and enterprise now displayed in the national dockyards’ – a reference perhaps to the memory of the Royal Sovereign of 1857, which, like many ships of her period, was not completed as designed, but altered by successive Admiralty Boards.9 The Royal Sovereign occupies an important place in the history of British naval architecture, yet she is given the denigrating label of a ‘pre-Dreadnought’ 7 ‘The new men-of-war’, The Times 33258 (26 February 1891), 13. 8 With the exception of one ship designed with a turret system. William H. White, ‘The latest reconstruction of the navy’, Nineteenth Century 43 (April 1898), 534 – 48, esp. 540. 9 ‘Yesterday was a day memorable beyond all . . .’, The Times 33259 (27 February 1891), 7.

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warship by historians.10 There is a sense of ahistorical retrospection in the notion of the ‘pre-Dreadnought’ warship – a label coined in the rhetoric of Fisher’s ‘Dreadnought revolution’ of the 1900s. When the Admiralty launched the Royal Sovereign she was the premier ship of the fleet, designed to ‘bring the Navy up to the standard of strength indispensable for the defence of the Empire and its commerce against hostile attack’.11 Even those officers who were supposedly reactionary to new technology praised the ship. Charles Beresford, Fisher’s opponent for the heart and mind of the Navy, wrote that ‘it may yet be that history will designate those noble ships as the finest type of steam vessels of war’.12 The label ‘pre-Dreadnought’ neglects the Royal Sovereign and the role of her builders in restoring public trust in the Navy and its management of engineering questions. The destruction of the Captain and public anxiety over HMS Devastation had added to the urgency in finding long-term stability in ship design. Unravelling the systems of control and calculation that White and others brought to naval architecture sheds light on the politics of warship design and management that were central to how the Admiralty responded to British navalism. George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty (1885, 1886 – 92) thought that the Board’s policy toward ship design in the 1860s and 1870s had been neither long term nor strategic, but reactionary. The Admiralty simply responded to the seeming uncertainty in how naval architecture and marine engineering might develop. He believed that past policy had ‘endeavoured to surmount this difficulty by building various different types of warship . . . in the hope that something might be evolved out of this heterogeneous mass of inconsistency which will gradually be accepted as the ship of the future – a very dangerous and costly method of arriving at the truth’.13 At the same time, naval architects had struggled to gain greater authority within the Royal Dockyards, so to extend the engineering practices and improved professional status nurtured in London across Britain’s techno-military state. Through the 1870s and 1880s White and other leading naval architects worked on both fronts. The Royal Sovereign was the product of a new approach to design work, conceived through conferences between naval officers and engineers, designed by a naval 10 Roger Parkinson, The late Victorian Navy: the pre-Dreadnought era and the origins of the First World War (Woodbridge, 2008). 11 ‘Yesterday was a day memorable beyond all . . .’, The Times 33259 (27 February 1891), 7. 12 Charles Beresford, The memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford (2 vols., London, 1914), II:351. 13 Frederic Manning, The life of Sir William White (London, 1923), vi.



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architect who had cultivated credibility with naval officers and politicians, and carried to completion within a new environment where engineers and technically gifted officers managed the construction process. Engineering problems The management of ship design, construction and repair by naval officers ensured that the authority of naval architects remained limited in the Royal Dockyards. William Froude’s work with the Devastation may have secured the Admiralty’s confidence in the skills, knowledge and judgement that resided in the office of naval construction, but beyond the Admiralty that confidence did not translate to authority. There was still much that remained unresolved concerning the management of matériel, from the limited authority that technical officers had over how they completed their work to the role that highly trained naval architects would take beyond the drawing room. These questions were articulated with greater force when, in the midst of the Captain controversy, the Board of Admiralty suffered a second shock to its credibility with the beaching of HMS Megaera. In June 1871 the crew of the troopship discovered large holes in her iron hull and decided to land on a small island in the Indian Ocean. The ship was carrying over 300 men to Australia.14 Unlike the Captain, which had been an experiment with the latest turret machinery, the Megaera was an 1849 iron frigate that had been converted into a troopship in 1860. The controversy here concerned the maladministration in maintaining the Navy, and the authority that engineering specialists had in this process. In November 1871 Edward Cardwell, William Gladstone’s secretary of war, formed a commission to inquire into the cause of the wreck and who in the Admiralty was accountable. The commission concluded that the Megaera had set out on her voyage in an unfit state. She had been under repair at Sheerness until 22 February, during which time her bottom was recoated although not repaired internally. The commission heard evidence regarding how the corroded hull had sprung leaks in the vicinity of the mainmast. It laid responsibility for not identifying the ship’s structural weaknesses with the Controller’s department and various dockyard officers, in particular Robert Spencer Robinson, who was already under pressure following the loss of the Captain. The commissioners noted that throughout Robinson’s tenure as Controller, beginning in 1861, he had not directed his dockyard officers to coordinate the repairs that various reports called for: 14 Norman McCord, ‘A naval scandal of 1871: the loss of H.M.S. Megaera’, Mariner’s Mirror 57 (1971), 15 –34.

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The attention of the Sheerness Officers was never called to the Report of 1866 on the “Megaera,” and the Reports of subsequent years on the ship seem never to have been scrutinised with the necessary care, nor examined with reference to the information regarding her, which was then obtained, and even when in 1870 the Carpenter of the ship had called the attention of the Dockyard Officers to the alleged thinness of the plates at the bottom of the vessel, they satisfied themselves with an examination of the outside, and their Report was accepted without challenge by the Controller.15

Some responsibility was to be shared with Captain William Luard, CaptainSuperintendent of Sheerness Dockyard from 1870 to 1875. The commissioners judged that he had incurred a ‘grave responsibility’ in sending a telegram to the Controller on 13 August 1870, in which he relayed that ‘the defects of the “Megaera” have just been made good. She is ready for at least one year’s ser­ vice at any moment’.16 The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sydney Dacres, also shared in the blame for not attaching ‘more weight’ to the Controller’s claims that the Megaera was not ‘well adapted for this service [of conveying troops]’.17 This was not a design problem, but, as a study of authority, this scenario was reminiscent of the failure to check the low freeboard of the Captain. There was a vacuum between the limited authority of engineering specialists to act and the naval officers and administrators who were unprepared for managing an increasingly complex engineering enterprise. Looking beyond individual accountability, the commissioners noted a number of structural faults in dockyard administration and the interaction between dockyard officers and the Admiralty. In the dockyards, ‘[t]he import­ ant work of the survey of vessels seems often to have been done in an incomplete and unsatisfactory manner. Officers too often appear to us to have done no more than each of them thought it was absolutely necessary to do; following a blind routine,’ while at the Admiralty, ‘[s]ecretariat arrangements are insufficient, and its mode of Registration of correspondence defective.’ The clerks entrusted to locate previous reports on the Megaera’s iron plates for the Controller were unable to locate all the relevant documents, while the ship’s book, a log of her history, contained no references to the many concerns raised over the ship’s plating and the use of experimental cement.18 One of the six commissioners, Henry Cadogan Rothery, added a strong rebuttal to the others’ conclusion that Robinson was largely accountable. 15 Committee to inquire into case of H.M.S. Megaera, report, minutes of evidence, appendix, 1872 (C507), xxi–xxii. 16 Ibid., ix, xxii. 17 Ibid., xx. 18 Ibid., xxiii.



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Rothery was a Cambridge mathematics wrangler, member of the Doctors’ Commons and a respected legal advisor. In 1853 he had been appointed registrar of the Admiralty court by Stephen Lushington, a founding member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and judge on the high court of the Admiralty. In 1876 the then Conservative government appointed him to investigate the shipwrecks and loss of life at sea for a government commission. Rothery considered the extent of the Controller’s authority over the dockyards. He reiterated parts of Robinson’s testimony to the commission, in particular the section that described how, prior to 1869, the dockyards were ‘not immediately under’ the Controller’s direction and that Robinson had to issue orders through the Board. Thus, Rothery concluded, ‘[if] the instructions he advised or issued were sufficient, and if his instructions were not attended to, Sir Spencer Robinson would not be held to blame.’19 His conclusions removed much of the responsibility that others had ascribed to Robinson, and switched the focus to the distribution of authority within the Royal Navy. Press attention similarly focused on the structural dimensions of the inquiry, which resonated with the criticisms that had been levelled against the Admiralty’s administration of ship construction since the 1850s. The Admiralty had been widely represented as a traditional and old-fashioned department, and for the satirical press the Megaera affair fitted this pattern. Journalists were given a helping hand when the secretary to the Board of Admiralty, Vernon Lushington (the fourth son of Stephen Lushington), described Hugh Childers’s Board in his testimony as a ‘phantom board’. He described a series of bureaucratic failures, among which were letters left unopened or unregistered, little communication between Admiralty departments (specifically communications involving matters of ship maintenance), inadequate departmental supervision and a lack of regular Board meetings (Figure 6.1).20 The phrase ‘phantom board’ caught public attention, inspiring responses from the satirical publications Punch and Fun. The latter noted the revelations of the commission in doggerel verse: Behold, the phantom “my lords” Who sit upon phantom Boards, Conducting, with dimness and dizziness, An empty shadow of business. Their senile imbecility Ruins our fleet’s utility, And they gnash their gums 19 Ibid., xxv. 20 ‘The Megaera commission’, The Times 27277 (19 January 1872), 6.

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6.1  ‘The “phantom board” ’ At whose comes To expose their lack of ability! They commission and they equip A rotten and rust-ridden ship. And they sent, with top-heavy masts, Another to weather the blasts Of the Bat in their bitter severity – Let them go down to posterity At the cause of mischief Though ignorance, Torpidity, and temerity!21

The popular presentation of the Megaera commission’s condemnation of the Admiralty highlighted the earlier loss of the Captain (see the scrolls laid on the floor in Figure 6.1) and emphasised the perception that Admiralty administrators were neither prepared nor trusted to handle the shipbuilding programme upon which British national security and commercial prosperity depended. 21 ‘The “Phantom Board” ’, Fun (3 February 1872), 46.



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The Megaera affair raised questions about what knowledge, skills and authority those in charge of the administration of Britain’s techno-military should possess. Thomas Brassey (1836 –1918, later Earl Brassey) suggested that the Admiralty should bring back the post of Surveyor, to work under the Controller and supervise dockyard work as a non-political appointee. He did not think it ‘altogether judicious to entrust the management and inspection of the dockyards’ to a naval architect already working in the Chief Constructor’s office (or the Chief Constructor himself). A skilled naval architect may ‘be a good manager of large bodies of artisans’, he told the Commons, but might ‘have little inclination to deal with those dry details upon the skilful manipulation of which economical management depended’.22 Brassey, the son of a civil engineer and railway contractor, represented Hastings in the Commons from 1868 to 1886. He became one of the most prominent naval commentators of the final decades of the nineteenth century, establishing a reputation as a parliamentary speaker and publisher. He was a member of the RYS and the first private yachtsman to pass the examinations to become a master mariner. His 1876 –77 voyage around the world became a popular book, Voyage in the ‘Sunbeam’, published by his wife, Annie Brassey. Brassey himself wrote extensively on the Navy, including British Seamen (1877) and his five-volume work, The British Navy (1882–33), and dominated discussions of naval questions throughout his political career.23 He also edited Brassey’s Naval Annual from 1886. Changes to the management of ship construction and repair came in 1872 when George Goschen replaced Hugh Childers as First Lord and closed the book on many of his predecessor’s administrative practices.24 On 15 May 1872, a minute from the First Lord ordered that letters would be read every day at a meeting attended by the sea lords, but not the Controller.25 Goschen also appointed a new Controller in Admiral William Houston Stewart. Stewart was admiral-superintendent at Portsmouth Dockyard when Goschen made contact. 22 Brassey, British Navy, IV:60 –1. 23 V.W. Baddeley, ‘Brassey, Thomas, first Earl Brassey (1836 –1918)’, rev. H.C.G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004); James R. Ryan, ‘ “Our home on the ocean”: Lady Brassey and the Voyages of the Sunbeam, 1874 – 1887’, Journal of Historical Geography 32 (2006), 579 – 604; Annie Brassey, Voyage in the ‘Sunbeam’: our home on the ocean for eleven months (London, 1878). 24 C.I. Hamilton, ‘The Childers Admiralty reforms and the nineteenth-century “revolution” in British government’, War in History 5 (1998), 37– 61. 25 ‘Minute of First Lord dated 15 May 1872’, Milne papers, 146/2; ‘At the Court at Windsor Castle, the 19th day of March’, 1872, Milne papers, 146/2.

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The First Lord was aware of his preference for a posting at sea.26 In April Stewart accepted the position, albeit with some reservation: ‘I doubt my own ability to fill such a post as the controllership. The idea of my ever being selected for such an office never entertained my head. May I add, that should it meet your approval I am quite content to remain where I am as superintendant of this dockyard.’27 At the end of 1872 Goschen established a council of construction, consisting of the chief naval architect, the engineer-in-chief, the surveyor of dockyards, two constructors and the professional assistants to the surveyor. The council would be presided over by Nathaniel Barnaby, who would have overall control to resolve conflicts between the individual council members. This reform made another Captain catastrophe unlikely, as it gave Barnaby greater control over the Constructor’s department and made him officially responsible for all designs, repairs and alterations to naval ships. It also extended the Chief Constructor’s influence into the dockyards and the management of ship maintenance.28 Goschen’s reforms did not quieten the debate over the authority and control of engineers in naval dockyards. Brassey continued to pose questions in Parliament about management and the skills required to direct engineering work. He believed experience at sea proved ‘valuable in determining questions as to the fittings and internal arrangements of the ships under construction’. There were also social and professional reasons why civilian members of the Navy would make ineffective managers. Brassey referenced Admiral Robert Hall, who, after a career at sea that included service as commander on HMS Agamemnon in 1853, was appointed superintendent of Pembroke Dockyard from 1866 to 1871. Hall had justified the appointment of naval officers to this managerial role on account of their skills and social and occupational distinction from dockyard workers. Brassey recalled: While admitting that a naval officer could not pretend to be a shipwright or an engineer, he considered that he might be expected to possess other still more important qualities, such as common sense, sound judgment, and self-command. Being unconnected with any class in the dockyard, he is readily acknowledged by all as their superior.29 26 George Goschen to William Houston Stewart, 14 October 1871, William Houston Stewart papers, National Maritime Museum, London (hereafter Stewart papers), SWT 101. 27 William Houston Stewart to George Goschen, 2 April 1872, Stewart papers, SWT 101. 28 Navy (Controller’s department), ‘Copy of an official memorandum issued at the Admiralty on the 16th day of December 1872, relating to the duties of the Constructive and Engineering Department’, Milne papers, 146/2. 29 Brassey, British Navy, IV: 41.



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Brassey, like Graham decades earlier, believed that the authority of a naval officer was more readily observed in the dockyard than if the same authority were given to naval architects. His distinction rested on the social dimension of wielding authority (as the quote from him in this chapter’s epigraph highlights). Critics of the existing dockyard order rejected Brassey’s argument. Former Chief Constructor Edward James Reed believed that the Admiralty tended to blame the engineers working above and below the naval officers occupying the office of dockyard superintendent for problems with matériel. Sharing in the assessment that Rothery had made of the Megaera affair, Reed suggested limiting the authority of the admiral superintendents to naval affairs and letting tech­nical officers in the dockyards communicate directly with the Board of Admiralty on professional matters. He suspected that there had been countless occasions when information and advice from the dockyard constructor and engineer had failed to reach the Admiralty because the admiral superintendent judged it unimportant or impolitic (as Rothery had judged of Laurd’s role in the Megaera affair). Reed, a fierce critic of the existing system of dockyard management, supposed that it had worked well ‘[i]n the old days, when war ships differed but little in principle’. He believed that the increasing complexity of ship design and construction required new approaches to management, and contended that the widespread introduction of mechanical apparatus meant that the managers of naval dockyards needed to avail themselves of the greater engineering knowledge and skills of constructors and engineers.30 He saw no reason why dockyard managers should be naval officers. The naval officers’ skills were best employed on a ship, the engineer and naval architects’ on land. In this division of land and sea, Reed sought to establish a ‘natural division’: I am not a candidate for the command of the Channel Fleet; I do not ask that the Chief Constructor at Portsmouth may hoist his flag on the Admiralty-house; I do not recommend that the command of the Inflexible should be given to a Chief Engineer. I merely desire and demand that shipbuilding and engineer­ ing estab­lishments shall be controlled as far as practicable by shipbuilders and engineers.31

There was nothing inherently natural in Reed’s division. Indeed it asked for a substantial change in the structures of institutional authority and control in the techno-military state. Reed’s view of engineering questions was doubtless shaped by his view of the type of warships that increasingly made up the fleets of the Royal 30 ‘Dockyard administration’, The Times 28853 (31 January 1877), 4. 31 ‘[Edward J. Reed letter to the editor] Dockyard administration’, The Times 28857 (5 February 1877), 8.

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Navy. Writing in The Times he strikingly referred to HMS Inflexible as a ‘steam being’: The ship is a steam being, and the only man who understands it, can work it with safety, can control it efficiently, can use it, care for it, tend it, preserve it, repair it, renew it, is the engineer. Surely such a fact as this must, in the very nature of things, have brought about a marked, a large, a permanent change in the status of the engineer, and have invested him with rank, influence, and authority bearing some appropriate relations to his knowledge, his skill, his anxiety, his responsibility, and his actual control over the ship in every part and function of her being?32

Engineers were the only class of actors in Reed’s mind that could design, build and maintain such ships, be they working in the dockyard or the engine room. The image of the ship as machine became an important tool in the arsenal of actors wanting to revise the status and authority of engineers in the Royal Navy. Allusions to the Inflexible as a sign of change were, however, dependent on the ship’s success, which was uncertain in the 1870s, as naval officers doubted the benefits of heavily armoured warships. The resolution of the Devastation controversy had settled many of the questions concerning stability and the methods for establishing the points of safety for an ocean-going warship, but the soundness of the underlying design principles continued to be debated with the Inflexible. In the popular press, the naval writer Archibald Hurd wrote that the ship embodied the ‘extreme limit’ in armour protection, with plates ‘as thick as 24 inches’ in some parts. ‘More armour than this was impossible’, he believed, ‘in fact, no other vessel has been burdened with so much.’33 The Inflexible controversy over the weight and distribution of armour can be situated in the ongoing feud between Reed and the Admiralty that had begun with the Captain. Since the loss of the experimental turret ship, Reed had faced criticisms of bad design work and caring little for the safety of sailors, jeopardising their lives, even, in the pursuit of ‘scientific’ naval designs. In criticising the Inflexible’s distribution of armour, in particular her unprotected ends, he claimed to be motivated by a conviction that protection ought to be the naval architect’s priority in all design work. Reed’s views were not shared by the Inflexible’s designer, his successor at the Admiralty and brother-in-law Barnaby. Specifically, he believed that the 32 ‘[Letter from Edward J. Reed to the editor] Naval administration’ The Times 28843 (19 January 1877), 6. 33 Archibald S. Hurd, ‘Her Majesty’s Navy, 1837–1897’, Ludgate 4 ( June 1897), 161– 6, esp. 163.



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armoured central citadel portion of the design both gave adequate protection and, in case of taking on water, would ensure that the ship remained buoyant.34 Barnaby described the Inflexible’s citadel as ‘a floating castle 110 feet long and 75 feet wide rising ten feet out of the water, and having above that again two round turrets to be heavily plated with armour’.35 It was then surrounded by 4 feet of cork that would serve as the ship’s ‘life-belt’ if the unprotected ends were breached.36 To naval writers the disagreement between Reed and Barnaby ‘aroused a painful feeling of anxiety’.37 The Admiralty, eager to address, if not silence, Reed’s criticisms, called a committee to investigate his claims. It consisted of a small group of engineering and naval members: Joseph Woolley, William Froude, Vice-Admiral James Hope (who had presided over the court martial held for the loss of the Captain) and George Rendel (a partner and manager at Armstrong’s Elswick naval yard). The committee accepted Reed’s claims, that if the Inflexible’s ends were destroyed her safety would be compromised, yet firmly believed that such a scenario was highly unlikely. The committee agreed that some risk was acceptable. In the press Brassey charged Reed with seeking a chimera, ‘[a]bsolute safety in naval battles no constructor can pretend to insure’.38 Hope was more confrontational, accusing Reed of acting ‘to excite great alarm in the minds of non-professional persons’. Conscious of the complex situation in which the naval community and reading public sought to judge between the case put forward by the past and present chief constructors of the navy, Hope offered himself as an impartial judge on the question for the good of the community.39 The debates surrounding the Megaera and Inflexible demonstrate the extent to which the authority of naval architects remained tied to older debates, but also covered new ground concerning the management of engineering work, in both design principles and construction. What were the Royal Navy’s chief design concerns? And how much authority should the naval architect have in the Admiralty beyond his immediate subordinates? In the 1880s a small group of actors in the Navy, crossing the boundaries between designers, officers and administrators, worked to introduce a new management structure and culture of design work. 34 ‘[Robert Spencer Robinson & Edward J. Reed to the editor] The Inflexible’, The Times 28973 (20 June 1877), 10. 35 Barnaby at the INA, quoted in Brassey, British Navy, I:388 – 9. 36 Brassey, British Navy, I:394. 37 Ibid., III:293. 38 ‘[Thomas Brassey to the editor] The Inflexible’, The Times 29150 (12 January 1878), 6. 39 Ibid., 6.

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Reed and Barnaby’s agitations for reforming the structures of dockyard management threatened to destabilise the order of skill and authority that had remained largely settled since the 1830s. Various groups of ship designers had extended their claims to authority over the design process, but left the management of Britain’s largest state engineering enterprise largely untouched – the major exception being John Scott Russell’s call for the Admiralty to buy all ships from commercial dockyards. Engineering science, and in particular the engineering science of naval architecture, was a young profession with practitioners who were explicitly concerned with their ‘social mobility on both personal and professional levels’.40 George Rendel reached levels that few other engineers did within the Admiralty. In the late 1870s W.H. Smith’s Board consulted him on the value of barbettes.41 In 1882 Lord Northbrook invited him to join the Liberal Board as an extra-professional civil lord to lend his knowledge and credibility as a ‘practical man-of-science’ to naval administration.42 Rendel’s influence with the Board was unprecedented for an engineer, yet he was not a naval engineer. The decision may actually have caused tensions for Barnaby and Stewart, neither of whom was afforded a permanent seat on the Board. By 1880 Admiralty naval architects had largely cemented their status as guarantors of ship safety and efficiency. Beyond this their authority was limited. The organisation of labour in the dockyards had tended towards a craftwork culture and traditional structure for advancement. The system provided entrylevel jobs, assisting dockyard draughtsmen and dockyard foremen, for those who had completed their apprenticeships. Graduates of the RSNA were afforded no special treatment, unless they were in the small minority who were appointed to assist the Chief Constructor.43 Advancement through the dockyard was by competitive examination that tested knowledge of practical shipbuilding. These tests did not provide an opportunity ‘for any display of the

40 Ben Marsden & Crosbie Smith, Engineering empires: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain (Basingstoke, 2007), 254 –5. 41 W.H. Smith to William Stewart, 29 December 1879, Stewart papers, SWT/102. 42 Michael R. Lane, ‘Rendel, George Wightwick (1833–1902)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 43 William H. White to Nathaniel Barnaby & Thomas Archer Hirst, ‘[Memorandum recommending the formation of a Royal Corps of Naval Constructors], 2 February 1880, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 89 – 93, esp. 89.



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advantages of the special training received at the [Royal Naval] College’.44 Moreover, the number of naval architects available for government service had increased following the establishment of the RSNA, while opportunities within the Admiralty and Royal Dockyards had remained much the same. Limited opportunities deterred many graduates from remaining in service to the state. This, in turn, served opponents of the school, who argued that the teaching that it offered should be abolished because the state did not stand to make significant gains. William H. White disagreed, contesting that ‘the transfer of the services of these gentlemen from the Admiralty to the private establishments does not involve a real loss to the country’. His primary concern was to defend the RSNA, but in doing so he made the case that the school fostered a community of scientifically trained naval architects throughout the country that would be beneficial in public and private service.45 This was immediately advantageous to White and others in the Admiralty who frequently relied on the work of mathematicians (the RSNA lecturers included a number of Cambridge wranglers), engineers and naval architects working outside of the Admiralty. In 1881 White observed that recent developments in naval architecture had originated with mathematicians and engineers. In an article in the Westminster Review he singled out W.J. Macquorn Rankine and William Froude as having ‘done more original work during the last twenty years than any other investigators at home or abroad’.46 It was in White’s interest to maintain links between engineers, mathematicians and constructors wherever he could. The problem remained of what to do with the large numbers of RSNA graduates who could not work in Barnaby’s department. The Admiralty had a limited number of well-paid jobs for educated naval architects. As such, applicants for these jobs were required to gain extensive experience and compete for the handful of available promotions. White believed that this situation deterred men of higher social standing from entering the dockyard, as ‘only the sons of working men or persons in necessitous circumstances will submit to the severe competition, the rough life, and ultimate uncertainty of promotion’.47 White, who was one of the most talented of graduates and 44 Ibid., 89. 45 W[illiam].H. W[hite], ‘Three English schools of naval architecture’, The Annual of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 4 (1874), 7–26, esp. 23. 46 William H. White, ‘The progress of shipbuilding in England’, Westminster Review 115 (1881), quoted in Manning, Life of White, 11. 47 William H. White to Nathaniel Barnaby & Thomas Archer Hirst, 2 February 1880, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 89 – 93, esp. 90.

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Barnaby’s assistant, devised a new scheme for the organisation and duties of the Constructor’s department. He conceived a Royal Corps of Naval Constructors which would act as an institution of control and knowledge within the Admiralty and across the network of dockyards. His scheme rested on altering the process of promotion to reward scientific achievement, increasing the number of naval architects at the Admiralty, raising their status and expanding their role in the ship design, building and evaluation processes. He emphasised the importance of attracting members of Britain’s growing professional classes ‘so that the sons of persons in a good social position might be attracted into the Shipbuilding Department of the Admiralty’.48 His scheme also provided a mechanism for retaining the knowledge of naval architects who left the Admiralty for employment in private industry, by permitting them to keep their Admiralty titles and serve as consultants on future projects. White needed to justify the involvement of naval architects in various areas of Admiralty administration where they had not previously been employed. Administrative offices in the dockyard, for example, had traditionally been given to naval officers and civil administrators. Lord Clarence Paget, political secretary of the Admiralty in the 1860s, noted that ‘when Admiralty works were unimportant, this system worked well enough’, but, with enlarged navy estimates and increasingly complex engineering problems, technical officers were required.49 Writing in the 1890s, Paget echoed many of the concerns raised by Reed and others after the loss of the Megaera. White saw an opportunity to position naval architects as dockyard supervisors. These assistant constructors would work under the Chief Constructor to provide a flow of information between the Constructor’s department and the dockyards, while lending their knowledge and skills to dockyard officers. In order to gain credibility with naval officers serving in the dockyard, these assistant constructors would be required to go to sea for two years after finishing their studies in order to experience the behaviour of a ship at sea, observe ocean waves and socialise with naval officers.50 This reform would create a sphere of influence for naval architects across the entire shipbuilding process. 48 White did not want this new system to exclude dockyard apprentices and workmen with ability to rise through the ranks, but under the new rules governing the path of graduates through the higher offices craft-workers were doubtless placed at a disadvantage. William H. White to Nathaniel Barnaby & Thomas Archer Hirst, 2 February 1880, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 89 – 93, esp. 90. 49 Autobiography and journals of Admiral Lord Clarence E. Paget, G.C.B., ed. Arthur Otway (London, 1896), 364 –5. 50 William H. White to Nathaniel Barnaby & Thomas Archer Hirst, 2 February 1880, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 90 –3.



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With these reforms White could justify the employment of more naval architects, but he still needed to secure the extra funds to support them. In a series of letters to Barnaby and the mathematician Thomas Archer Hirst, who was the first director of studies at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, he justified his proposals with the following points. First, placing naval architects in the dockyards to monitor the work of labourers would guarantee that ships were constructed according to their designs, respecting important issues like weight and height of freeboard. Second, regional dockyards might take on some designing work and in effect compete with each other, much like private firms did when the Admiralty tendered ship contracts. Third, the Admiralty would make use of all the students it funded through the naval college. And fourth, from time to time an assistant constructor could be detached from either the dockyard or the Constructor’s department and assigned to ‘special services’ where his unique skills and experience would be useful. For example, he might be placed on ‘the staff of an Admiral . . . as [a] professional adviser – a very necessary office in many types of modern ship’, or on ‘the inspection of works being done in foreign dockyards, taking up some of the duties regarding matériel usually performed by naval attachés’. Alternatively the assistant constructors could be appointed to the staff of Royal Naval College instructors or sent to observe and testify to the results of trials with experimental ships.51 White effectively proposed making naval architects managers and technical consultants. His suggestions, especially the fourth, served his larger objective of increasing the number of useful roles that naval architects could undertake within the Admiralty beyond design work. They would become mediators between technical specialists and ranking naval officers.52 Taken together, these suggestions justified the proposed Royal Corps of Naval Constructors as a professional body. There would also be a change in titles to reflect this managerial turn, with the Chief Constructor becoming the Director of Naval Construction (DNC). If approved, the scheme would represent a substantial change in the status, institutional duties and number of naval architects in relation to the less-educated dockyard foremen, naval administrators and accountants who had come under attack during the Megaera affair. Most significantly, the scheme would be coupled to the recognition of the naval architect’s particular skills with a grant of greater institutional authority. Lord Northbrook’s Board of Admiralty favourably received the proposal by White, who had influential allies in the First Sea Lord, Admiral Cooper Key, 51 Ibid., 95. 52 Eric Ash, Power, knowledge and expertise in Elizabethan England (Baltimore, MD, 2004).

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and the Civil Lord, Thomas Brassey. R.G.C. Hamilton, accountant general of the Navy, also lent his support but was anxious to warn the Board that the scheme ‘will call for the exercise of much delicacy and patience to overcome or avoid frictions between the present and future holders of professional appointments’. In other words, he emphasised the complexity in the proposed shift from apprentices working in a craft-orientated system to naval college graduates in a ‘scientific-management’ system.53 He also recognised that the role of the assistant constructor as a non-controlling dockyard supervisor would require further definition (which it did in the dockyard reforms of the late 1880s). The corps was established on 23 August 1883. Around the same time White received an offer from William Armstrong to become manager of warship design at Armstrong’s Elswick yard. In 1885, Barnaby’s health began to fail. George Hamilton, who had succeeded Northbrook as First Lord when Lord Salisbury’s Conservative government came to power, noted in his memoirs that Barnaby ‘did not appear to be well, being nervous and excited’. The DNC made his desire to leave public service clear to Hamilton, who proceeded to enquire with his naval lords who might be Barnaby’s replacement. White proved to be a popular choice. In making the appointment Hamilton placed his trust in the judgement of Admiral Arthur Hood, a gunnery expert who had recently been appointed First Sea Lord. Hamilton soon discovered that ‘all who knew White had a very high opinion of his capacity’.54 White had established a good reputation among naval officers from his literary and educational work (see Chapter 5), and received letters of support from naval officers of both the matériel and historical schools in the Navy.55 In the most general terms, the historical and matériel schools approached naval questions through two distinct readings of history, the former in which human actors ultimately mastered new matériel by adapting to serve existing naval strategy, and the latter in which changes to the matériel of the Navy required changes in tactics and strategy. Captain Gerard Noel wrote: ‘I am in hopes that you may be able to smooth over much of the initial antagonism – if I may use so strong an expression – which holds between the active and the constructive parts of the Navy.’ Admiral Philip 53 R.G.C. Hamilton remarks on the proposed Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 99 –100. 54 George Hamilton, Parliamentary reminiscences and reflections, 1868 –1885 (London, 1916), 297. 55 For a fuller account of these schools of naval thought see Bernard Semmel, Liberalism and naval strategy: ideology, interest and sea power during the Pax Britannica (London, 1986), 134 –51.



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Colomb expressed a similar sentiment, writing that White should seek out the advice of naval officers to guide his designs.56 Another officer, Captain John Fisher, who had captained the Inflexible and was presently in command of the gunnery school on board HMS Excellent, wrote: ‘I really think we have got the right man in the right place in having you as D.N.C., and I am also truly delighted that our friend Watts succeeds you at Elswick.’57 Under the terms of White’s appointment the Admiralty transferred Philip Watts, a constructor in the DNC’s office, to Armstrong’s. Watts would return to the Admiralty in 1902 as White’s successor and, with Fisher, oversee the design of the Dreadnought. Hamilton promised White greater authority than his predecessors had enjoyed. Rendel had resigned his position on the Board in 1885 on orders from his doctor, and the First Lord expressed his intention to rely on White instead of appointing another technical advisor.58 He also confirmed his commitment to an agenda of dockyard reform. This was in the forefront of White’s mind on his return to public service. Since the Megaera affair the Admiralty had formed a number of committees to investigate dockyard administration and expenditure, but Hamilton believed more action was required: There are a number of reforms which I believe can be advantageously carried out, both in the dockyards and the Admiralty itself, and I shall personally be glad to do all I can to expedite and support any arrangements which your varied experience, in dockyards and private establishments, would advocate as tending to economy and expedition and efficiency.59

Work in the dockyard had traditionally fallen under two heads, civil (technical) and naval. The civil was undertaken by shipwrights and supervised by naval officers, while the naval, which included the work of the dockyard arsenals, was solely under the purview of naval officers. White proposed to reform the system of dockyard supervision that he himself had inaugurated and appoint a member of the corps of constructors to take direct control over the organ­ isation of work, distribution of labour and use of machinery.60 A large part of this reform concerned the control of finance and labour, which Hamilton believed to be ‘very faulty’. Accounts for dockyard labour 56 Philip Colomb to William H. White, 1885, quoted in Hamilton, Parliamentary reminiscences, 182–3. 57 John Fisher to William H. White, 1885, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 183. 58 George Hamilton to William H. White, 28 July 1855, quoted in Ibid., 179. 59 Ibid. 60 William H. White, [Memorandum on dockyard organisation], 1885, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 191.

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were kept by an accountant who was responsible for the expenditure of a particular construction project. When the estimates were exceeded the accountant refused responsibility on the grounds of not understanding the shipbuilding process. Hamilton and his financial secretaries, first Charles Ritchie and then the Liverpool ship owner Arthur Forwood – the first commercial ship owner to hold a position in the Admiralty – sought to change this arrangement.61 They believed they could achieve greater control over dockyard expenditure by putting a dockyard naval architect in charge of the accountant, thereby ensuring that the officer in charge of finance (and, in turn, the labour expended on a project) had the requisite knowledge of the process to take responsibility for his actions. This was a controversial decision, and Hamilton recognised that the Treasury, and in particular the former first lords Goschen and W.H. Smith, would need to be convinced that it was advantageous to reduce the authority of government accountants over public works. White supported Hamilton’s reform, citing his experience in private industry, where contractors were free to spend money and organise the workforce in the manner they saw to be most effective to expedite construction within their budget. Those budgets were structured according to phases of work, so as to mirror the Admiralty’s policy of paying private firms by instalments according to the progress of the work. In contrast, the Admiralty structured budgets for the dockyards in estimates of ‘the greatest detail, for individual ships, and in the aggregate’. The aggregate budget was a fixed sum, which meant that the individual in charge of the finances ‘can only advance one ship at the expense of another’.62 This restriction required the officer in charge of accounts to know where and when expenditure and labour were most required. By granting this additional authority to the naval architect ‘a better check could be put upon costs, while closer estimates would be possible’.63 This institutional reform further extended the DNC’s control over construction practices in the dockyard, which was formally acknowledged by Ritchie’s committee on dockyard organisation, which proposed that the DNC be given the title of Assistant Controller. The committee also proposed that a Director of Dockyards (DoD) be appointed to supervise work across the Royal Dockyards, 61 Forwood managed the West Indian and Pacific Company for nine years before seeking election in 1885. Philip Waller, ‘Forwood, Sir Arthur Bower, first baronet (1836 –1898)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, 2004). 62 William H. White, Memorandum, 26 January 1886, cited in Manning, Life of White, 214 –15. 63 William H. White, [Memorandum on dockyard organisation], 1885, quoted in Ibid., 192.



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acting under the authority of the DNC.64 These reforms were written into instructions issued to the Controller’s department, dated 1 February 1886. On that same day, Lord Salisbury’s government was defeated in a vote on Irish agricultural holdings. Gladstone returned to office with a Liberal government that included the Earl of Ripon as First Lord and Reed as a lord of the treasury. Reed had offered his name for appointment as Secretary to the Admiralty: On the opposition side of the House will sit Lord G. Hamilton, Messrs Ritchie & Bartlett (in no very amiable mood probably) . . . & other members likely to give no little trouble on naval subjects, and I cannot doubt that you will regard it as reasonable to afford your First lord (who I must respectfully hope will this time be in the Commons) such assistance as my life-long career in & on behalf of the navy may have fitted me to render.65

Gladstone rejected the suggestion, but as a lord of the treasury in Ripon’s administration Reed was still able to exert influence through Ripon’s appointment of Francis Elgar as DoD. Elgar had worked under Reed at the Admiralty and remained one of his firmest supporters. His appointment may be interpreted as Ripon and Reed’s attempt to subvert White’s growing authority over the dockyards. Ripon’s first business was to overturn Hamilton’s dockyard reforms and draw a sharp distinction between the design and building branches of the Controller’s department. He believed that open competition in private industry encouraged greater efficiency than government administration was capable of, a popular late nineteenth-century view: ‘the more nearly we can treat the Dockyards as we treat private contractors the better’.66 Hamilton and White had similarly worked on the principle that competition between regional dockyards was beneficial, but not to the point of separating the design and 64 Navy. Reports of committees appointed to inquire into Admiralty and dockyard administration and expenditure, 1886 (C4615), 146. 65 Edward J. Reed to William Gladstone, 28 January 1886, Gladstone papers, vol. ccccix, add. ms. 44494, folio 87. 66 Lord Ripon, [Board minute on dockyard management], 8 March 1886, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 195. For interest in open commercial competition as an economic, industrial and administrative model see Martin Daunton, Wealth and welfare: an economic and social history of Britain, 1851–1951 (Oxford, 2007), 115 –20. Sidney Pollard and Paul Robinson suggest that the nature of competition and entrepreneur endeavour in shipbuilding, although a factor in economic and industrial practices, was conservative in contrast to other Victorian industries. Sidney Pollard & Paul Robertson, The British shipbuilding industry, 1870 –1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1979), 6 – 8.

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construction branches. White advocated competition to stimulate the growth of scientific and engineering work, while Ripon’s motives were more financial. White’s early twentieth-century biographer was convinced that Ripon and Reed took a series of measures to make White’s position untenable. These included questioning the relationship between White and Armstrong’s, the nature of the consultancy work White continued to perform for his former employer and uttering innuendo as to White’s repute.67 White responded tactfully but forcefully to Ripon’s counterproposals with a memorandum that defended his original scheme: ‘the greatest hope for economy and efficiency in the Dockyards is to be found in the development and strict enforcement of local responsibility’. Aware that Ripon was eager to emulate private enterprise, he stressed his ‘experience outside the public service, in creating and organising one of the largest shipyards in the country’. He believed a ‘centralised system of management is hopeless’, and ‘economy and expeditiousness and efficiency’ were to be found through closely managing the work of labourers, utilising the role of the DoD as a ‘high [quality] technical’ overseer. To lend further weight to his defence of the system White offered testimony on the Admiralty’s policy of sending officers to oversee the work of private firms building for the Admiralty. He also explained that there was no such system within the Admiralty’s dockyards, and that the DNC hitherto relied on his social network and contacts within the individual dockyards. Finally, he put his own credibility on the line and told Lord Ripon in no uncertain terms ‘that if there were to be any variation in present practice in the foregoing particulars, I should decline to accept any responsibility for the realisation of the intentions of the designs on ships building in the dockyard’.68 White successfully halted the First Lord’s proposed alterations to the recent dockyard reform, but was unable to stop Ripon appointing Elgar to the post of DoD. Ultimately his protestations were unnecessary, as Gladstone’s government came to an end in August 1886 and a general election provided Salisbury an opportunity to return to government. Hamilton also returned to the Admiralty, where he revived the original reform proposals and reaffirmed his support for White throughout the dramatic transformations of the next five years. Away from the dockyards, White extended his authority through the new Admiralty Experimental Works at Haslar. This facility became the home of the

67 Lord Ripon, [Board minute on dockyard management], 8 March 1886, quoted in Manning, Life of White, 204 –12. 68 Manning, Life of White, 199 –200.



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test tank in 1886. White had often expressed his admiration for Froude’s work ‘in developing the theory of naval architecture’, and had heard Froude lecture on model experiments and hydrodynamics while he was a student at the RSNA.69 The new DNC gained further interest in the test tank as a practical tool as he worked with Froude’s son, R.E. Froude, on the design of Royal Navy ships. White called the tank ‘one of the most remarkable illustrations of the influence of scientific method’ on shipbuilding, as it provided a means of discovering not the form of absolute least resistance, but the least-resistant hull form for a ship with specific restrictions on its tonnage and dimensions.70 He told members of the INA of his close collaborations with Froude: ‘It is not an uncommon thing for me to telegraph to Mr. Froude that I am coming down to see him when some problem going beyond my experience has to be solved; and half an hour with Mr. Froude, in company with these diagrams, places me in a position of security which otherwise could not be approached.’71 White made the test tank into a privileged site of calculation within the Admiralty, and it in turn benefited from his credibility among naval officers. Naval power and design priorities Outside the Admiralty, but not beyond the involvement of certain naval officers, Britain’s naval power became a matter of fierce debate and controversy in the new journalism of the late nineteenth century. In 1884 the liberal newspaper chief W.T. Stead asked whether the Royal Navy was sufficiently strong to defend a global maritime empire. Published in the popular Pall Mall Gazette, his ‘truth about the navy’ articles posed bold questions about the strength of the Navy, making explicit connections between Britain’s global strength and control of the seas. If, as he speculated, the Navy was ‘no longer in a position of incontestable superiority to the navies of the world, [then] we are in a position of peril too grave to be capable of exaggeration. Not only our Imperial posi­ tion, but the daily bread of twenty millions out of the thirty millions of our

69 William H. White, ‘M. Antoine’s Memoir on the still-water oscillations of ships’, The Annual of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 3 (1873), 73– 82, esp. 74. 70 William H. White, The influence of scientific methods on shipbuilding: an address delivered at University College, Liverpool, on 1st December, 1893 (London, 1893), 23. 71 Discussion following R.E. Froude, ‘On the “constant” system of notation of results of experiments on models used at the Admiralty Experimental Works’, Transactions 29 (1888) 304 –18, esp. 315.

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population depends entirely upon our dominion of the seas.’72 This reference to daily bread was politically loaded. Stead addressed the article directly to the present Liberal government with phrases like ‘Free Trade without the command of the seas is death’.73 He also used new media methods to address political questions to a broad readership, enacting his vision of a newspaper with bold headlines, illustrations and agenda-setting reporting. Stead’s article offered evidence that between 1868 and 1883 there had been no increase in British naval spending (the figures remained a little over £11 million per year in both years); that although the strength of the Royal Navy’s ironclad fleet was stronger than any one of its rivals it was weaker than the combined forces of two; and that the numerical strength of the British fleet depended greatly on old third-class and coastal defence ships. He also analysed the strength of the British fleet within an imperial context, playing on the concern for imperial defence and security that increasingly interested an expanding electorate. He highlighted the danger of Britain’s foreign stations, commerce, coaling and telegraph relays. For example, on the China station, where the annual trade was worth £78,000,000, the defending ship was the second-class HMS Audacious, which was ten years older than the battleship Bayard, the French ship in those waters. ‘No number of slow ships carrying guns of short range’, Stead wrote, ‘can touch a fast vessel with heavier metal that can lie out of range and pound her adversaries to pieces at long range.’74 Stead’s conclusion was as concise as the question he had asked: ‘ “the truth about the Navy” is that our naval supremacy has almost ceased to exist’.75 Stead raised the topic of British naval power to new heights of public anxi­ ety with his press tactics. There was disapproval of his methods, particularly from those who focused on The Times’s readership. Reed initially considered ‘the political part of the controversy . . . so distasteful’. He expressed concerns that the country was at risk of having ‘its legitimate anxiety’ abused by those who would offer a ‘mistaken’ naval policy by exciting public feeling. Indeed, popular navalism relied on a politics of fear, naval scares and jingoism. But to Reed, agitating for a larger Navy by critiquing the strength of the existing fleet only added to the existing obstacles the Navy faced in nurturing its credibility with the British electorate.76 He instead defended those ships, such as HMS 72 [W.T. Stead], ‘What is the truth about the navy’, Pall Mall Gazette (15 September 1884), 1. 73 Ibid., 1. 74 [W.T. Stead] One who knows the facts, ‘The truth about the navy’, Pall Mall Gazette (18 September 1884), 1– 6, esp. 5. 75 Ibid., 6. 76 ‘[Edward J. Reed to the editor] The Royal Navy’, The Times 31269 (20 October 1884), 4.



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Dreadnought (1875), which Stead claimed could no longer guarantee British security in European waters. Robert Spencer Robinson, who had so often supported Reed, backed his former subordinate by condemning the manner in which the public had been ‘roused’ by navalist opinion.77 Within the year, Reed had reversed his opinion and sought to position himself alongside Stead as a co-agitator whose frequent letters in The Times had helped ‘bring about changes’.78 One explanation for this reversal may be that Reed did not expect Stead to be successful in his agitation for a larger Navy, and so he rallied to support the fleet that Britain had. Stead’s article can productively be read as part of an existing discourse on British naval strength, in which authors seemed to be constantly casting doubt on the comparative strength of the Royal Navy through quantitative analyses. Numerous commentators compared the size of the British and French fleets, but few developed their comparisons into qualitative techno-military comparisons. Indeed Stead compared only numbers of ships, their average armour thickness and number and size of guns. Similarly, much naval historiography has drawn on quantitative comparisons between the British, French and Russian navies. Quantitative analyses arguably fail to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of British naval strength. Within this late nineteenth-century discourse there was a small but growing group of writers who agitated for a more nuanced awareness of the qualities of British ships. George ShawLefevre, who had been a civil lord to the Admiralty and then a commissioner of works, noted in Macmillan’s Magazine the futility of comparing fleet sizes without first attempting to define what constituted a battleship: ‘It is this constant advance in the size of guns, and in the thickness of armour-plates, which makes it so difficult to appreciate the relative strength of different navies. What is it that now constitutes a line-of-battle ship? Where is the line to be drawn as to vessels which shall be counted in the first line of battle?’79 Any comparative understanding of British naval strength required a consensus about such questions, together with conscious thought about what a battleship’s qualities were and how it was intended to be used. The absence of such discussion, however, revealed a serious problem in the British techno-military sphere: very few naval officers thought about engineering and naval power in a connected sense. 77 ‘[Robert Spencer Robinson to the editor] The Navy’, The Times 31344 (15 January 1885), 12. 78 ‘[Edward J. Reed to the editor] The Navy’, The Times 31644 (31 December 1885), 13. 79 [George Shaw-Lefevre], ‘British and foreign ships of war’, Macmillan’s Magazine 35 (February 1877), 257– 65, esp. 260.

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Admiral Edmund Fremantle, writing anonymously in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, criticised techno-military thinking at the Admiralty.80 Writing in response to speculation that the invention of fast torpedo boats would make large gun vessels obsolete, he characterised discussion of naval strength as a solely quantifiable discourse. He asserted that many of his contemporaries thought that to secure the British Empire it was enough to provide a fleet of ships equalling the number that constituted the fleets of it two biggest rivals – regardless of knowledge concerning the ways in which those ships could operate to combat enemy vessels.81 He complained that the ignorance exhibited in discussions concerning torpedo boats and battleships revealed that the ‘science’ of naval strategy – how objects of naval power were designed and deployed – was a mystery to naval officers and commentators. More worrying to the naval officer, however, was that ‘[o]ur naval constructors are themselves called upon to supply many of the tactical considerations involved in the design of a ship’.82 Fremantle’s article was a rare instance in which a distinguished naval officer, although writing anonymously, accepted that his profession was not in control of shaping ships. He proceeded to urge his fellow officers to gain a greater appreciation of engineering questions and work in harmony with constructors in order to regain a modicum of control. New levels of press interest in the Navy and the security of naval power provided opportunities for ambitious naval officers to get ahead. In 1884, Captain John ‘Jacky’ Fisher, already agitating for naval reform, was approached by Stead for information. The two men began a somewhat clandestine relationship (a theme in Fisher’s relationships with journalists) in which Fisher passed on confidential information. In return he gained a powerful ally and a means to shape public opinion and pressure the Board of Admiralty. Writing to Stead in 1885, he revealed: ‘I must keep clear of you as my friends tell me. An eye is upon me.’83 Fisher was impressed by Stead’s work, and frequently signed his 80 [Edmund Fremantle] Anon., ‘Are ironclads doomed?’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 141 (1887), 519 –33. 81 In 1873, William White had made a similar argument, claiming that Victorian naval commentators fetishised what they thought to be most powerful or progressive without regard for the ‘aggregate force’ of the Royal Navy. William H. White, ‘Our unarmoured ships’, Colburn’s United Services Magazine 538 (1873), 1–11. 82 [Edmund Fremantle] Anon., ‘Are ironclads doomed?’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 141 (1887), 519. 83 John Fisher to W.T. Stead, 8 March 1885, W.T. Stead papers, Churchill College, Cambridge (hereafter Stead papers), STED 1/27.



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letters to the journalist ‘with unabated admiration of your efforts on behalf of the Navy’.84 From this relationship Fisher gained an appreciation of how to use the press to disseminate information and mobilise public opinion before official positions had been set (a strategy he would employ while First Sea Lord in the early twentieth century). In 1886, Lord Ripon invited Fisher to become Director of Naval Ordnance. He retained the post following the fall of Gladstone’s brief Liberal ministry and Hamilton’s return under Salisbury. By this time he had already spent many years engaged in addressing practical problems of naval warfare, beginning in 1866 with a stint on the gunnery staff of HMS Excellent, during which time he published A short treatise on electricity and the management of electric torpedoes (1868), and then later he helped to create the Navy’s first torpedo school, located on board the hulk of HMS Vernon (William Symonds’s fourth-rate warship launched in 1832). He developed a good working relationship with Hamilton, the first of a number of first lords who would lend their vital support to his reform ideas. Writing later in life Hamilton gave the following assessment of Fisher’s character: ‘He was an extraordinary hustler and a marvellous showman. When controlled, he was an invaluable public servant; when uncontrolled, he was apt to be dangerous from his love of the limelight and the ease with which he became obsessed with the fad of the moment.’85 On taking over naval ordnance in 1886 Fisher found the supply of guns to be ‘in a very bad way’. The Navy’s guns had always been supplied by the War Office, which he found problematic as control over spending the budgets for naval ordnance was out of the Admiralty’s hands. Fisher placed the blame for the current deficiencies in supply with Director of Artillery Henry James Alderson, Lord Salisbury’s brother-in-law, at the War Office. Despite the potential for personal controversy, Fisher emerged successful and with naval support. A committee met to consider the situation, and agreed to take naval ordnance out of the hands of the War Office, and Fisher later recalled that ‘Lord George [Hamilton] backed me through thick and thin’.86 Hamilton expressed great trust in Fisher’s skill to manage naval engineering work. In August 1888 he invited Fisher to a meeting at Devonport Dockyard along with Board members

84 John Fisher to W.T. Stead, 10 March 1886, Stead papers, STED 1/27. 85 Hamilton, Parliamentary reminiscences, 132–3. 86 John Fisher, Records (London, 1919), 54. For naval ordnance see Marshall J. Bastable, Arms and the state, Sir William Armstrong and the remaking of British naval power, 1854 –1914 (Aldershot, 2004), 170 –200.

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and William H. White to discuss future warship designs.87 In May 1891 he appointed Fisher admiral-superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, where his first duty was to oversee the construction of the Royal Sovereign, the first of ten battleships to be built under the Naval Defence Act. Hamilton convened this meeting at Devonport ‘for the guidance of the Director of Naval Construction in preparing alternative outline designs’. He invited White to prepare a ‘considerable number of outline designs’.88 The Board provided only three design principles for White to fulfil and members of the meeting to base their discussions on: 1) four heavy guns placed in two protective stations at a considerable distance from each other and with an arc of training of roughly 200°; 2) a secondary armament located in a central battery; 3) that the secondary armament be dispersed across two decks, to minimise the destructive potential of high explosive weapons. Rather than requesting detailed design specifications, the Board wished to see and discuss a variety of designs derived by prioritising specific design concerns over others, i.e. type and size of armament, extent of armour and dimensions. On 16 November the same individuals met again in the First Lord’s rooms to discuss White’s designs. Admiral John Hopkins, Controller of the Navy, recorded that Hamilton’s aim for the meeting was to obtain the opinion of naval officers who had had substantial experience at sea ‘in order that modern conditions might be most satisfactorily fulfilled’ in a first-class battleship.89 In the course of this discussion, the naval officers would choose their preferred design. Hamilton’s meetings constituted a substantially different approach to design work, consisting of three reasonably distinct phases: consultation over what the ship was required to do; design work undertaken by a naval architect, left free to act in accordance with the broad design principles; and the decision of naval officers guided by their nautical experience.90 In effect, the First Lord had formed a demarcation between the naval architect as designer and naval officer as judge that established clear spheres of influence in the design pro­ cess. The experience was instructive for White and Fisher. White would go on to reflect on the naval architect’s authority in design work, while Fisher employed similar methods in the design of the Dreadnought (see Chapter 7). 87 The full list consisted of George Hamilton, Arthur Hood, Anthony Hoskins, Admirals John Hopkins and Hotham, Arthur Forwood, William Dowell, Richard Vesey Hamilton, Frederick Richards, Vice-Admiral Baird, Walter Kerr, John Fisher, and William H. White. 88 Navy. Design for first class battle ships, 1889 (C5635), 3. 89 Ibid., 9. 90 William H. White, ‘On the design of the new battle ships’, Transactions 30 (1889), 150 –215, esp. 155.



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This approach did not, however, meet with the approval of Reed, who adamantly held to his conviction that ships should be designed by naval architects with as little interference from naval officers as possible. He had long contended, with a tone of naivety and self-interest, that while engineers sought the ideal design, naval officers and administrators compromised that aim. He wrote in 1877 that ‘many of the differences in our ships . . . [arise] from fancy, from caprice, from divided counsels, from the competition of influences within the Admiralty’.91 One reason for Reed’s staunch views on design was his belief that naval architects had a responsibility to ensure ships were safe and stable, but that naval officers prioritised armaments and speed in the design process. This was indeed the main design tension in these meetings. Those assembled at Devonport and Whitehall agreed that the Royal Sovereign would include a powerful auxiliary armament alongside her four 13½-inch guns, but there was debate between Hood and White about how to protect those weapons. Continental naval powers had begun to build warships with barbette gun mountings, which the DNC favoured.92 The barbette gun mounting was still thickly armoured from top to bottom – particularly underneath the structure to protect against nearby explosions – but was a considerably lighter option. On an overall design perspective, the barbette system gave the ship 6¾ feet more freeboard than the turret system. White concluded that it ‘greatly economises weight of armour’.93 Lightness of armour, White recalled ten years later, was preferred by many naval officers if it provided better sea-keeping qualities. ‘Formerly it was the custom to give a preponderating value to smallness of target and defensive power generally. Hence it happened that ships were built with moderate or low freeboard, and with their guns placed comparatively low.’94 Low freeboard could be beneficial in smooth waters, but in rough conditions it diminished speed, stability and, in turn, the use of offensive power. White’s design for the Royal Sovereign switched the emphasis from defensive strength to sea-keeping qualities. The report on the 1888 meetings clearly states that the primary design concern was for ‘speed and fighting power at sea’, and as such ‘the high freeboard and high placed guns in [the] design for [a] barbette ship . . . were preferable 91 ‘[Letter from Edward J. Reed to the editor] Naval administration’ The Times 28843 (19 January 1877), 6. 92 Brassey, British Navy, III:32, 53; Manning, Life of White, 241. 93 White, ‘On the design of the new battle ships’, 168 – 9. 94 William H. White, ‘The latest reconstruction of the Navy’, Nineteenth Century 43 (April 1898), 534 – 48, esp. 541.

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to the lower freeboard and less height of guns in design for the turret ship of same displacement’.95 In defence of design The design of the Royal Sovereign met with heavy criticism from the pen of former Chief Constructor Edward James Reed. He claimed that the parliamentary papers explaining the design of future battleships were ‘misleading’. In particular the design drawings did not make clear the extent of the armour on the hull (Figure 6.2). Reed had condemned ships with thin belts of armour, and felt that the Royal Sovereign was no improvement of the previous Admiralclass battleship. Writing in The Times he complained of ‘rash and dangerous innovations’. He wanted to see a return to ‘safe and sanely-designed ships’, but instead found it impossible to ‘justify the recurrence, in eight millions’ worth of ships, to that stripping down to a mere shallow belt’. He did not think a narrow armour belt provided sufficient protection, and explained that the Nile and Trafalgar, which had been criticised by ‘politicians and economists’ alike, were preferable designs because they provided the ‘ample armour to keep

6.2  HMS Royal Sovereign 1st Class Battleship, by W. Fred Mitchell 95 Navy. Design for first class battle ships, 1889 (C5635), 9 –11.



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them afloat and upright under any amount of fire from small guns’.96 In a series of public letters during 1889 Reed criticised White’s design and fought with naval officers about their support for it.97 White wanted the opportunity to respond to Reed’s letters, so sought Hamilton’s approval to present a paper on the design later that year at the INA. As he explained to his audience, ‘From passages occurring in Sir Edward Reed’s letters and elsewhere, it seems that he doubts whether the First Lord and his advisers, who made the selection, understood what they were doing.’98 The plans for the Royal Sovereign were posted on the walls of the lecture hall to enable members to examine them in detail. In the chair was the Earl of Ravensworth, Conservative politician and president of the institution. He informed members that the designs had been formed through a series of meetings at the Admiralty in late 1888, in which naval officers and White worked together to agree what design principles this new ship should embody. Ravensworth introduced White as ‘an naval architect’ who ‘possesses the absolute and entire confidence – and this is a much more important point for you as Englishmen – of the Board which employs him’.99 The president also noted that the Admiralty had given valuable criticism to the design, and by making it public it aimed to give White the opportunity to defend the design from the criticisms and questions raised in the press. White began by outlining the design process and the principles the Royal Sovereign would embody. On the protection afforded to the design he explained that, beyond the barbettes, the majority of the ship’s protection came from its armour belt, 8 feet 8 inches wide, 5 feet of which was below the waterline. White’s response to Reed’s criticism of the armour belt was to cite a series of firing experiments on the Resistance, the results of which were then unpublished but had convinced members of the design group that the width of the belt was sufficient.100 Indeed White reflected on the technical processes that were  96 [Edward J. Reed], ‘The Admiralty programme of shipbuilding. To the editor of the Times’, The Times 32653 (22 March 1889), 13.  97 Reed specifically engaged in discussions with Philip Colomb, William Houston Stewart and C.C.P. Fitzgerald, see ‘[Edward J. Reed to the editor] The Admiralty programme of shipbuilding’, The Times 32669 (10 April 1889), 15; ‘The Admiralty programme of shipbuilding’, The Times 32659 (29 March 1889), 4.  98 William H. White, ‘On the design of the new battle ships’, Transactions 30 (1889), 162.  99 Earl of Ravensworth, ‘President’s address [to the London meeting]’, Transactions 30 (1889), 144 – 9, esp. 146. 100 William H. White, ‘On the design of the new battle ships’, Transactions 30 (1889); Navy. Design for first class battle ships, 1889 (C5635), 9 –11.

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combined to form the design, saying ‘never have been designs more deliberately and carefully considered’ than those for the Royal Sovereign: If with such a staff, with all our recorded data and experience, with our grand experimental establishment at Haslar, so ably conducted by my friend Mr. Froude, and with all the valuable assistance and suggestions coming to us from the Naval Service, and our professional colleagues in the Dockyards, as well as the constant benefits we derive from a full knowledge of the work done by private shipbuilders and foreign competitors, we do not, in the ‘Whitehall Office,’ succeed in producing ‘the best possible ships’ consistent with the instructions of the Board of Admiralty, then there can be no excuse.101

White had taken a key role in forming a new network of control over the Navy’s techno-military enterprise, placing naval architects within the sites of construction and drawing Froude’s privileged site of calculation closer into the design process. Drawing on the range and depth of knowledge and skill within this network, nurtured by educational provisions, he confidently asserted that the naval community – and country – had good reason to place its trust in the Admiralty. White similarly drew on the work of technical specialists to dismiss Reed’s statements about the speed of the ship, in which he had charged the Admiralty with trying to ‘mislead’ the public with its claims of 16 knots with natural draught and 17½ with forced draught. He described the ‘practical certitude obtained by means of the model experiments’ undertaken by Froude, and expressed ‘surprise’ that Reed was distrustful of work undertaken in the test tank which he himself had helped to establish.102 White did not simply defer to the engineering specialists who worked under his control within the Admiralty. At a time of uncertainty, when ‘actual experience in naval warfare under modern conditions is almost entirely wanting’, he presented the problem of authority and the shaping of the Royal Navy as one that ‘resolves itself into one of relative authority and experimental information’. He made the case that the constructive branch of the Admiralty had become an institution, in which there were numerous sites of calculation and checks on making errors. This was vital to his case for placing trust in the Navy and its fleet: ‘Under these circumstances, the Naval Service and the country will probably prefer to accept the conclusions of a responsible and wellinformed body like the Board of Admiralty, rather than those of any individual.’103 White’s paper was couched in issues of trust, and he placed the burden with 101 William H. White, ‘On the design of the new battle ships’, Transactions 30 (1889), 179 – 80. 102 Ibid., 170. 103 Ibid., 179 – 80.



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INA members to decide whether his network was more credible than Reed, who continued to make complaints in the press. The INA session took a confrontational tone as White rebutted Reed’s statements in The Times, and then Reed, who was present, stood to defend his positions. White’s immediate purpose was to discredit Reed’s claim to authority, dismissing him as a lone speaker and an outsider: ‘it will not be universally admitted that on such questions . . . the views of Sir Edward Reed are to be accepted in preference to those of the Admiralty and its naval advisers’.104 Reed made no apology for questioning his fellow naval architects, who had once been his subordinates. Indeed, Reed told the audience that his disregard for friendship should be taken as evidence of his conviction: I need not tell you, my Lord – I need not tell this meeting – that the late Director of Construction being an immediate and close relative of my own, and, like Mr. White, a personal friend, I should never have gone into this public action, except on the basis of a profound conviction that it is unwise to spare the armour, and cut it down to narrow, very, very narrow belts in these first-class ships. It is a conviction that I cannot get out of my mind. . . . Now that I find that security again taken away, [for the Nile and Trafalgar had been more adequately protected] I attack this Admiralty, and this ship, and this Constructor, and the Controller, and everybody else who supports it; and I should not care if it were my father or my brother, or anybody else who designed her, I would attack the design.105

Reed claimed to speak on behalf of safety and security, as indeed he claimed throughout his public writings on naval architecture from the Captain controversy on. Given the human life involved and the cost of warships, ‘the first consideration I think should be that that ship should be kept afloat by thick armour . . . That has been the ground of the whole of my public agitation.’106 In discussion Reed’s comments came under heavy criticism, not least from William Armstrong. He squarely backed his former director of warship construction, telling the meeting that ‘if we render a ship absolutely safe from being sunk by modern artillery we shall simply eliminate its power of sinking anything else. It is clear to me we must have a compromise.’107 This led the meeting into a major thread of the controversy surrounding the selection of design principles. Reed attempted to establish a judgemental dichotomy between the design concerns of naval architects and naval officers. 104 105 106 107

Ibid., 168. Ibid., 191. Ibid., 181. Ibid., 192.

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He alleged that the sacrifice of armour for fighting qualities was the product of the Admiralty’s pressure on White: ‘I have not the slightest doubt that he is obliged to stand idly by and take all the guns and other conditions which he says the Board of Admiralty impose upon him.’108 White did not rise to Reed’s bait, but earlier in the session had explained what he saw to be the limits of his authority in design work: I would submit that it is for the naval architect to prepare alternative plans, showing possible dispositions of the protective material, within the limits of weight available in a design. Having done this, it is not his province, but that of naval officers, to determine from their knowledge of gunnery, what are the nature and extent of the damages likely to be done in action, and to choose that disposition of armour which they consider has the balance of advantage.109

Unlike Reed, who was openly antagonistic toward naval officers involving them­selves in ship design, White respected the role of their operational and tactical knowledge in deciding the distribution of weight, armour and armaments, choosing between the options that the constructor felt were possible. This undoubtedly inclined him more to the naval officers in the audience than Reed. Rear-Admiral Philip Colomb expressed his support for White and the Admiralty’s decision to change the design emphasis from defence to offence. ‘[W]e build these ships . . . to gain the victory,’ he said. He also praised the Admiralty for orchestrating a design process in which naval officers were consulted along with the naval architect. This was not a criticism of naval architects but of the Board of Admiralty, although Colomb did believe that the authority of naval architects over design work had been left unchecked. Colomb, who was one of the most vocal members of the historical school in the Royal Navy, believed that the Royal Sovereign was a sailor’s ship. As such, if naval officers were to criticise the design, White would be justified to ‘turn round upon us, and say, They are your ships; they are not ours’.110 Colomb also took to the pages of The Times to discredit Reed. The admiral did not want readers to think that Reed’s opinions were shared by many in the Navy. He explained that the former Chief Constructor had very little support, largely due to his dogmatic belief in the ‘scientific case’ for naval architecture: ‘naval officers are quite ready to go onto the pros and cons of the scientific and practical case; but they are not at all ready to say that all the truth is on one side and all the error on the 108 Ibid., 184. 109 Ibid., 162. 110 Ibid., 205.



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other’. Colomb urged Reed to ‘quit [his] violent denunciation of men acting to the best of their ability in very difficult and undefined ground’.111 Other naval officers to speak during the INA session included Vice-Admiral Geoffrey Hornby and Captain Charles Beresford. Hornby, president of the Royal Naval College, praised the Royal Sovereign’s speed, telling members that it was ‘the highest quality that a ship can have’. He justified his claim by citing ‘the opinion of our highest authority’, Horatio Nelson.112 Beresford, who had recently resigned from Hamilton’s Admiralty Board but retained his political influence as MP for Marylebone, also expressed approval of the design. Senior naval officers seemed happy, if not proud, to be associated with the Royal Sover­eign. Beresford went further in his speech, criticising Reed’s view of what the Admiralty’s design priorities should be, telling the institution that ‘Lord Armstrong hit the right nail on the head in this great controversy’ with his comments on armour.113 He believed that naval officers needed the tools to attack their opponents, rather than defend against them: ‘We do not want to say, “You cannot hurt us,” but that we want to say is, “We can hurt you.” ’114 He proceeded to speak on behalf of his ‘brother officers’ in thanking White for the good service he had done them in moving away from the Admiral class design. Beresford shared Colomb’s assessment of where the design priorities for the Royal Sovereign emerged. He praised the ‘business-like way’ these ships had been conceived by the Admiralty: ‘They have got the seamen together . . .  They put down what they wanted, and then sent for a naval architect, and said: With that buoyancy, with that draught to carry such and such a weight, which includes the whole armament and weighting, what will you design?’115 Beresford’s idea of the design process was not particularly accurate, and more closely resembled the practices employed prior to the 1888 meetings. His description made no mention of the major issue of ship behaviour connected to the height of freeboard. Like Colomb, he believed that naval architects had been given a free rein in previous years. By his reckoning, constructors ‘never consulted the seamen’: ‘the man first to consult is the man who has to go to sea in her and to fight in her, and then the man who is to build her should ascertain how far he can meet the requirements of the man who has to fight her’.116 111 ‘[P.H. Colomb to the editor] The Admiralty programme of shipbuilding’, The Times 32655 (25 March 1889), 7. 112 William H. White, ‘On the design of the new battle ships’, Transactions 30 (1889), 199. 113 Ibid., 192. 114 Ibid., 194. 115 Ibid., 196. 116 Ibid., 196 –7.

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Beresford’s speech about the role of naval architects changed the tone of the meeting yet again. The naval officer moved beyond White’s collaborative efforts in ship design to criticise the design choices of naval architects: What I have objected to for many years has been what are called naval con­ structors’ ships. My opinion is this: I say that the way you have built your ships up to date has not been fair on the naval constructor, any more than it has been on the seaman. It has been a haphazard way of doing it, but this has been a business-like way of building. Many of these ships, which Sir Nathaniel Barnaby and others have been abused for building, were not built with any definite idea of the weight which they were to carry.117

Years of design controversy, public accusations and antagonism had converged to form a peculiar picture of ship design. Naval architects like White recognised that they had made gains in their authority over design and construction, but essentially fulfilled the requests of naval officers on the Board of Admiralty within the constraints of a design. Other constructors, in particular Reed, felt this was not enough, while naval officers like Beresford felt it was too much. In making his case Beresford attacked the designs of White’s predecessor, Barnaby, who was also in attendance at the INA. Joining the discussion, he rejected Beresford’s claims. The former constructor knew full well how constraining the Board of Admiralty could be when pursuing specific ship designs, but avoided a confrontational tone and simply noted that he always received the input of naval officers on the Admiralty Board. Admiral Houston Stewart, who had been Barnaby’s superior as Controller, testified to this. Perhaps Beresford’s concern was really with the choice of naval officers who influenced ship design.118 Returning to his main point, Beresford criticised what he felt were the naval constructor’s arbitrary decisions about the height of freeboard, making statements like ‘there is not such a great difference between 15 inches and two feet’. By engaging in approximations and rules of thumb, and not asking what concerns might have made 2 feet of freeboard essential to the design, Beresford unwittingly took on the stereotypical role of the naval officer who freely altered designs on the premise that approximations were fine. This was a stereotype that John Scott Russell had lampooned decades earlier in his writing on Admiral Clarence Paget, who had asked for changes to one part of a ship design without knowing how that decision would affect other considerations.119 117 Ibid., 196. 118 Ibid., 196 –7. 119 Ibid., 197; John Scott Russell, Fleet of the future (London, 1861), 74 –5.



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Closing the session, Ravensworth offered White the last word. In responding to the various comments made during discussion he returned to the portrayal of his work as a designer and advisor, as opposed to the ultimate decision maker. He revealed his frustrations as a public servant whose work attracted widespread coverage and comment. He described his anxieties when listening to debate on ship design in the House of Commons, undoubtedly with Reed in mind: ‘often when I sit under the gallery I feel that if I could have had ten minutes on the floor, I could have put matters in a different light’. He believed that ‘allegations of incompetency’ against Admiralty shipbuilders had been ‘made so freely and publicly’. He explained that some national legislatures allowed public servants to respond to parliamentary comments, and that he envied the authority and publicity that came from speaking in such a setting: ‘I think it would be infinitely better than to hear ex parte statements made, and passing unchallenged, whatever may be their source, or whatever view they may represent.’120 Perhaps knowing his opportunity to address the Commons would never come, he called for greater respect for the Admiralty Corps of Naval Architects. White, himself recognised by many as an admirable public servant for leaving his profitable position at Armstrong’s, praised the spirit of ‘public interest’ that his colleagues brought to questions of ‘national defence’.121 White’s work with the design of the Royal Sovereign came to be an important moment in the rebuilding of credibility in naval ship design. After decades of experimentation, upheaval in matériel and professional reorganisation the Navy had a ship that pleased naval architects and officers alike. Writing in 1901, the pseudonymous Blackwood’s contributor ‘Active List’ reflected that it was the ‘genius’ of William White and the design of the Royal Sovereign from which the ‘great improvement in battleship design dates’.122 White had largely succeeded in performing the delicate balancing act that ship design entailed. In 1906, when presenting the Society of Arts’ popular Monday evening Cantor Lectures, he reflected on these competing concerns and group interests with which the naval architect had to deal: He has to produce a structure possessing ample strength and stability, capable of meeting all conditions that may be encountered at sea, and of steaming at a desired speed over a stipulated distance. Safety, seaworthiness, and good behaviour must be ensured under conditions that cannot be determined with 120 William H. White, ‘On the design of the new battle ships’, Transactions 30 (1889), 209. 121 Ibid., 179. 122 Active List, ‘Recent naval progress’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 170 (October 1901), 443–57, esp. 445.

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exactitude, as is the case with fixed engineering structures on land. . . . In addition the designer has laid upon him the individual requirements of naval officers, marine and mechanical engineers and artillerists: each class naturally thinking its department the most important.123

White did not assert a claim to full autonomy in the design process, nor did he claim, as Reed had, that the naval architect was a superior judge of ship design than the naval officer. He simply implied the claim, without drawing attention to it, that the naval architect was superior in the practice of ship design and judging its technical merits. Perhaps more impressive is that he did this without a great deal of controversy. Even Beresford, writing in his memoirs, singled out White’s contribution to restoring the credibility and majesty of the Royal Navy’s fleet.124 White cut a conservative figure compared to Reed, concerned with establishing the credibility of his office. The events between the launch of the Devastation and that of the Royal Sovereign had highlighted the potential for further uses of engineering knowledge. Reed evidently saw the warship as a machine of war that required a vast engineering know-how to design, repair and operate. He was not alone. Charles Merrifield, the principal of the RSNA, expressed frustrations that naval officers rarely viewed ships as machines that embodied scientific and engineering problems. Even Fremantle, a naval officer, saw that deciding technical questions involved tactical considerations. As Fremantle made this statement, a new generation of officers were taking control of the Navy, like Fisher, Reginald Bacon, Gerard Noel and Henry Jackson, who had great respect for constructors. These officers recognised the authority of engineers and how the edge in naval warfare could be gained by mastering technical problems and providing engineering solutions. This was a controversial topic, and provided a wedge between this group of officers who offered a vision of naval power shaped by technology, and others such as Beresford and Colomb who placed greater emphasis on how officers had historically mastered new technologies to serve well-established operational and tactical roles.

123 William H. White, ‘Modern warships: lecture I’, Journal of the Society of Arts 54 (1905), 806 –12, esp. 806. 124 Beresford, Memoirs, II:351.

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The finishing years of the nineteenth century witnessed the final scenes of the passing of the old Navy and heralded the birth of a new service – a service old, indeed, in tradition and esprit de corps, but new, not only in material and the fruits of invention, but also in ideas, in greater vision, and in the fuller knowledge of the value and the uses to which that material could be put for the furtherance of our strength afloat and our assured domination of the seas and oceans. Reginald Bacon, first captain of HMS Dreadnought describes the connection in the matériel school between matériel and ideas of naval warfare.1 Fisher’s name is, and probably always will be, associated with the initiation of the Dreadnought era. At the same time, when he is being alternatively assailed and eulogised for having adopted the new type, it is only just to remember that the Dreadnought was no brand-new revelation vouchsafed to his single mind. A very capable, scientific, and practical committee had given the subject their most careful study. The Review of Reviews informs its readers that Fisher was no lone genius, but the head of a group of naval officers and engineers who conceived and constructed the Dreadnought.2

On 10 February 1906, King Edward VII oversaw the launch of HMS Dreadnought at Portsmouth. Interest in the ship was intense. The engineering press noted that ‘[f]ew, if any warships built in this or any country have excited the same keen and universal interest in the Dreadnought’.3 While The Times reported: ‘There are few acts more poetical than that of launching a great ship, few spectacles more moving and more thrilling than that of the vessel in which so many hopes are centred gliding with swanlike grace into the water.’4 The Dreadnought fast became a powerful cultural symbol, a signifier of 1 Reginald H. Bacon, From 1900 onwards (London, 1940), 17–18. 2 ‘Admiral Fisher’, Review of Reviews 41 (February 1910), 114 –26, esp. 116. 3 ‘The “Dreadnought” ’, Engineering 81 (9 February 1906), 187. 4 ‘The King and the Dreadnought’, The Times 37915 (12 February 1906), 4.

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7.1  ‘The First Photographs of the Model for the World’s Navies’

technological modernity and imperial might (Figure 7.1).5 Michael Smith has noted that technologies have a double life, as there is ‘the device itself and the image of the device’.6 The image of the Dreadnought exploded to levels that few ships had since Horatio Nelson’s HMS Victory, in part due to the powerful nexus of naval politics, entertainment and media coverage in which it was presented to the public.7 But the image of a device, or technology, does not have a distinct history, it is in fact the only way that contemporaries witnessed technology. The launch of the Dreadnought marked the realisation of a key part of Admiral John Fisher’s vision for the Navy. The ship’s 12-inch guns and promised 21-knot speed were core components of the admiral’s vision for 5 Jan Rüger, ‘The symbolic value of the Dreadnought’, in Robert Blyth, Andrew Lambert & Jan Rüger (eds.), The Dreadnought and the Edwardian age (Farnham, 2011), 9 –18. 6 Michael Smith, ‘Selling the moon: the US manned space programme and the triumph of commodity scientism’, in Richard Wightman Fox & T.J. Jackson Lears (eds.), The culture of consumption: critical essays in American history, 1880 –1980 (New York, 1983), 177–209, esp. 189. 7 Jan Rüger, The great naval game: Britain and Germany in the age of empire (Cambridge, 2007), 50 – 92.



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an ‘efficient’ and ‘effective’ naval force.8 Writing in 1906 he declared that the ‘[n]ew name for the “Dreadnought”[ was] “THE HARD-BOILED EGG!” Why? Because she can’t be beaten.’9 Yet Fisher’s vision for the Navy constantly shifted, from the introduction of a formidable battleship to the production of powerful battle-cruisers, and then on to submarines and the conversion of the fleet from coal to oil. His many biographers, as well as historians of the twentieth-century Navy, have characterised him as a ‘technological radical’, with a ‘willingness to take large risks with novel technologies’ and ‘demand reform in technology’.10 But Fisher was no blind follower of ‘progress’. Nicholas Lambert is perceptive in noting that Fisher intended to ‘exploit new technologies to build specific force capabilities’.11 The existing literature on the Dreadnought and Fisher does little to contextualise the admiral’s enthusiasm for technology and how technological change took place. The prevailing view of the Dreadnought is that of a technological revolution. This interpretation originated in the contemporary discourse, promoted by Fisher.12 Historians have referred to the Dreadnought revolution as Fisher’s ‘matériel revolution’, an ‘epoch-making design revolution’, ‘the poster child of the Fisher revolution’.13 Another way to approach this period of naval reforms is to consider Fisher’s relationship with technology through his extensive network of naval, engineering and scientific collaborators. Fisher and his network successfully established a new culture of technological speculation and investigation that actively engaged with the processes of engineering pro­ cesses as well as its products. He supported young naval officers interested in examining the technical dimensions of naval warfare. Under Fisher, the Admiralty established a new training programme that afforded unprecedented  8 Crosbie Smith, ‘Dreadnought science: the cultural construction of efficiency and effectiveness’, in Robert Blyth, Andrew Lambert & Jan Rüger (eds.), The Dreadnought and the Edwardian age (Farnham, 2011), 135 – 64.   9 ‘Naval Notes’, 1906, John Fisher papers, Churchill College Archive, Cambridge (hereafter Fisher papers), FISR 8/22:4806. 10 Jon Tetsuro Sumida, ‘Sir John Fisher and the Dreadnought: the sources of naval mythology’, Journal of Military History 59 (1995), 619 –37, esp. 619; Andrew Lambert, Admirals: the naval commanders who made Britain great (London, 2008), 300; Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the coming of the Great War (London, 1991), 402. 11 Nicholas A. Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s naval revolution (Columbia, SC, 1999), 6. 12 Ibid., 8. 13 Richard Hough, First Sea Lord: an authorized biography of Admiral Lord Fisher (London, 1969), 234; Andrew Gordon, The rules of the game: Jutland and British naval command (London, 1996), 9; Lambert, Admirals, 308 – 9.

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levels of engineering training, reshaping the image of what British naval power entailed. Naval historians have been overly concerned by Fisher’s vision for the Navy, regardless of whether they are reconstructing or refuting it. A more original approach to Fisher would be to explore the actions he, and his network, took to enact reforms. The value of this can be seen in the case of the Dreadnought. The year 1906 is seen as a moment when the European naval arms race began anew, no pre-existing battleships deemed capable of competing with its tactical capacity for engaging at a distance of almost 20,000 yards and with a speed that gave its commander the decision to accept or refuse battle. This is an inadequate, retrospective assessment of the tactical and policy dimensions, based wholly upon Fisher’s vision and its successful execution. It totally fails to convey the historical contingency involved in its execution and the role of historical agents in building credibility into the ship’s vital systems, specifically the marine steam turbine. Charles Parsons, who designed the turbine in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, worked with his engineering and business associates to promote an engine that they claimed would surpass the reciprocating engine in coal consumption, simplicity, reliability and compactness.14 Proving that the turbine was capable of all that had been claimed for it was complicated and dependent on the networks that Fisher and Parsons had established around themselves. Similar concerns are to be found in the Dreadnought’s trials. Her fragility was only too apparent to her first captain, Reginald Bacon. He had begun his association with Fisher in the Mediterranean, where he received his promotion to captain in 1900. Later that year he was sent to the Paris Exhibition to evaluate marine technology, before returning to Britain to oversee the introduction of submarine boats.15 In 1904 Fisher appointed him as his naval assistant, and they worked together on the committee of designs that conceived the Dreadnought. In 1906 Bacon was appointed the ship’s commander. He was aware of the anxiety with which the committee had made its decision to adopt turbines. On the Dreadnought’s maiden trial the crew discovered a fault with the vessel’s steering that caused her to turn violently in circles rather than holding a straight course. Conscious of the delicacy of the situation, and without the time to consult the Admiralty, Bacon decided to steer against the fault rather than return to Portsmouth and have it rectified. Writing years later, he 14 Don Leggett, ‘Spectacle and witnessing: constructing readings of Parsons’ marine turbine’, Technology & Culture 52 (2011), 287–309. 15 A.B. Sainsbury, ‘Bacon, Sir Reginald Hugh Spencer (1863–1947)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).



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explained that ‘it would be bad for the prestige of the design if alterations, which were bound to occupy some considerable time, were taken in hand’.16 Returning to port would have hurt the credibility of the ship’s largely experi­ mental engine system. It would also have damaged the image of the ship that Fisher and his media associates had worked hard to nurture. The Dreadnought had been presented as a ‘powerful public symbol’, combining the ‘striking imagery of technology, novelty and power’ with a ‘display of deterrence’.17 But the decision to build a high-speed battleship had been a highly controversial one. Speaking to the INA in the years following the Dreadnought’s launch, Bacon told his audience: Probably there was no point among the improvements introduced into the Dreadnought that was more violently attacked than the increase in speed from 19 to 21 knots, and the attempts made to prove that such an increase was of no value were legion. It is probable that this increase will in time be looked upon as one of the most valuable features of this design.18

As soon as the design of the Dreadnought became public ‘a wordy war’ was waged over her relative value compared to the existing battleships in the fleet. Bacon, a member of the matériel school, considered it vital that the Navy took an active role in investigating and experimenting with new technologies and ways of waging war at sea. He even publicly opposed the cult of Nelson, arguing that although Trafalgar had been won by a scrappy, close-range action, it was neither a template for future battles nor a lesson in explaining British naval power: ‘That wretched idea that the British nation owned the world’s supply of pluck, and that foreigners were wanting in virtue, has ever been a stumblingblock to progress in our Navy.’19 Bacon and other members of Fisher’s network developed a particular enthusiasm for science as they sought to distinguish their claims to know how best to maintain British naval power. The present chapter focuses on actors’ networks and their contingent actions, to provide an alternative study of Fisher and the Dreadnought. An unfamiliar engine On 27 June 1897, 165 vessels flying white ensigns, carrying 38,000 officers and crew, met off Spithead to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The review got underway with the royal procession at two o’clock. The royal 16 Bacon, 1900 onwards, 152. 17 Rüger, ‘Symbolic value of the Dreadnought’, 14, 15, 17. 18 Reginald Bacon, ‘The battleship of the future’, Transactions 52 (1910), 1–21, esp. 8. 19 Bacon, 1900 onwards, 16.

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family on the Victoria and Albert yacht passed up and down the lines of vessels, followed by ships carrying guests of the monarch, the Lords of the Admiralty, and members of the Houses of Lords and Commons. The poet and naval enthusiast Rudyard Kipling was struck by the totality of the display. ‘Yesterday I got a chance to see the fleet and went off at once. Never dreamed that there was anything like it under Heaven,’ he wrote, ‘it was beyond words – beyond any description! Perhaps the most effective sight in the suggestion of deviltry was the line of t[orpedo].b[oat].d[estroyer].’s.’20 As the royal yacht left the lines, it received three cheers. ‘[E]very one who heard it,’ a correspondent for The Times wrote, ‘must have felt that no Throne was ever more securely guarded by the loyalty and might of a world-wide Empire, and no Sovereign ever more sincerely loved and revered by subjects of every class and every clime.’ It was at this point, however, that the security of the event was supposedly breached as a small vessel tore up and down the lines at speeds of 32 knots: The Turbinia waited astern of the Powerful until the Victoria and Albert was well under way, and then followed her, at first at moderate speed, but gradually quickening up until the sea in her immediate wake was churning into a mass of white and seething foam. Probably she overtook the yacht within a very short distance and passed her at full speed, and perhaps her lawlessness may be excused by the novelty and importance of the invention she embodies.21

The shocking appearance of the Turbinia, an experimental vessel 32 metres long and approximately the size of a torpedo boat destroyer, fitted with Charles Parsons’s marine steam turbine, guaranteed the ship’s status as an object of curiosity and gossip. Its unannounced entry gave it a mark of notoriety, ensuring that the display would become a source of conversation. ‘At the cost of a deliberate disregard of authority,’ The Times reported, ‘she contrived to give herself an effective advertisement by steaming at astonishing speed between the lines A and B shortly after the Royal procession had passed.’22 Whether the ship’s entrance was, as The Times reported, unlawful, was a matter of debate. Two days after the review, the author and politician George Baden-Powell sug­ gested that the ‘astonishing runs she made . . . were in obedience to a message brought by a picket boat that the admiral wished her to show her best speed, more especially for the benefit of his Royal Highness Prince Henry, who was 20 Rudyard Kipling to William Joshua Harding [chief engineer, Royal Navy], 25 June 1897, in The letters of Rudyard Kipling, ed. Thomas Pinney (6 vols., Basingstoke, 1990), II:303. 21 ‘Review of the fleet by the Prince of Wales’, The Times 35241 (28 June 1897), 8. 22 Ibid., 8.



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watching her from the German man-of-war’.23 The Admiral remained nameless, but in the years prior to the review Parsons had developed a powerful network of allies within and outside the Admiralty to champion the turbine.24 The Turbinia’s demonstration of high speed at the largest naval spectacle to date was doubtless a tightly managed piece of theatre, designed to provide the engineer with an opportunity to show his experimental engine in action. The press responded with almost uniform excitement to the Turbinia. Emile Weyl, a retired French naval officer who wrote for Thomas Brassey’s influential Naval Annual, remarked that ‘the Turbinia is perhaps destined to revolutionize naval construction’.25 Weyl was joined by Brassey and numerous naval officers, engineers and enthusiasts who subscribed to the possibility that a ‘turbine revolution’ would strongly tip the balance of the European naval-based arms race in Britain’s favour. The Turbinia, which broke the then maximum speed record for a vessel of her size, demonstrated the potential role of the turbine in the large technological systems upon which naval supremacy rested. There was, however, a modicum of doubt in the engineering press, where correspondents were more aware of the lack of precise data concerning the performance of the engine. Nineteenth-century engineers and physicists believed that the turbine, if it could be built, would be a more perfect thermodynamic system.26 Yet to many practising engineers, including the northern England industrialist and shipbuilder Alfred Yarrow, the construction of a ‘practical’ steam turbine for marine propulsion seemed to be impossible.27 Parsons, who was the sixth 23 ‘The machinery of warships’, The Times 35242 (29 June 1897), 3. 24 W. Garrett Scaife, From galaxies to turbines: science, technology and the Parsons family (Bristol, 2000), 293– 96. 25 Emile Weyl, ‘The progress of foreign navies’, in Brassey’s naval annual (1898), 19 –55, esp. 19. 26 Charles Parsons, ‘The rise of motive power and the work of Joule [paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 5 December 1922)]’, in Scientific papers and addresses of the Hon. Sir Charles A. Parsons, ed. G.L. Parsons (Cambridge, 1934), 151– 61. For the turbine ideal, derived from observing water wheels, see Jennifer Karns Alexander, The mantra of efficiency: from waterwheel to social control (Baltimore, MD, 2008), 15 –32. For the history of turbine systems see Edward W. Constant, The origins of the turbojet revolution (Baltimore, MD, 1980), 22– 4; Miwao Matsumoto, Technology gatekeepers for war and peace: the British ship revolution and Japanese industrialization (Oxford, 2006). 27 Discussion following Charles Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, Transactions 38 (1897), 232– 42, esp. 237.

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son of William Parsons (the third Earl of Rosse) and a Cambridge wrangler, successfully invented a turbine to generate electrical power in the 1880s, prior to turning his attention to marine propulsion.28 A legacy of work on water turbines and thinking about the perfect thermodynamic systems did not, however, lend practical credibility to the turbine, nor did it persuade practising marine engineers and the maritime community to replace reciprocating engines with marine turbines. The major obstacle to trust in the turbine concerned its incommensurability with engineering apparatus that had been designed for testing the performance of reciprocating engines. The technical expression of performance, specifically the force produced by an engine, was read from an indicator that recorded the action of steam in the engine. These devices became commonplace in how engineers demonstrated the speed and efficiency of engines to investors and institutions.29 In The steam engine (1910), James Alfred Ewing, professor of mechanisms and applied mechanics at Cambridge University, noted that indicators had been developed to work with the specific mechanics of reciprocating engines. In particular, ‘(1) the motion of the piston must be proportional to the change of steam-pressure in the engine cylinder; and (2) the motion of the [indicator’s] drum must be proportional to that of the engine piston’.30 Steam turbines did not use pistons but a series of drums in which blades rotated when steam moved through them – like wind rotating the arms of a windmill. The precise performance of the turbine was immeasurable until the invention of the Denny and Johnson’s torsion dynamometer in 1906.

28 For biographical studies of Parsons, see Scaife, From galaxies to turbines; R.H. Parsons, The steam turbine: and other inventions of Sir Charles Parsons, O.M. (London, 1943); Rollo Appleyard, Charles Parsons: his life and work (London, 1933). 29 For precision measurement, see Graeme Gooday, The morals of measurement: accuracy, irony and trust in late Victorian electrical practice (Cambridge, 2004). The dynamometer was an important instrument within this culture. William Thomson’s analytical and practical use of the Morin dynamometer, for example, reveals how science and technology were sometimes entwined in the material and theoretical culture of ‘precision measurement’. See Crosbie Smith & M. Norton Wise, Energy and empire: a biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), 130, 291–2, 387– 8. For a reassessment of the relationship between ‘trust’ and ‘interest’ in the credibility of indicators see David Philip Miller, ‘Testing power and trust: the steam indicator, the “Reynolds controversy”, and the relations of engineering science and practice in late nineteenth-century Britain’, History of Science 50 (2012), 212–50. 30 James Alfred Ewing, The steam engine and other heat engines (Cambridge, 1894, 3rd edn, 1910), 271.



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Two months before the 1897 naval review, Parsons described his invention in a paper at the INA. The Times, which was among the many newspapers and periodicals to report INA meetings, referred to the content of Parsons’s paper in terms of a ‘possible future’, but cautiously stated that the technology was still ‘in a purely experimental, perhaps almost in an embryo, stage’.31 Indeed, many members of the INA were surprised that a ‘practical’ marine turbine was at all possible. John Corry remarked that information ‘is too meagre with regard to the construction and details of the boat [and] much is left to our imagination’.32 Historians of the turbine and the Royal Navy largely ignore these concerns, simply stating that the spectacle and visual proof of the Turbinia’s speed, which Parsons demonstrated later that year at the naval review, made the ‘promise’ of marine turbine technology a reality.33 Even Fisher, who chaired the committee that made the decision to fit the Dreadnought with turbines, acknow­ ledged the risk in 1919 – albeit confident that he had made the right decision. ‘Was I wrong about the turbine when I put it in the “Dreadnought” – when [it was deployed] only before in a penny steamer [the Clyde steamer King Edward], and experts called it a “box of tricks”?’34 While the spectacle of the naval review provided a quick and effective advertisement for the turbine’s speed, the work of convincing the Navy (and private investors) to replace reciprocating engines with turbines occupied Parsons for many years prior to and following 1897. He began his work on turbines in the 1870s, filing his first patent for an electricity-generating turbine in 1877. Only in 1886 did he submit a patent for a marine turbine, and then, following legal complications concerning the ownership of that patent, was unable to advance his work until 1894.35 It was while working on electricity generation that Parsons began to develop strong ties with capital suppliers, engineers and scientists. Members of his network ranged from Lords Ardilaun and Iveagh to Lord Rayleigh and Ewing. When Parsons secured the rights to his 1886 marine turbine patent he granted an exclusive licence to the Marine Steam 31 ‘The periodical sessions of the Institution of Naval Architects’, The Times 35175 (12 April 1897), 11. 32 Discussion following Charles Parsons, The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, Transactions 38 (1897), 239. 33 Scaife, From galaxies to turbines, 294 – 99; Jon Tetsumo Sumida, In defense of naval supremacy: finance, technology and British naval policy, 1889 –1914 (Boston, MA, 1989), 261. 34 ‘Rome burns while Nero fiddles: Lord Fisher on the Fleet’, The Times 42197 (5 September 1919), 11. 35 Leggett, ‘Spectacle and witnessing’, 292–3.

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7.2  Philip Watts, Charles Parsons and William H. White

Turbine Company. The initial investors in the company included Parsons, Laurence Parsons (the fourth Earl of Rosse), Christopher Leyland, a Liverpool banker and retired naval officer, and Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton, an electrical engin­eer who had worked with Parsons on a number of power station installations. The initial £24,000 start-up capital (of which Parsons supplied £9,000) paid for the construction of the Turbinia.36 Parsons and Lord Rosse also approached Brassey, then lord-in-waiting to the Queen, and the eighth Duke of Devonshire, a prominent politician, Admiralty spokesman and bene­ factor of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, to join the company’s board and also open access to a social network within the Admiralty.37 Parsons successfully established a company and secured the funds for an experimental vessel largely on the basis of his personal credibility and success with the land turbine, and less on the dubious authority of rough figures based on unconventional procedures and uncommon calculations. A change of tactics was required when Parsons went public with his engine design at the INA and began courting the Admiralty. Acknowledging his engine’s incommensurability with contemporary measuring devices, he asked Ewing to produce an impartial report to describe how the marine turbine worked. Ewing was a pivotal member of Parsons network. He had already performed experiments on land-based turbines in order to testify to their performance for potential investors. ‘The results of Professor Ewing’s test’, Parsons told the INA, 36 Appleyard, Parsons, 87– 8. 37 Charles Parsons to Laurence Parsons, 26 January 1894, Charles Parsons correspondence, St John’s College archive, Cambridge (hereafter Parsons correspondence), 1/7.



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‘impressed the minds of those interested with the conviction that the steam turbine would probably, in the near future, supersede the reciprocating engine for certain fields of work.’38 He had taught at the Imperial University of Tokyo and the University of Dundee, prior to rejecting an offer to become director of Britain’s new National Physical Laboratory in favour of an appointment at Cambridge University. In 1903 he would accept an offer from Fisher to become Director of Naval Education and oversee the implementation of a new training scheme that placed unprecedented emphasis on engineering.39 Ewing’s report began by noting that ‘there is no way of directly measuring the work done by the steam [in a turbine] corresponding to the indicated work in a reciprocating engine’.40 He and Parsons wanted laboratory-based data on the Turbinia, and asked Edmund Froude, director of the test tank at the Admiralty Experimental Works, Haslar, to perform model experiments to get ‘authoritative’ data on the force needed to propel the ship at specific speeds.41 Depending on test tank experiments unfortunately brought added complications. Although many officers serving in the Admiralty were now aware of the work undertaken in the test tank, there were still many who were not. In the INA Admiral H.F. Cleveland praised the ‘mechanical genius’ exhibited in Parsons’s turbine, but he complained that no one knew of Froude’s experimental tank experiments or what Parsons’s results meant.42 In 1896 Parsons turned his attention to his links with Brassey and Froude in the Admiralty to secure an introduction to William H. White. White visited Parsons to examine the invention and discuss the Admiralty’s technical speci­ fications for engines and torpedo-boat destroyers (the class of vessel in which

38 Charles Parsons, ‘The steam turbine and its application to the propulsion of vessels’, Transactions 45 (1903), 284 –311, esp. 284. For Ewing’s report see James Alfred Ewing, ‘Report on trials of a 100-unit Parsons’s steam turbine dynamo at Heaton works, Newcastle-on-Tyne, December 1891,’ Charles Parsons papers, Birr Castle archive, Birr, R4b. 39 R. Angus Buchanan, The engineers: a history of the engineering profession in Britain, 1750 –1914 (London, 1989), 173; E.I. Carlyle, ‘Ewing, Sir ( James) Alfred (1855 –1935)’, rev. W.H. Brock, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 40 James Alfred Ewing, ‘Report of the trials of the steamer “Turbinia,” by Professor J.A. Ewing, F.R.S.’, [printed in] Charles Parsons, ‘The steam turbine and its application to the propulsion of vessels’, Transactions 45 (1903), 297. 41 Ibid., 297– 8. 42 Discussion following Charles Parsons, ‘The steam turbine and its application to the propulsion of vessels’, Transactions 45 (1903), 301.

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the marine turbine would most likely be initially deployed).43 Parsons could provide White only with results of the consumption tests he had made on the Turbinia in 1897, and yet the promise of higher speed, along with the efficiency that Parsons had secured in land turbines, was enough to secure White’s support, even if unofficially. Technical, perhaps scientific, discourse thus had a marginal role in shaping how the performance of the turbine was understood. Knowledge of the turbine was instead based on the claims, credibility and connections that Parsons had. If the Admiralty was to proceed with this experimental engine, then Parsons and his associates would have to appeal to its interests and allay its fears. This network continued to be of vital importance in the years following the naval review, maintaining and sustaining interest in the turbine. The image established at the naval review began to diminish when the press scrutinised how the turbine might be employed in a battleship, particularly with regard to the Turbinia’s poor astern power and the towering flame that rose out of her funnel. A correspondent for The Times believed that these features made it difficult to imagine the Turbinia’s practical use as a torpedo boat, for which ‘silence, secrecy, and invisibility are indispensable’.44 Similarly, members of the INA were impressed by Parsons’s claims for the Turbinia’s increased high speed, lighter machinery, more efficient working and engines that could be fitted below the main deck, but feared the turbine would not be effective at low and middle-range speeds, that the turbine could not reverse and even that the Turbinia, the prototype vessel for the engine, was far too small for practical application. On the point of astern power Leslie Denny, a managing partner of the Clyde shipbuilding company of the same name, informed the INA: ‘The popular belief, I know, was that turbine vessels could not go astern, and so late as last year, after one of the vessels had been running for a year, a member of the public on the pier was heard to say to another: “Look, she is going astern. I was told it was impossible”.’45 This member of the public had not been entirely misled. Turbine engines could not operate in reverse, but Parsons had anti­ cipated this problem and placed a set of reverse blades within the casing of the low-pressure turbine in many of his early engines (he later fitted ships with 43 Parsons to Laurence Parsons, 28 December 1896, Parsons correspondence, 2/30; Parsons to Laurence Parsons, 5 February 1897, Parsons correspondence, 2/33; Charles Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, Transactions 38 (1897), 232– 42. 44 ‘The Turbinia’, The Times 35241 (28 June 1897), 15. 45 Discussion following Charles Parsons, ‘The steam turbine and its application to the propulsion of vessels’, Transactions 45 (1903), 303.



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separate reverse turbines). The statement of surprise upon seeing the turbine ship reverse was representative of the lack of authoritative knowledge surrounding the marine turbine, and such surprise continued to be expressed as late as 1907.46 Long-term concerns over the novelty of the marine turbine could be dispelled only through experience and testimony. To this end, one of the important links that Parsons established within the shipbuilding industry was with Denny Bros of Dumbarton and the creation of Turbine Steamers Ltd, a consortium of Messrs Denny, Parsons and Captain John Williamson, an experienced manager of commercial passenger steamers. In 1901 this consortium launched the King Edward, the first merchant ship powered by steam turbines, followed by the Queen Alexandra in 1902.47 These vessels served as inexpensive steamers for the inhabitants of the Clyde, but their economic and profitable running made the turbine attractive to the wider shipbuilding and shipowning communities. Parsons later noted that the success of the Clyde steamers King Edward and Queen Alexandra led to the adoption of turbines for the latest additions to the Dover–Calais and the Newhaven–Dieppe services on the English Channel.48 The first naval ships fitted with turbines were torpedo-boat destroyers, HMS Viper and Cobra. These ships ripped apart early into their careers, and this was widely reported to be due to a design flaw in the hull. There was no suggestion that the turbine was responsible. Thus the Admiralty proceeded to fit turbines on board the cruiser HMS Amethyst. In The Naval Annual (1902), George Robert Dunell predicted that ‘the new system of propulsion will not have the same chance of producing a sensational result as would be possible with a destroyer or a torpedo boat,’ that is, the spectacular speed displayed by the Turbinia at Spithead. The Amethyst did, however, provide a chance to examine Parsons’s claim that the turbine was more efficient than the reciprocating engine. Dunell observed: ‘Mr. Parsons is understood to be anxious to prove that his system of propulsion possesses advantages for staunch oceangoing ships, and not only, as is so often supposed, for the mosquito fleet.’49 The results of the comparison strongly favored the turbine. Engineering reported that the Amethyst ‘unmistakeably demonstrated the economy of the Parsons 46 Auguste Rateau, ‘Steam turbine propulsion for marine purposes’, Transactions 46 (1904), 168 – 92, esp. 171. 47 Smith, ‘Dreadnought science’, 197– 9. 48 Charles Parsons, ‘The steam turbine and its application to the propulsion of vessels’, Transactions 45 (1903), 290. 49 George Robert Dunell, ‘Marine engineering’, Brassey’s naval annual (1902), 159 – 60.

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steam-turbine’.50 In 1905, after successful experience with turbine-driven torpedo-boat destroyers and cruisers, the Admiralty would use Parsons’s turbines in the design of the Dreadnought. Vision and action In December 1900 Fisher, then in command of the Mediterranean fleet, wrote to the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Selborne, to set out his vision for naval power. He believed that ‘suddenness’ was the key, both in ships and in the ways the Navy responded to challenges. ‘[S]peed is almost the first desideratum in all types from Battle-ships’, the admiral wrote, ‘and we cannot afford any Foreign power to possess any type of war vessel superior to our own.’51 Fisher saw it as his personal mission to force the Navy, which he believed to be a largely conservative institution, to accept ‘reforms and innovation’: ten years experience at the Admiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance and Controller of the Navy in very troublous times has taught me that unless one has the actual carrying out of reforms and innovations, with ruthless and relentless removal of all obstructionists, it is usually a waste of time, and only causes friction, to make suggestions, and if not on the spot to argue the points one is always open to the charge of not being fully acquainted with the facts.52

Two years later Selborne appointed Fisher Second Sea Lord, and then in 1904 First Sea Lord replacing Lord Walter Kerr. Selborne gave Fisher a great deal of latitude to achieve his vision. Writing to the journalist James Thursfield, Fisher reported that ‘Selborne writes me very excellent and clear-headed letters, and he seems to be bent on obtaining all we require’.53 Once at the Admiralty, Fisher quickly got to work forming a committee of designs to devise new fighting ships, purging the Navy of ‘obsolete’ vessels, reorganising the distribution of the Navy’s matériel power and reforming the training provision for naval officers. Few figures in British naval history have been so divisive as Fisher, both in their time and in naval historiography. Jan Morris wrote that ‘[a]bout the first 50 For the statistical justification of this claim, see: ‘The economy of steam-turbines in cruisers’, Engineering 78 (18 November 1904), 689 – 92. Charles Parsons, ‘The steam turbine and its application to the propulsion of vessels’, Transactions 45 (1903), 292. 51 John Fisher to Lord Selborne, 19 December 1900, Fisher papers, FISR 1/2 56. 52 Ibid. 53 John Fisher to James Thursfield, 8 January 1901, in Fear God and dread nought, ed. Arthur J. Marder (3 vols., London, 1952), I:179.



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thing I ever heard about Jack Fisher was that he had almost ruined the Royal Navy by building the Dreadnought, and possibly started the Great War too’.54 The Dreadnought aside, Fisher made a deep and wide-ranging contribution to the technology and culture of the Royal Navy. Much of what has been written about Fisher is simultaneously wary of his rhetoric and self-promotion, yet paints him in precisely those terms in his love of innovation and reform. Yet Fisher did not only look forward. Andrew Lambert, writing about Fisher’s role in the public fashioning of the Dreadnought symbol, points to his sense of history and naval tradition.55 His hero was Horatio Nelson, and his contemporary supporters often remarked on the similarities between the two. In 1905, the naval writer for the Daily Chronicle noted that: Fisher served under the last of Nelson’s captains, and seems to have absorbed by apostolical [sic] succession, but without the laying on of hands, the spirit of the little one-armed man who knew no fear, who looked on difficulties as things to be overcome, and who loved his country with an absorbing passion. It was not by accident that Fisher took office on Trafalgar Day as First Sea Lord.56

The same article pointed to Fisher’s technological enthusiasm and love of mechanism, going so far as to describe the admiral’s brain as a mechanically driven destructive device: ‘Fisher’s busy brain is like that of a chronometer – silent, unresting, and unhurried; when attached to a lyydite mine it ensures shattering explosion.’57 One of the keys to contesting the presentation of Fisher as a lone agent of change is to form a contextual picture of his enthusiasm for new technologies, both across his career and through social networks. His first twenty years of naval service were marked by experience in the Navy’s technical establishments and on board many of it newest warships. In 1863 he was appointed gunnery officer on board HMS Warrior. Three years later he joined the gunnery staff of HMS Excellent, wrote on electric torpedoes and led the Navy’s first torpedo school on board HMS Vernon. Returning to naval command, he was appointed captain of the Royal Navy’s newest, largest warship, HMS Inflexible. During the 1882 bombardment of Alexandria he led a naval brigade into the city, securing control until the army arrived. He gained public notoriety for his 54 Jan Morris, Fisher’s face: or, getting to know the Admiral (New York, 1995), 152. 55 Andrew Lambert, ‘The power of a name: tradition, technology and transformation’, in Robert Blyth, Andrew Lambert & Jan Rüger (eds.), The Dreadnought and the Edwardian age (Farnham, 2011), 19 –29. 56 ‘A strong man at the Admiralty: Sir John Fisher – an appreciation’, Daily Chronicle (27 March 1905), in Fisher papers, FISR 11. 57 Ibid.

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actions, and returned to Britain as Director of Naval Ordnance in 1886, superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard in 1891 and Controller of the Navy in 1892. Fisher took an active role in the trial of new technologies. He discussed technical subjects with men of science and engineers, gaining levels of know­ ledge and insight that helped him negotiate the administration of naval matériel. At no point was this talent clearer to see than in Fisher’s work on navigational instruments with William Thomson. In 1879 he was given command of HMS Northampton and the task of providing a sea trial for Thomson’s magnetic compass. Thomson experienced ‘official resistance’ at the Admiralty but found a ‘vociferous and lifelong advocate’ in Fisher.58 They continued to collaborate on the Inflexible, where Fisher remembered how ‘the firing of the eighty ton guns of the Inflexible . . . blew my cap off my head and nearly deafened me, [but] had no effect on . . . [Thomson’s] compasses’.59 Decades later, when Thomson was working on the design of the Dreadnought, Fisher would remind others of the ‘prodigious’ opposition they faced trying to introduce the compass and sounding machine, ‘perhaps the two greatest [inventions] because [they were] the most life-saving of human inventions’.60 Fisher developed similar relationships with other technical specialists. His correspondence with Barnaby and Watts suggests that he sought to understand the design tensions that naval architects faced and learnt to place a great deal of trust in their judgements on the viability of design ideas and their successful execution. During the closing decades of the nineteenth century Fisher gained a perspective on the relationship between engineering and naval power that few of his contemporaries shared, let alone appreciated. He believed that successive boards of Admiralty had worked on the premise that they should order the most powerful ships recommended to them in order to stay materially ahead of their greatest naval rivals. This often entailed making elementary comparisons between the strengths of their and rival nation’s fleets, highlighting key qualities such as number and power of guns, speed and the thickness of armour. There was very little connected discussion between the naval officer, naval architect and administrators concerning how ship design affected tactics and strategy, and vice versa. Addressing this problem in the 1900s, he wrote: Changes have slipped so gradually from wooden sailing ships through slow steam iron vessels to our present splendid ships of war that the tendency has always 58 Richard Dunn, ‘ “Their brains over-taxed”: ships, instruments and users’, in Don Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800 –1918 (Farnham, 2012), 131–55, esp. 140 –1. 59 John Fisher, Records (London, 1919), 62. 60 [Incomplete Fisher print], 1906, Fisher papers, FISR 5/10/4210.



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been to subordinate our strategy to our ship construction, rather than to mould our war ship design to suit strategy. Strategy should govern the types of ships to be designed. Ship design, as dictated by strategy, should govern tactics. Tactics should govern details of armaments.61

Fisher’s writing about reform contained certain language and claims about the Navy that coloured the communication of his vision. He went to great lengths to stress the Navy’s resistance to change. Although rarely naming names, he frequently referred to a ‘bow and arrows party’ at large in the Admiralty, working to obstruct reform: ‘They can’t bear the “Dreadnought” – she is too fast! – and they hate big guns. They’ll hate Heaven, probably.’62 Even if the charge was a simplification and exaggeration, it remained an important component of his strategy to position his vision for naval reform. These claims were particularly relevant to how he appealed to his political masters and galvanised his supporters into action. He told Richard Burdon Haldane that ‘an Admiral is about the most self-satisfied type of being on the earth!’63 Indeed Fisher became patron to a group of junior officers, derogatively called the ‘Fishpond’. Members had shared experience of working in the technical branches of the Navy and an interest in the practical problems of waging war at sea.64 Reginald Bacon had displayed a firm grasp of technical problems while overseeing the introduction of submarine boats into the Navy; Charles Madden commanded the torpedo school Vernon prior to serving as Controller of the Navy; Herbert Richmond, prior to a career writing imperial history, served in the torpedo branch and gained recognition for his technical accomplishments; John Jellicoe had assisted Fisher while the latter served as Director of Naval Ordnance; William May was a Controller of the Navy; Percy Scott was a gunnery specialist; Henry Jackson also served on the Vernon and worked on torpedo warfare. Jackson outshone all his contemporaries with the recognitions he received from the scientific community, gaining entry into the Royal Society and publishing in its Proceedings. These men were the ‘seven brains’ that Fisher surrounded himself with when he became First Sea Lord.65 Fisher’s network of supporters and confidants extended beyond the Navy, with politicians like Lord Selborne and Viscount Esher, journalists W.T. Stead, 61 Fisher, Records, 143– 4. 62 [Incomplete Fisher print], 1906, Fisher papers, FISR 5/10/4210. 63 John Fisher to R.B. Haldane, 3 May 1904, Fisher papers, FISR 1/4/123. 64 Paul G. Halpern, ‘Fishpond (act. 1904 –1910)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Bio­ graphy (Oxford, 2012). 65 Paul G. Halpern, ‘Jackson, Sir Henry Bradwardine (1855 –1929)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

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Arnold White, James Thursfield and J.L. Garvin and the historian Julian Corbett. Other important, but neglected, groups within Fisher’s network were engineers and men of science. Thomson was the highest-profile link he had to the British scientific community, but he also developed connections with the Glasgow Professor of Naval Architecture John Harvard Biles and the Cambridge Professor of Applied Mechanics James Alfred Ewing. In 1903, Fisher and Selborne appointed Ewing Director of Naval Education. Ewing had trained in Edinburgh, prior to university appointments in Dundee and Tokyo. Although he possessed no naval experience, he had shown excellent administrative skills at Cambridge, setting up new teaching laboratories, forming the mechanical sciences tripos and overseeing an impressive expansion in student numbers.66 During Ewing’s thirteen years as Director of Naval Education the Admiralty made use of his engineering knowledge by inviting him onto the explosives committee between 1903 and 1906 and the ordnance board between 1906 and 1908. During the 1941–18 war the Admiralty found another use for Ewing’s skills, placing him in charge of the code-breaking efforts of Room 40.67 Fisher also developed strong links with technical specialists within the Admiralty. Engineer-in-Chief Albert John Durston and DNC Philip Watts became two of his most important associates. Durston was born in 1846 and educated at Portsmouth Dockyard and the RSNA. He quickly rose through the engineering branch of the Navy, becoming a chief engineer in 1877, chief engineer at Portsmouth and Sheerness dockyards in 1881, fleet engineer in 1886 and then engineer-in-chief of the Navy in 1888. During this final appointment he worked closely with the DNC and oversaw the introduction of watertube boilers (a Fisher project while superintendent at Portsmouth) and turbine engines. He was also an active member of the INA and the Institution of Civil Engineers.68 Fisher also nurtured links with engineers in private industry, particularly within the naval division of Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., for whom Fisher had considered working as a manager in its Elswick warship yard. An excellent illustration of the role of Fisher’s network, as well as a counter example to the claim that he was easily captivated by technological fads, is the

66 ‘The new Director of Naval Education’, The Times 37049 (8 April 1903), 8. 67 E.I. Carlyle, ‘Ewing, Sir ( James) Alfred (1855 –1935)’, rev. W.H. Brock, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 68 ‘Obituary’, The Times 41457 (20 April 1917), 3; ‘From the London Gazette’, The Times 31724 (3 April 1886), 13; ‘Naval and military intelligence’, The Times 32542 (13 November 1888), 8; ‘Accident on H.M.S. Barraouta’, The Times 32983 (11 April 1890), 3; ‘Birthday honours’, The Times 34586 (25 May 1895), 14.



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conception and subsequent development of a fast, powerfully armed battleship, the Dreadnought. Not only was the ship a product of committee deliberation and investigation, as this chapter will go on to explore, but it was in gestation for over two decades. Fisher depended on his social network for technical ideas, information and credibility. He may have directed those naval officers under him to undertake specific tasks, but he also navigated developments taking place in industry in order to benefit the Navy. The first indication of Fisher’s vision can be dated to January 1883, when he wrote to the then DNC, Nathaniel Barnaby, about an 18-knot warship that he called the Nonsuch. Barnaby saw that such a fast warship would ‘degrade’ the existing, slower warships – an argument that would become all too familiar to Fisher, come 1906. He responded, ‘[i]sn’t the principle right to make each succeeding ironclad an improvement and as perfect as you can. There is no progress in uniformity!! We’ve had enough “Admirals”. Now try your hand on a “Nonsuch (of vast speed!)”.’69 The history of the Dreadnought also serves to reconsider Fisher’s role – less that of a ‘visionary’ than of a manager of an expansive network that took action to re-engineer British naval power. Contemporaries were certainly drawn to the first image of Fisher. Christopher Leyland, a retired naval officer, banker and director of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company wrote: ‘I have always said you were endowed with powers enabling you to foresee the requirements of the future.’70 The Daily Chronicle similarly credited Fisher with having ‘single-handed and silently, impregnated the Navy with the scientific spirit’.71 Rather than adding to the image of a prophet and revolutionary transforming the Navy, Fisher and his associates turned a vision for naval power into a plan to be executed. It is fitting to focus on actions rather than ideas, as it was as a man of action that Fisher preferred to portray himself. Writing to the naval reformer and journalist Lionel Yexley in 1910, he stressed: ‘I pushed my colleagues over the precipice with Osborne [a Royal Naval College], the water tube boiler, the turbine and the Dreadnought and scrapping and nucleus crews! It wants one more shove for free entry and internal combustion engines!’72 In the same way that Fisher’s actions as a reformer were but part of a larger network, the Dreadnought was part of a larger scheme of reform. The ship may 69 The original letter was referenced in 1910. On rereading his original note Fisher added the double underlining, second exclamation mark and ‘(of vast speed!)’. Nathaniel Barnaby to John Fisher, 15 January 1910, Fisher papers, FISR 3/3/2025. 70 Christopher Leyland to John Fisher, 22 January 1910, Fisher papers, FISR 3/3/2030. 71 ‘A strong man at the Admiralty’, in Fisher papers, FISR 11. 72 John Fisher to Lionel Yexley, 3 August 1910, Fisher papers, FISR 3/4/2075.

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have been the matériel embodiment of a re-engineered naval force, a complex mechanical system, conceived in consultation with engineers and making use of the newest form of propulsion, but it was deeply connected to the reforms that Fisher inaugurated in education. Through the early years of the twentieth century he worked to introduce a new scheme of training that would provide a greater engineering education for officers and level the social ranks (upwards) of those who took commissions in the Navy – engineers traditionally being pulled from the labouring classes in industrial cities.73 Critics claimed that Fisher’s scheme would reduce the number of candidates for the engineering branch, given the unpopularity of the engine room with officers from wealthy families. Fisher did not seem to object. Reflecting on the decision to introduce the steam turbine into the Dreadnought in 1906, Fisher made explicit the connection between educational reform and technological change. Writing to his journalist ally Arnold White, he explained: Here’s a gem and a conundrum for you! Since Oct 21 1904 . . . no vessel has been laid down in the British Navy without a turbine instead of reciprocating engines and all this while foreign Admiralties are still having commissions of enquiry about the turbine sent over to England (the Dreadnought is going to give them an object lesson on Jan 5. She’s about to steam 9000 miles before returning to England at the end of March!) Well, here is the gem! The turbine is admitted to be so simple in its working that the present engineering acquirements will be 50 per cent in excess of requirements so that disposes of the life long experience that pestilent asses like [Carlyon] Bellairs states required by our engineer officers! There is the conundrum! Add up all the hundreds & hundreds of engineer officers in the Navy list and ask Bellairs & co what would they have with the redundancy of these officers in the near future when some 50 per cent less engineer officers will be required than now only owing to the introduction of the turbine & when already the engines of vessels at sea are being directly controlled by handles on the bridge like a motor car. The fact is we are coming to chauffeurs! & any d____d fool will be good enough almost for the engine room!74

Fisher’s vision for technology in the Navy was not for officers to become masters of an ever-increasingly complicated panoply of technological systems, but to be informed technological users, relying ever more on the credibility and, vitally, simplicity that naval architects and engineers could build into their 73 Mary A. Conley, From Jack Tar to Union Jack: representing naval manhood in the British Empire, 1870 –1918 (Manchester, 2009), 44 –7, 130 –1. 74 John Fisher to Arnold White, 1 January 1906, Fisher papers, FISR 15/2/1.



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work. Writing to Selborne in May 1902 he expressed his ‘hope [that] my friends the Controller and Watts will do all in their power in the new ships to introduce labour-saving appliances, absolutely regardless of cost, space or weight’.75 Engineering the Navy An 1895 article suggested that the engineering branch of the Navy had grown to around one-third of all personnel afloat, but a substantial gulf remained in their status within the Navy.76 Jon Sumida notes that while the pay of executive officers in the Royal Navy was ‘roughly comparable to that of the navies of France, Germany, and the United States, salaries and allowances for engineer officers appear to have been substantially lower’.77 On HMS Devastation there had been thirty-one officers, fifteen of whom were on the engineering staff, including the chief engineer. The chief engineer was twelfth in command. ‘Not only are a couple of Commanders (besides the Captain) before him’, Edward James Reed wrote, ‘but half-a-dozen lieutenants, a staff-surgeon, and a paymaster all have precedence given to them. In a word, of all heads of departments in the ship he is placed the lowest.’ In the 1870s Reed proclaimed that ‘it is for the country’s interest that the class of Naval engineers should be raised to a level corresponding to the greatness of their present trust and to the weight of their enlarged responsibilities’.78 A quarter of a century on, the responsibility and authority of naval engineers remained a controversial subject. Naval commentators readily acknowledged that warships were complex machines. In 1903 ‘Excubitor’, writing in the Fortnightly Review, made the assessment that ‘since a man-of-war is a great complex mass of machinery, and will become a veritable shambles in action . . . the more a seaman knows the better for himself, his comrades, and his country’. Whereas HMS Victory had gone to sea with a crew of 900, ‘because the ship depended for propulsion and for its fighting efficiency on manual labour’, shipboard operations were now ‘done by machine and what the modern manof-war’s man has to do is to control the machine and direct its energy’. The article concluded by describing how ‘a new Navy has been created, a highly 75 John Fisher to Lord Selborne, 19 May 1902, in Fear God, ed. Marder, I:241. 76 R.C. Oldknow, ‘Engineering in the navy’, The New Review 13 (1895), 304 –15. 77 Jon Tetsuro Sumida, ‘British naval administration and policy in the age of Fisher’, Journal of Military History 54 (1990), 11–26, esp. 9. 78 ‘[Letter from Edward J. Reed to the editor] Naval administration’ The Times 28843 (19 January 1877), 6.

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developed fighting machine, crammed with mechanical devices. . . . In no factory, workshop, or even laboratory ashore are marshalled as many steam, electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic appliances as are to be found in a modern battleship or cruiser.’79 Naval education had instilled a definite distinction between what executive and engineering officers did. Candidates for the executive branch went to HMS Britannia (a shore training facility) and engineering cadets attended the Engin­eering College at Keyham. The two groups received distinct and separate training, while the continuing complexity of ship operations made the possibility of trained officers taking over each other’s duties in a battle more remote. Only at the opening of the twentieth century did the Admiralty discontinue the practice of sending cadets to sea on sailing ships to finish their training. A picturesque practice, loaded with nostalgia, this no longer prepared cadets for what to expect when they began their first assignments.80 In some sections of the Navy, engineering training had less utility than in others. Charles Beresford was the closest thing Fisher had to a rival, and although he was never a threat to Fisher’s position on the Board of Admiralty, he competed with him for the heart of the Navy. Beresford’s style of command and vision for the Navy greatly differed from Fisher’s. Lionel Dawson, who served Beresford as a lieutenant on board his Mediterranean flagship wrote: Never have I known such a ‘flagshippy’ flagship . . . Everything centred round the person of the Admiral . . . Our occupation – whilst I served in her – was principally a processional career round the ports of the British Isles, varied by a few stately and hackneyed steam tactics . . . I do not recollect that any very serious problems of war were either attempted or solved.81

There could not be a greater contrast to the energy with which Fisher and his disciples addressed practical problems to improve the fighting ‘efficiency’ of the fleet. Beresford was increasingly accused of having a greater interest in ‘ “Bright-work,” “spit and polish” and lazy traditionalism’ than in battle practice and gunnery training.82 The pseudonymous ‘Excubitor’ similarly criticised the extensive ‘housemaid’s’ work that took place on board naval ships, polishing, cleaning and painting. The author urged that the same energy ‘could be and 79 Excubitor, ‘Admiral-engineer and bluejacket-mechanic’, Fortnightly Review 73 (February 1903), 303–17, esp. 304, 313. 80 Ibid., 310. 81 Lionel Dawson, Gone for a sailor, being fixes of memory (London, 1936), 132–3. 82 Bernard Acworth, The navies of today and tomorrow. A study of the naval crisis from within (London, 1930), 4.



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should be otherwise directed – to gunnery and torpedo work, and even to informal lectures by the officers’.83 Fisher began work on a new scheme for naval education in June 1901 while he was still in command of the Mediterranean fleet. On arrival at the Admiralty as Second Sea Lord in 1902 he began outlining ideas in various private prints. In July he revealed parts of the emerging scheme to Thursfield.84 In August he reported to Selborne that he had ‘ten of the best fellows in the Service working with me at the details’, although not the current Director of Studies William Niven, who ‘seemed “flabbergasted” ’ by the scheme, but Fisher was confident ‘he is converted!’85 The Admiralty agreed on the scheme in November and on Christmas day 1902, Selborne’s memorandum on the scheme reached publication. The key components of the scheme concerned moving cadets from training ships to colleges on land at Osborne and Dartmouth, lowering the age of entry from 14 –15½ years to 12½–13, and replacing the separate entry and training received by executives, engineers and marines with a system of common entry and training till their twenty-second year. This last point was the ‘crux’ of the reform, and has dominated historical assessments of Fisher’s aims.86 Mary Conley claims that the scheme was designed to ‘modernise . . . the education and training of naval officers’. Evan Davies instead suggests that Fisher ‘was concerned with producing good watch-keeping officers with the self-confidence and capacity for decision [making] in [an] emergency’.87 Geoffrey Penn argues that the scheme was designed to achieve the amalgamation of engineers with executive officers: ‘The engineer, as such, was to cease to exist, and his duties were to be absorbed.’88 Fisher’s biographer Ruddock Mackay suggests quite the opposite, writing that ‘[i]t was Fisher’s adherence to the principle of engineers commanding ships that proved the most contentious element in the educational reforms’.89 83 Excubitor, ‘Admiral-engineer and bluejacket-mechanic’, Fortnightly Review 73 (February 1903), 303–17, esp. 312. 84 John Fisher to James Thursfield, in Fear God, ed. Marder, I:254 –5. 85 John Fisher to Lord Selborne, [late August 1902], in Fear God, ed. Marder, I:264 –5. 86 Fear God, ed. Marder, I:245. 87 Conley, Jack Tar, 44; Evan Davies, ‘The Selborne scheme: the education of the boy’, in Peter Hore (ed.), Peter Blackett: sailor, scientist and socialist (London, 2003), 15 –36, esp. 18. 88 Geoffrey Penn, Up funnel, down screw: the story of the naval engineer (London, 1955), 139. 89 Ruddock F. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone (Oxford, 1973), 275.

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Fisher’s correspondence and writings on the scheme suggest that his aim was to improve technical knowledge within the Navy and change attitudes to engineering. He wrote that the ‘[o]fficers of the future will all be practically Engineer Officers as quite 50 per cent. of their education will be exclusively devoted to engineering’, but this did not mean they would serve as engineers in the traditional sense.90 The scheme proposed changes to engineers’ titles, bringing them into line with traditional ranks. Ship engineers became engineer lieutenants, fleet engineers became engineer commanders, chief inspectors of machinery became engineering rear-admirals, and the engineer-in-chief, Durston, became engineer vice-admiral. Fisher hoped that these reforms would shape a Navy in which ‘there will not be the same tendency as at present exists to look down on the Engineering branch’.91 The scheme provided engineering knowledge not with the aim that all officers would become mechanics, but to enable them to take command of an engineering room and a complex war machine: ‘in the future . . . the Engineer Officer will be more a supervisor of the Engine room Department (and not a worker as at present)’.92 This linked the scheme to Fisher’s interest in the turbine and its technological simplicity. In Fisher’s Navy all officers had the engineering knowledge to manage well-designed machinery. Selborne’s memorandum presented the scheme in a similar context: In the old days it sufficed if a naval officer was a seaman. Now, he must be a seaman, a gunner, a soldier, an engineer, and a man of science as well. It is not only that machinery driven by electric hydraulic or steam power is every year becoming more complicated in character and multiplying in form, and that therefore a more extensive education in applied science is necessary for specialized officers, but in various ways the need for a more general scientific training has become apparent.93

The document placed the ‘necessity’ for the scheme into the context of the ‘revolution in the materiel of the Navy’, the increased threat from powerful foreign navies and ‘the most important question of all . . . the education and training of the Officers and Men of the Navy’.94 90 ‘Replies to some supposed disadvantages of the new scheme of training for officers of the Navy’, Fisher papers, FISR 8:4717:3. 91 Ibid., 1–2. 92 Ibid., 3. 93 Memorandum dealing with the entry, training and employment of officers and men of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, 1902 (CD1385), 3. 94 Ibid., 2–3.



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Fisher appreciated that the scheme was controversial, particularly the introduction of common entry, and leant on his network of journalists to provide a united front in its support. Writing to Arnold White a little before the announcement, he explained his concern that the ‘Naval Rip Van Winkles  . . . [may] vilify me and identify it as my work alone, so as to discredit it! It would be disastrous to the prestige of the scheme if it were in any way otherwise than what it is, which is the unanimous decision of the whole Board of Admiralty, and therefore I send this line of caution.’95 Fisher’s allies in the matériel school saw plenty to like, but to make sure the scheme was well received he cultivated high-profile supporters in the historian Julian Corbett and the Prince of Wales. Corbett, writing in the Monthly Review, provided an argument that sought to naturalise Fisher’s training reforms within the altered matériel basis of naval power. He portrayed the Navy as fundamentally altered by technological change. Analysing the Selborne memorandum through that frame, he praised it for having ‘recognised that the war-vessel of to-day is no longer a ship but a machine’. A core part of Corbett’s case rested on how engineering had replaced seamanship both in terms of motive power and also in terms of the knowledge and skills required for command. ‘[M]asts and sails are gone, and with them all they meant in forming the character of the old seaman,’ he argued. ‘All this has gone, and it must be replaced.’ Corbett did not present this move from seamanship to engineering as a radical break, but as a natural transition. He rhetorically asked his readers, ‘what man so much resembles a sailor in his essential attributes as an engineer?’96 The Prince of Wales (later George V) expressed his support for the principle behind the scheme: as he saw it, efficiency. ‘I call it a grand scheme & wish it every success,’ he wrote to Fisher. ‘No doubt it will be seriously criticised, especially by the old ones, who are too conservative for our modern days. But in spite of them, I am quite sure that it will greatly improve the efficiency of the service.’97 The prince’s support did waiver the more he heard of the move from sea experience to physics and mechanical principles. Some quarters of the press had characterised the educational reforms as emphasising theoret­ ical subjects. The Fortnightly Review had charged that ‘the sooner the young officers get to sea, and the longer they stay there, the sooner their characters will develop, and in the Navy character is of more importance than much “X 95 John Fisher to Arnold White, in Fear God, ed. Marder, I:267. 96 Julian Corbett, ‘Lord Selborne’s memorandum’, Monthly Review 10 (1903), 28 – 41, esp. 30, 33. 97 Prince of Wales to John Fisher, 18 November 1902, Fisher papers, FISR 1/3 103.

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chasing” [scholarly endeavours]’.98 This evidently worried the prince, who latched onto Ewing’s work as Director of Naval Education: ‘Perhaps Professor Ewing (although he is your own man!) thinks that a little more X & Y is required before the boys go to sea.’99 The charge of too much theory was just part of the widespread opposition that Selborne and Fisher faced. There was a strong perception in the Navy and the press that the scheme was intended to turn every officer into an engineer. The Fortnightly Review feared the end for important specialisations, leading to a situation where ‘every officer of the Fleet, be his duties executive or engineering, or be he a Royal Marine, will be an engineer’.100 This interpretation of the scheme was evidently more alarming than the idea that every engineer would now receive some of the training of a royal marine. In Brassey’s Naval Annual of 1903, Admiral Richard Vesey Hamilton claimed that the scheme ‘will be most disastrous to the Navy, and consequently to the country’. He believed that it was ‘an age of specialists, in the Navy as in other professions’, and that rather than producing specialists, the new scheme cast ‘all officers in one mould’.101 Such a programme, he contended, went in the opposite direction from civilian society. Hamilton also rejected the premise within the scheme that naval officers had only ever been sailors. He contended that naval officers had a remarkable capacity to take on various types of work, employing a historical-school argument and illustrating his case with examples from shore battles to administrative work at the Admiralty. Rather than submitting to the supposed pressures of matériel change, he made the case that naval officers could, as they had before, adapt to future challenges. He argued that there was no need to prepare engineering officers for executive roles or alter their authority within the chain of command. He noted that the word ‘executive’ had been in use long before the marine engine, and therefore did not imply any superiority ‘beyond its being meant to distinguish those officers who, in the event of the captain being disabled . . . are authorised to assume the command of the ship’. That engineers were non-executive officers was not a sign of ‘inferiority’, but recognition that they did not require command skills.102  98 Excubitor, ‘Admiral-engineer and bluejacket-mechanic’, Fortnightly Review 73 (February 1903), 308.  99 Prince of Wales, to John Fisher, 8 April 1904, Fisher papers, FISR 1/4 122. 100 Excubitor, ‘Admiral-engineer and bluejacket-mechanic’, Fortnightly Review 73 (February 1903), 303. 101 R. Vesey Hamilton, ‘The new Admiralty education scheme’, Brassey’s naval annual (1903), 208 –30, esp. 210, 211. 102 Ibid., 216 –17.



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The capacity of naval officers to meet challenges was deeply connected to the type of education they received. On this point Hamilton made the case for less scientific study and more practical preparation. He argued that ‘[t]here is no necessity for an engine driver to be scientific, but there is for him to be practical’, as there was for all naval officers.103 On this point he joined the many commentators, including Thursfield, who charged that cadets should spend more time at sea, where the sailor’s intuitive senses and skills could be honed: ‘Desk studies and book learning, and all the profound scientific lore of Greenwich, the Excellent and Vernon are all very well in their own way. . . . But in such exploits as the opening of the Zambesi they count for next to nothing.’104 Naval commentators were also concerned by the class dimension of the new scheme. An article in the Fortnightly Review suggested that the wardrooms of Britain’s battleships contained a distinct division: the former shipwright apprentice, the son of the small tradesman, and the mechanically inclined offspring of families with no sea associations and small means have become the colleagues of officers of the executive line – nominated for the Britannia by the First Lord of the Admiralty, or an officer of high rank – the scions of titled houses, descendants of old country families, children of the parsonage [a reference to Horatio Nelson’s parentage], or sons of the professional man.105

The author suggested that while the latter group gained entry to the officer class through family ties, the former relied on their ‘ability and good character  . . . the only passports to the sword and cocked hat of the engineer officer’. Fisher acknowledged that there was a division. Writing to Arnold White in 1901 about the social status of engineers, he remembered the problems that the Admiralty had faced integrating ‘the old navigating class in the Navy’. ‘They [navigators and officers] were extracted from a different social stratum and couldn’t mix any more than oil and vinegar, and were kept in separate bottles.’ The Admiralty’s approach then had been to enter navigators as midshipmen in the Naval College, forcing the two groups to mix. Fisher believed the same principle could be used with engineers: ‘put ’em all in the same bottle!’106 Fisher’s position was far from convincing to naval commentators and officers. The pseudonymous ‘Excubitor’ believed the scheme would make social 103 Ibid., 218. 104 This is likely a reference to David Livingstone, Ibid., 222. 105 Excubitor, ‘Admiral-engineer and bluejacket-mechanic’, Fortnightly Review 73 (February 1903), 303. 106 John Fisher to Arnold White, in Fear God, ed. Marder, I:211–13.

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advance­ment through the Navy harder. The author did not believe the new scheme would level ranks, but rather that it would close entry to the officer corps to all but the few families with the estimated £1,000 to £1,200 required for entry to the scheme: ‘In this respect the scheme is aristocratic in its tendencies’: all the officers of the Fleet will be of the same social status as the executive officers of to-day. Will a sufficient number of these sub-lieutenants be willing to abandon voluntarily the joys of command and the control of ships and squadrons for the engine-room career which can offer no higher rank than rear-admiral (E)? . . . there is no getting away from the fact that the sons of titled houses and of substantial country families have a prejudice against engine-room duties, which are necessarily dirty and lack those ceremonial attractions which are as pearls[.]107

The author’s concern with the scheme was that it was a greater departure from the ideal of meritocracy. A quite different reading was offered from aristocratic naval officers who believed that the sons of their class would have little interest in mechanics. Charles Beresford noted his concerns, having talked to current cadets: ‘The lads looked very incredulous and not at all pleased with the idea. Those that I questioned directly as to whether they intended to volunteer for the engine room department left no doubt as to their dislike of the proposal.’108 Fisher was not swayed by such concerns. His response was that ‘[t]he “decline and fall” of England will not (as stated by these high Naval Officers) be due to the upper classes leaving the Navy, but it will be due to their effeteness in not recognizing what an immense “leveller” is education’.109 The Selborne scheme did away with the Navy’s reliance on the public school system for its officers. The newly built Dartmouth College would receive cadets at age twelve, at least two years earlier than the Britannia had. This did not mean, however, that these schools did not themselves become bastions of public school habits and pursuits.110

107 Excubitor, ‘Admiral-engineer and bluejacket-mechanic’, Fortnightly Review 73 (February 1903), 304, 307. 108 ‘Notes for a speech on the new scheme of training’, 1908, Fisher papers, FISR 5/15: 4254. 109 ‘Replies to some supposed disadvantages of the new scheme of training for officers of the Navy’, Fisher papers, FISR 8:4717:6. 110 Quintin Colville, ‘The role of the interior in constructing notions of class and status: a case study of Dartmouth Naval College, 1930 –1960’, in Penny Sparke & Susie McKellar (eds.), Interior design and identity (Manchester, 2005), 114 –32.



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Engineering Dreadnought In the same letter in which Fisher introduced Selborne to his approach to educational reform he gave his prescription for battleships at the turn of the twentieth century. ‘ “Suddenness” is the characteristic feature of Naval operations’, he wrote, and British ships must not be ‘ “out-classed” . . . that means our Battle-ships must be of considerably larger displacement’. Speed was ‘almost the first desideratum in all types from Battle-ships downwards’, as the Navy that possessed greater speed had the choice to initiate or refuse action. Finally, the Navy required a powerful industrial base on which to build: ‘Whatever type the French have we must go one better, and that is a principle which will always keep us safe, and if we built as quickly as we ought to build we ought always to commence after they are well advanced and have the more powerful vessel afloat beforehand.’111 Fisher’s vision for naval power was ambitious. It required standardisation and conformity across the Navy, as a fleet was only as strong as its weakest link. It required engineering skill and large shipyards in state and private hands, working together at full capacity. Selborne quizzed Fisher on this last point, asking if Britain’s private yards should be called on to design warships. Fisher had mixed feelings on this point, having both close links with Armstrong’s at Elswick and great respect for the Admiralty’s naval architects. He explained that in recent years there was no question of inviting designs from private yards, as ‘the Admiralty occupied such a position of undoubted ascendency in designing talent (White then being at the zenith of his powers) that it was simply a farce to ask them; however, it has to be confessed that private firms have of late (and especially Elswick) turned out fine specimens that the time appears to have arrived to consider the propriety of some such invitation’. Fisher was under no illusion that involving private industry would raise complex questions about authority and responsibility. I fear poor White might take it badly, and I can think of many objections unless there was a distinct absolution given to White and his satellites that they were to be in no way responsible, but you might then have the ‘Captain’ over again. If White has to take the responsibility, then you must have rival designers girding at each other, and you must abide by White as he is your responsible man for stability, and he would revise the design, and the Elswick designer would say his design was spoilt.112

111 John Fisher to Lord Selborne, 19 December 1900, Fisher papers, FISR 1/2 56. 112 John Fisher to Lord Selborne, 5 January 1901, Fisher papers, FISR 1/2 57.

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For now Fisher placed his support behind White, but when he returned to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord and began work on the Dreadnought he sought the advice of private industry and esteemed men of science. In 1902, William H. White left the Admiralty, citing poor health. The anxiety caused by miscalculating the weight and centre of gravity of the royal yacht, almost leading to its capsizing, had not helped his condition.113 Shortly after his retirement, the institutions of Civil Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Naval Architects and the Iron and Steel Institute combined to honour him with a dinner recognising his service to the nation and the engineering profession. Lord George Goschen, First Lord between 1895 and 1900, spoke of White’s relationship with various heads of the Admiralty: No finer exposition could have been made of all the requirements of naval architecture than Sir William White placed at the disposal of those who were called his chiefs, but were in some respects his pupils. . . . If at any time [in his retirement] Sir William White should feel any melancholy retrospect, he had merely to go down to Portsmouth or to Spithead . . . and he would see floating on the waters the triumphs of his genius, and he would be able to say of himself that he had in no small degree contributed to the expansion of the power of his country.114

White’s replacement was Philip Watts, naval designer and general manager at Armstrong’s Elswick yard. He was closely connected to naval shipbuilding. His father had been John Fincham’s assistant, and worked with him to prepare his History of naval architecture (1851). His great grandfather had also been a master shipwright, and played some part in the construction of the Victory. He was also a relation of Isaac Watts, who for a number of years worked under Baldwin Walker, becoming Chief Constructor and designing HMS Warrior.115 Philip Watts gained entrance to the RSNA at South Kensington in 1866, then joined the Chief Constructor’s staff, during which time he worked in Torquay assisting William and Edmund Froude with test tank work. In 1885 he was traded to Armstrong’s in the deal that brought White back to the Admiralty.116 Watts held his predecessor as DNC in high esteem, writing in White’s original Dictionary of National Biography entry that he left ‘behind him a 113 Frederic Manning, The life of Sir William White (London, 1923), 426 – 9. 114 ‘Dinner to Sir William White’, The Times 37039 (27 March 1903), 5. 115 ‘Sir Philip Watts. A great naval architect’, The Times 44221 (16 March 1926), 11. 116 In early 1872 Froude corresponded with the RSNA for a short-term assistant. Watts was allowed leave from his studies to work at Dartington for three months. Others junior constructors followed him. ‘Admiralty letter digests, section 1.a, March/April 1872’, Admiralty papers, ADM12/891.



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brilliant record of work and an example to the corps [of naval constructors] which he did much to inaugurate’.117 The new DNC had a similarly high regard for Fisher. Writing with news of his appointment, he reminded the admiral of a conversation they had had in the early 1880s: I remember quite well when I was in the ‘Inflexible’ your promising to make me DNC when you became Controller, and thought of it more than once when White broke down. I suppose it may come yet, i.e. I may be working with you at the Admiralty, if you should come back in another capacity. I trust it may be so!

Watts shared Fisher’s vision for high-speed warships. At Elswick he led the way in designing fast, powerful cruisers.118 He also expressed to Fisher his support for the marine turbine as early as 1901.119 In 1904, weeks after taking office as First Sea Lord, Fisher authored a docu­ ment on ‘The fighting characteristics of vessels of war’ in which he provided a succinct description of his battleship philosophy, complete with italicised slogans for press use – in the event that the documents were ever leaked. He was adamant that under his reign, ‘Strategy should govern the types of ships to be designed’. This promised a more active approach to directing ship design, experimentation and construction than the Admiralty had previously taken. Where previously many politicians and admirals had been happy to respond to work in foreign and private dockyards, Fisher opted to decide on a course and run full steam ahead.120 As such, the admiral lost no time in directing W.H. Gard, assistant DNC, to design a 12-gun battleship. Fisher’s professional relationship with Gard began in Malta, where he was commander of the Mediterranean Fleet and Gard Chief Constructor. In 1902 he followed Fisher to Portsmouth, and then in 1904 to the Admiralty.121 In December Gard wrote to Captain Charles Madden, another of Fisher’s circle, about the design he was working on: ‘I think she will be liked – she has a lot of good points, and is as big as we can dock: but not too big. Anyhow, a battleship with her guns and at least 21 knots of speed must command respect if 117 Philip Watts, ‘White, Sir William Henry (1845 –1913)’, Dictionary of National Biography (1927). 118 ‘Sir Philip Watts. A great naval architect’, The Times 44221 (16 March 1926), 11. 119 Philip Watts to John Fisher, 17 December 1901, Fisher papers, FISR 1/2 84. 120 John Fisher, ‘The fighting characteristics of vessels of war’, 1904, Fisher papers, FISR 5/11/4218. 121 Andrew Lambert, ‘Gard, William Henry (1854 –1936)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

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not admiration.’122 At the same time Fisher sent his battleship philosophy out for comments within the service, receiving pages of notes in reply. One respondent, Beresford, agreed on many of the key points but offered a pointed reminder that no matter the machinery, the success of a ship ultimately lay with its commander: ‘All events in History great and small depend on a single individual.’123 Fisher doubtless agreed, but seeing the ship as a complex mass of machinery meant that its captain was only as strong as the machine and crew that he commanded. Towards the end of 1905 Fisher formally brought many of the individuals with whom he had been discussing his ideas for battleship design together in a committee on designs. The committee combined naval and civilian members, including Prince Louis of Battenberg (who was replaced by Captain C.L. Ottley when he took over as Director of Naval Intelligence), Engineer Vice-Admiral Sir Albert John Durston, Rear-Admiral Alfred L. Winsloe (commanding torpedo and submarine flotillas), Rear-Admiral Henry B. Jackson (Controller of the Navy), Captain Madden ( Jackson’s naval assistant), Captain John Jellicoe (Director of Naval Ordnance), Captain Reginald Bacon, Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), Philip Watts, Professor Biles, John Thornycroft, Alexander Gracie (Fairfield), R.E. Froude and Gard. The naval officers on the committee were largely members of the ‘Fishpond’ who had gained vital experience working in departments linked to the production of naval technology. There was little precedent for the formation of a committee to design a battleship. The closest such body was the working group that met twice to discuss the design of HMS Royal Sovereign. The present committee on designs far outstripped that body in the detail with which it considered the design of new ships, its collaboration between naval officers and ‘scientific, constructive, and engineering experts both in and outside the Admiralty’ and its power to commission experiments and trials to aid its deliberations. Its members were informed they would form an ‘advisory board of great value . . . in the consideration of new types of vessels containing so many novel features’.124 Fisher formally worked with these actors through the committee, but also informally prior to and during the committee’s sitting. For example, he worked privately

122 W.H. Gard to Charles Madden, 15 December 1904, Fisher papers, FISR 5/11: 4218. 123 Charles Beresford, ‘Ship design. Comments’, 19 December 1904, Fisher papers, FISR 5/11/4218. 124 P.K. Kemp (ed.), The papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, volume 1 (Publications of the Navy Records Society, vol. 102, London, 1960), 200, 216.



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with Kelvin to secure data on engine speed and coal consumption.125 He also consulted with engineers in private industry who were not on the committee. Fisher had long corresponded with Andrew Noble, who succeeded William Armstrong as chairman of Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. in 1900. Now he requested his advice on armaments and commissioned experiments to decide the extent to which the magazine and shell rooms ought to be armoured.126 The committee was set certain fixed design particulars: ‘Speed 21 knots. Armament 12-inch guns and anti-torpedo craft guns. . . . No guns on the main deck, except anti-torpedo craft guns if necessary to place them there. Armour to be adequate. Docking facilities to be carefully observed.’127 Fisher also silenced discussion on other questions, for example, making clear that safety and stability were considered ‘matters now made clear by scientific research, and require no further investigation’. Beyond that, he instructed the naval officers to use their ‘experience’ to ‘propose the tactical and fighting requirements’ for the ships, and the civilian members to state ‘the limits within which these requirements are capable of fulfilment’.128 The implication of this statement appeared to be that Watts would be the final arbiter of whether the design was safe. The committee quickly decided on the inclusion of 12-inch guns and highspeed engines. Watts’s first designs were given the labels E and F, and featured 12 and 10 guns respectively. Neither design met with the committee’s approval, on the grounds that the space between turrets was too close for the safe operation of turrets at the fore and aft of the ship once firing would commence. The close grouping of turrets in the mid ship was also deemed to afford the enemy ‘an excellent “bulls-eye” at which to aim’. An alternative design was requested (G), with the expectation that the DNC would have ‘sketch outlines . . . ready for consideration at noon the following day’. In the subsequent meeting the committee examined a diagram showing the blast curves of various gun sizes, demonstrating that the problems in designs E and F still existed in design G. The decision was made to reposition a number of the fore and stern guns in a new design (D), which met with the committee’s approval, as well as that of Sir Arthur Wilson and Beresford, who were in the Admiralty building when the committee met.129 125 Kelvin (William Thomson) to John Fisher, 3 January 1905, Fisher papers, FISR 1/4/141. 126 John Fisher, ‘The fighting characteristics of vessels of war’, 1904, Fisher papers, FISR 5/11/4218; Kemp (ed.), Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, 250 –1. 127 Kemp (ed.), Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, 201. 128 Ibid., 215 –16. 129 Ibid., 217–19, 223, 224, 225.

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With the question of turret placement settled, the committee requested Watts to complete the details for design D and prepare a model ‘with moveable turrets, conning towers, &c., in order that they might be able to appraise the extent of the interference by blast in the several dispositions of the guns corresponding to various possible arrangements of machinery, boilers, &c’. After judging two variations of design D in model form, the committee requested a further design (H) that replaced two after broadside turrets with one middle-line turret. Watts maintained his preference for design D, given that it disrupted the division of the design’s deck space (i.e. for stowing boats) less than design H. The naval members unanimously rejected the preference, stating their refusal to ‘sacrifice efficient gunfire to matters of less importance’.130 Captain Jellicoe then presented the findings of a series of blast experiments he had conducted with seven ships, from which he concluded that there must be 63 feet between the muzzle of any gun, port or sighting hood. Bacon and Biles also provided remarks on the problem.131 The committee estimated that for the 12-inch guns they planned to use this figure should be increased to 80 feet. The DNC was then directed to ‘embody this conclusion in the two designs’.132 On January 13, ten days into the committee’s design deliberations, attention turned to the subject of propulsion. Watts and Durston strongly urged the adoption of the turbine, emphasising the engine’s ‘simplicity’ and ‘saving of weight of about 1,000 tons [that] would be effected’. The naval members were less convinced, and requested ‘fuller information as to the suitability of turbines for manoeuvring purposes’. Specifically, they doubted whether the comparatively small propellers that had to be used with a turbine system could bring a ship to rest as quickly as the larger propellers that were used in tandem with reciprocating engines. The committee agreed to postpone a decision until a comparative trial had been made between the turbine-powered HMS Eden and a sister ship fitted with reciprocating engines.133 In the initial trial the Eden took 12½ seconds longer to answer the order for full stop than her sister ship HMS Waveney. Watts believed that the ‘sluggishness’ of the Eden was largely due to her tandem screws on each propeller shaft, a largely unsuccessful experimental feature that was not ordered for subsequent ships. The Eden was ordered to receive a refit before being tried a second time against the Waveney. Charles Parsons, who had been invited to 130 131 132 133

Ibid., 227, 229, 231. Ibid., 254 – 8. Ibid., 233. Ibid., 233– 4.



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comment on the trial, pointed out that only one stage of steam expansion was used for the Eden’s astern turbines, and that a second turbine could be added in series to obtain 75% of ahead power for the astern system with ‘a comparatively small increase in weight’. The changes to the Eden improved her performance, but she still took longer to answer full stop than her sister ship.134 This was problematic, given that the gap would only increase between ships of greater displacement. Some committee members believed that a beneficial solution might be found in altering the size of the propeller, and so the committee ordered R.E. Froude to undertake propeller experiments in the Haslar test tank. The committee sourced information about the marine turbine from many directions. It garnered information from commercial companies using turbines, requesting from the South Eastern and Chatham Railway a testimony on how effectively turbine-powered ships were brought up against piers at Dover and Calais. The committee also invited Parsons to personally provide the committee with the benefit of his ‘experience on the matter’.135 It then commissioned comparative trials between the Amethyst and her sister ship, in which the latter was found to possess greater turning power. Ultimately the committee was convinced that the turbine ‘should be one of the features of the new designs of battleships’, and so decided to fit turbines to each shaft, arranging high- and low-pressure pairs in series and utilising ‘more horse-power than usual’ to ensure no loss of astern power.136 The reports of the committee show that engine machinery and guns were the priority subjects to be resolved, before moving on to boat stowage, conning towers, allocation of accommodation and other matters. Once those other elements of the design had been addressed, the committee invited Parsons to return and discuss the turbine question in light of the final design. The report reveals the committee’s caution: ‘Mr. Parsons understood that the Committee desired to be absolutely free from incurring any risk of making a “plunge” in adopting turbine machinery.’ The turbine’s stopping power may not have been as powerful as the reciprocating engine in relative terms, but ‘the advantages to be gained in many directions . . . not the least of which was the probable reduction in the Engine Room complement required’, made the decision acceptable.137

134 135 136 137

Ibid., 235 – 6, 238 – 9. Ibid., 233– 4, 242, 267. Ibid., 206, 236, 238 – 9. Ibid., 248 – 9.

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Under Fisher, naval architects, engineers and naval officers interested in scientific and engineering problems gained a powerful patron and enjoyed a greater role in the shaping of the Royal Navy. Of all the historical contingencies vital to the conception and design of the Dreadnought, the most important was the heightened awareness of engineering and the culture of technological momentum that Fisher and his associates championed. Naval historians have frequently read Fisher’s encouragement of science and engineering as a ‘progressive spirit’ and a prophetic ability to see the future of naval warfare. It was not. It was a matter of ambition and the gradual re-engineering of naval power by a network of naval officers, naval architects, engineers (within and beyond the Admiralty), politicians and naval commentators. The introduction of the Selborne scheme and the design of the Dreadnought reveal the ways in which engineering knowledge and skills were increasingly entangled with the production of both matériel and personnel in the Navy.

Conclusion

In an evil hour there came a man of science with ideas about steam, and then another with a notion of an iron plate, and between them they made wild work of the old navy. Late nineteenth-century authors grew increasingly fascinated by how the introduction of steam and iron transformed the Navy, some casting the ‘man of science’ in the ‘despicable’ role of bringing an end to the wooden walls.1 Modern science has, however, so changed the art of sea warfare that mere animal courage is only one of the many elements required to make a great naval commander-in-chief. In the days of sailing men-of-war good seamanship consisted in performing certain complicated manoeuvres by the action of the wind on the sails; and if it failed, or the rigging was shot away, it then became a question of chance, or bull-dog courage. Other authors focused on what the matériel transformation of the Navy meant for naval officers.2

The Navy is one of the most historically significant, and yet singularly neglected, institutions in the history of technology and war.3 Meanwhile, naval architects have long been under-examined actors in the histories of nineteenth-century naval power. By putting them back in the picture, this study has made contributions to the history of technology and war and naval power. This book has responded to previous studies that separate ships from the personal and

1 David Hannay, ‘The ship before steam’, Magazine of Art 7 ( January 1884), 404 –11, esp. 411. 2 An Old Sailor, ‘Notes on the Navy’, Fraser’s Magazine 12 (November 1875), 674 – 86, esp. 674. 3 David Mindell makes this point in his skilful study of technology and war in the American Civil War navy, see David A. Mindell, War, technology, and experience aboard the USS Monitor (Baltimore, MD, 2000), 7–12.

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institutional authority of their makers.4 It has brought to light the activities, backgrounds, concerns and skills of a group of actors who literally shaped the Royal Navy; and rather than taking them for granted, it has examined their authority to act by resurrecting controversies and has recovered the politics of ship design. Through this contextual approach it has shed new light on the history of naval architecture. It has followed naval architects through the fields of naval, institutional and national politics, reconstructing the interactions between supposed ‘specialists’ and ‘non-specialists’ in ship design. This analysis is vital to mapping how the authority of naval architects changed over the nineteenth century. Mapping authority The changing role of naval architects may be understood as illustrative of a major theme in nineteenth-century British history: the changing nature of authority during the era of aristocratic decline and rise of technical education.5 Historians of ‘expertise’ have argued that the spread of scientific knowledge and expertise was intrinsically linked to mid nineteenth-century social and governmental reforms.6 Historians of modernity, however, have rejected such monolithic interpretations, leaving the nature of ‘scientific expertise’ uncertain.7 Ultimately, the spread of scientific knowledge cannot be fully explained by references to science, government or culture alone. The alternative expounded in this book is to map the changing nature and boundaries of authority through 4 Prominent examples of which include John Beeler, Birth of the battleship: British capital ship design 1870 –1881 (Chatham, 2001); David K. Brown, Before the ironclad: the development of ship design, propulsion and armament in the Royal Navy, 1815 –1860 (London, 1990); David K. Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought: warship development, 1860 –1905 (Chatham, 1997). 5 Theodore Porter, ‘Statistical utopianism in an era of aristocratic efficiency’, Osiris 17 (2002), 210 –27; David Cannadine, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy (London 1990); Roy MacLeod (ed.), Government and expertise: specialists, administrators and professionals, 1860 –1919 (Cambridge, 1988). 6 Roy MacLeod, ‘Introduction’, in MacLeod (ed.), Government and expertise: specialists, administrators and professionals, 1860 –1919 (Cambridge, 1988), 1–26, esp. 11; R. Angus Buchanan, ‘Engineers and government in nineteenth-century Britain’, in Roy MacLeod (ed.), Government and expertise: specialists, administrators and professionals, 1860 –1919 (Cambridge, 1988), 41–58. 7 Martin Daunton & Bernhard Rieger, ‘Introduction’, in Daunton & Rieger (eds.), Meanings of modernity: Britain from the late-Victorian era to World War II (Oxford, 2001), 1–21, esp. 4.

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fine-grained historicism. This involves looking beyond the traditional subjects and sites of the history of science to explore how knowledge travelled to the Board of Admiralty, Houses of Parliament and the press.8 Only with such a map in place can the complexities of authority be understood, from personal credibility and professional status to consensus within a community of specialist actors and the politics of institutions. Chapters in this book have shown how a naval officer triumphed over ‘scientifically’ trained shipwrights for control over ship design, how politicians judged the work of shipwrights in overtly empirical ways and mathematicians and experimenters struggled to establish the credibility of their work with naval architects – not to mention naval officers. By mapping authority we can conclude that authority was increasingly withdrawn from naval officers and politicians, who once had been empowered by their experience and social status. In the 1830s and 1840s the low social standing of shipwrights had been an obstacle, in the eyes of politicians, to their ambition to manage themselves in the dockyard. Come the 1880s, this was no longer the case. The argument that had also been made in the 1830s, that those who experienced the ship at sea were best placed to manage its design and construction, no longer held sway with the political heads of the Admiralty. The change was rooted in the events of this period, in which networks of actors and their responses to episodes like the loss of HMSs Captain and Megaera shaped the value that contemporaries assigned to engineering knowledge and skill – in effect, remapping their authority. To understand this process we must focus on the spaces, structures and social processes through which various meanings of the ‘scientific’ were mapped by actors simultaneously concerned with developing their own authority. The analysis of William Froude and the test tank, for example, emphasised two important ways in which mapping authority provides a more holistic approach to understanding the nineteenth-century shift in authority towards technical specialists. First, to secure Admiralty funds and persuade members of the INA that his practices were sound, Froude nurtured his personal credibility and that of model experiments. Second, in order to secure authority (more narrowly understood as rooted in and delegated by sovereign institutions), members of the Board of Admiralty who ultimately decided on Froude’s future relationship with the Admiralty had to grant it. Authority resided within institutions, and its conferral was highly political. In this instance the Board of Admiralty was desperate to reassert its credibility with the public and restore 8 James Secord has explored the virtues of such an approach for the history of science as a discipline. See James A. Secord, ‘Knowledge in transit’, Isis 95 (2004), 654 –72.

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faith in a Navy rocked by rumours about the safety of HMS Devastation. Froude’s authority was thereby contingent of the concerns of those who controlled the Admiralty. The nature of Froude’s authority was representative of the larger account of naval architecture, authority and the ship presented in this study. Engineers required the patronage of the governing body of the Navy just as much as they needed to organise themselves as a social and technical community. During the middle of the nineteenth century, members of the INA successfully established a school of naval architecture, quietly developed the boundaries of their authority, formed new rules through which ships were designed and languages by which their qualities were described and judged, created powerful sites of experiment in which knowledge was held and, where possible, demonstrated their skills to naval officers and administrators. Through various episodes actors slowly redrew the map of authority upon which science became analogous with efficiency, safety and power. Meanwhile, in public, well-known members of the INA, John Scott Russell, Edward James Reed, Nathaniel Barnaby and William H. White, developed their personal reputations and, in consequence, a public familiarity with the skills that the naval architect embodied. The spread of engineering authority in Britain had important social and cultural connotations for the administration of government and the power of those individuals who in the past had been identified as ‘mere mechanics’.9 How did actors understand and negotiate these connections between science, engineering, government and the moral authority of power?10 This question remains one of the most important facing historians of science, technology and nineteenth-century Britain interested in the formation of institutionalised science and the modern state. It is a question that emerges from this study, but deserves a much fuller investigation. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile at this point to reflect on how the actors who remade the matériel of the British Navy thought about their newfound position of power as the architects of the mechanical systems on which naval power increasingly relied. At the inception of the INA, John Scott Russell, never afraid to tell sailors what they should think, expressed his conviction that ‘[t]he sailor is even more deeply concerned, if possible, than the shipbuilder [in the theory and practice   9 For a broader cultural and social reading of how engineers became embroiled in political, economic and scientific discourses see Christine MacLeod, Heroes of invention: technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750 –1914 (Cambridge, 2007), 1–26. 10 Boyd Hilton, ‘Moral disciplines’, in Peter Mandler (ed.), Liberty and authority in Victorian Britain (Oxford, 2006), 224 – 45; S.J.D. Green & R.C. Whiting, ‘Introduction: the shifting boundaries of the state in modern Britain’, in Green & Whiting, The boundaries of the state in modern Britain (Cambridge, 1996), 1–14.

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of ship design and behaviour]. The admiral even more than the architect.’11 His call for naval officers to embrace the work of naval architects was, for the time, ignored. Again in 1864, the mathematician and teacher Joseph Woolley addressed the INA with a vision of how the mechanisation of the navy would alter the role of the sailor and his profession. ‘[T]he extensive and growing adaptation of mechanical contrivances to the construction and the working of ships will, for the future,’ he wrote, ‘give less scope in naval warfare for superiority to be gained by nautical skill and indomitable courage working through inferior instruments.’12 In 1864 that position was held by a minority in the naval community, but that group grew in number. As engineering specialists gained greater personal credibility and institutional authority, their role in the design of warships and naval power changed. As the warship moved deeper into the domain of naval architects, they and their allies in connected disciplines worked to restrict the authority of older experiential frameworks of understanding and control over ship design. Naval officers were not powerless in this shift in the socio-cultural basis of ship design. They may have been unable to judge the calculations of naval architects as peers, or contribute to the increasingly specialised science of naval architecture, but their role in setting and judging design principles cannot be ignored. What is really important, however, is how naval officers sought to fashion their own role in the steam and iron Navy. Naval officers cannot be taken for granted in a study such as this. The positions they took must instead be understood as the results of the efforts of particular groups of naval officers, like those led by John Fisher. Fisher worked to ensure that naval officers possessed the knowledge and skills to manage effectively the work of naval architects on land and engineers at sea. Through education and collaboration Fisher and his circle sought to exert greater control over design work and dockyard construction – albeit in very different ways to mid nineteenth-century naval officers like Cowper Coles and Edmund Fishbourne. If the main focus of this book has been to examine the role of naval architects in the shaping of the Royal Navy, then a secondary concern has been to trace the place of naval officers in the shaping of naval architecture as a discipline and a body of knowledge and skills. Naval historians have too simplistically pointed to Admiral Fisher as the catalyst for a fresh appreciation and approach to technical knowledge in the 11 John Scott Russell, ‘On the professional problem presented to naval architects in the construction of iron cased vessels of war’, Transactions 2 (1861), 17–37, esp. 22–3. 12 Joseph Woolley, ‘On the education of naval architects’, Transactions 5 (1864), 262–71, esp. 268.

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Admiralty. Fisher certainly played an important role, but he was as much a product as he was a builder of newly forged connections between science, engineering and practical naval problems. This book has provided a more nuanced picture of changing mentalities toward engineering questions in the Navy, from the educational work of William H. White with the naval college to the vast network of Fisher’s associates who shared in his vision for the Navy. We should do well to remember that Fisher began his campaign to provide officers with a deeper knowledge of engineering over forty years after the introduction of ironclad warships. Even in 1900 he had to contend with the influence of traditional views of seamanship, and of taming nature not with machinery but with personal skill and courage. This example serves as a reminder that the values and identity that designers and builders gave to ships had a limited range of transmission, beyond which they were again contested by ship users and wider publics. Only with high-profile events, like novel shipbuilding projects, major controversies and personal attacks on character and reputation within the wider naval community, could actors project their ideas about what skills and values should reshape the Navy to a large, receptive audience. Much of this study’s analysis of the second half of the nineteenth century focused on stability and safety, the main design concern of naval architects at the time. From HMS Captain, through HMS Devastation and on to HMS Royal Sovereign, this issue attracted attention in Parliament and the press, and provided actors with an opportunity for redrawing the boundaries of the naval architect’s authority. Making naval power Naval architects had a stake in being able to guarantee the design and construction of a safe and stable vessel, but their role in ship design transcended the calculation of displacement, freeboard and centre of gravity. This book has demonstrated the ways in which naval architects shaped naval thinking about ship design and influenced how ships were employed in active service. Nathaniel Barnaby, in one of the most reflective pieces of writing by a nineteenth-century naval architect, looked back on a career and a century of naval change, placing the reshaping of the British warship within a narrative of political, naval, social and technical ‘development’. He compared the warships being designed when he joined the constructor’s office, like Isaac Watts’s HMS Minotaur – an ‘extra­ vagance’ in design – characterised by their width and height out of the water, to those of the 1860s and 1870s.13 Devastation was visually and materially 13 Nathaniel Barnaby, Naval development in the century (London, 1902), 68.

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different: ‘It was so novel,’ he wrote, and ‘before the ship was tried at sea it was universally distrusted by the navy, and held to be unsafe.’14 But what made the Devastation especially distinct was her appeal as a symbol of mechanical and scientific design. A cultural history of naval architecture also reveals how naval architects shaped the Royal Navy’s cultures of authority, understanding of science and engineering and conceptions of naval warfare. It ultimately reclaims the place of naval architects and engineering in the story of how the Navy exerted power through the Pax Britannica. Barnaby’s Naval development of the century (1902) contained in its pages an ethical analysis of changes in naval shipbuilding over the past century. He asked ‘what was righteous’ in naval development? His answer revealed the personal Christian pacifist perspectives that he only publicly articulated in the press following his retirement from public service. He considered that force could be used to bring peace and righteousness: ‘Lasting good is only evolved in this world through strife and bloodshed.’15 Yet righteousness was not found in victory or the maintaining of order, but in the ways that countries engaged with each other. Barnaby declared himself as ‘not one of those who regard war as contrary to the teachings of the Prince of Peace’. ‘Righteousness must come before clean-hearted Peace,’ he wrote, and that peace could be secured by military might and, in particular, technology: ‘while injustice and unrighteousness exist in the world, the sword, the breechloader and the torpedo boat become part of the world’s evolutionary machinery, consecrated like any other part of it’.16 Barnaby proceeded to reference British military and diplomatic actions in Armenia and South Africa which, he believed, irrevocably changed the perception in the British imperial mindset that peace could be maintained by force. The crux of Barnaby’s analysis, however, was the centuries-old rivalry between Britain and France – a rivalry he had experienced through naval and technical matters. He observed that traditional mentalities of ‘mis-trust’ still presided, and noted that the Admiralty continued to demand that ‘the evolutionary machinery is daily perfected by the engineers and practised by the seamen in preparation for the day when France . . . may at any rate wage war with her upon the seas’.17 Barnaby’s concern, as an actor within the machinery that enabled imperialism and empire building, was that against the backdrop of 14 Ibid., 73. 15 Ibid., 2. The song of the angels here refers to Luke 2:14: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’ 16 Ibid., 2–3. 17 Ibid., 3.

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imperial ‘mischief ’ and pan-European ‘mis-trust’ the ship and the sailor were painted as agents of immorality. Thus he understood the nexus of power and technology through part of a more widespread fin-de-siècle moral critique of the ‘righteousness’ of imperialism.18 Barnaby wanted to revise the perception of the battleship and the Jack Tar held by pacifist groups like the Society of Friends and cultural critics such as Leo Tolstoy, who condemned the military and naval services as essentially immoral. Barnaby believed the British sailor had a higher moral character than a stockbroker, lawyer or merchant – he ‘would back the sailors against an equal number of clergymen for unselfish, manly living’.19 Aware and supportive of the moral critique of imperialism, but defensive over his role as an ‘empire builder’, Barnaby sought to ascribe an older concept of righteousness to the new machines of war and their operators.20 He defended the ship from the accusation that it was solely an object of war and that ‘[w]ar has made its weapons as destructive and as appalling as was possible’.21 He instead offered a revised moral/religious framework to understand ships and sailors: There is a Christianity which evolves an unselfish God-fearing life on shipboard and in the din and smoke of battle, and it is a nobler thing than the Christianity which seeks to make the best of both worlds and takes part in no battles save those of personal self-interest. Ruskin says in his Crown of Wild Olive: ‘I found that all great nations learned their truth of word, and strength of thought, in war; that they were nourished in war, and wasted by peace . . .’22

To what extent was warship building a noble cause? Was Barnaby’s motive noble if his science promoted or enabled a destructive war that was not ‘righteous’? Barnaby appropriated John Ruskin’s moralism as it related to religious sensibility in order to examine the extent to which sailors and designers functioned as a microcosm of that kind of moral social community.23 He represented 18 Karuna Mantena, ‘The crisis of liberal imperialism’, in Duncan Bell (ed.), Victorian visions of global order: empire and international relations in nineteenth-century political thought (Cambridge, 2007), 113–35; Jeffrey Paul Von Arx, Progress and pessimism (Cambridge, MA, 1985), 206 – 8. 19 Barnaby, Naval development, 8. 20 For engineers as ‘empire builders’ see Ben Marsden & Crosbie Smith, Engineering empires: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain (Basingstoke, 2007), 1, 11. 21 Barnaby, Naval development, 10. 22 Ibid., 9. 23 For Ruskin’s moralism see J. Abse, John Ruskin: the passionate moralist (New York, 1980).

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war as police action and validated himself, a ship designer, as a participant in a noble cause not of British expansionism, which was by itself unrighteous, but of British strength, vitality and virtue.24 Barnaby’s ethical treatment of the ship and the sailor may be understood as a naval architect attempting to come to terms with his part as an architect of British power. The warship was increasingly a mechanical object not of individual masculinities, order and control, but of systems of scientifically ordered power wrought by trained engineers. Barnaby recalled Ruskin’s famous quotation on the qualities that humanity put in the ship (The Harbours of England, 1856) and remarked that Ruskin has appealed to our pathetic sense of favour of the line-of-battle ship with its ribs and sides of strenuous oak, which will writhe and bend and splinter under attack before it will submit. But the treacherous iron or steel, which looks so strong and submits to perfection so easily, has no such pathetic claims.25

What struck Barnaby most was not the changing matériel but the changing human interaction between ship and sailor, associated with its reconfiguration from organic object to machine. He believed that ‘[t]he ship in which he [the 1902 sailor] serves is a mere instrument, not easily made interesting’.26 The other side of this was that naval architects made the instruments of British power, deploying all their knowledge and skill to create floating war machines: The new ships we propose to build will be equipped in all respects in the most perfect manner which knowledge or scientific possibilities suggest. They will receive all those accessories of which we have heard a good deal lately. They will be provided with the cordite charges and with the telescopic sights. They will be provided with electric hoists, and their torpedoes will receive the gyroscope.27

Barnaby struggled to come to terms with the morals of mechanical warfare, and his part in it. His perspectives on the ethics of shipbuilders were doubtless peculiar and unique, but they provide a rare window into how the naval architect conceived the shaping of the Royal Navy as a moral problem.

24 Mark Girouard, The return to Camelot: chivalry and the English gentleman (New Haven, CT, 1981). 25 Barnaby, Naval development, 25. Ruskin saw the 1856 heart of oak in the tradition of humanity and the handmade, as emphasised in the ‘Nature of Gothic’, in ‘The Stones of Venice’ (1853), in The works of John Ruskin, eds. E.T. Cook & Alexander Wedderburn (39 vols., London, 1906), 10:180 –217. 26 Barnaby, Naval development, 25. 27 Ibid., 411–12.

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Archives Admiralty papers, The National Archives, London. Henry Marc Brunel papers, Bristol University Special collections, Bristol. Isambard Kingdom Brunel papers, Bristol University Special collections, Bristol. William Gladstone papers, British Library, London. James Graham papers, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge. John Fisher papers, Churchill College Archive, Cambridge. Halifax papers, Borthwick Institute, York University, York. William Schaw Lindsay papers, National Maritime Museum, London. Alexander Milne papers, National Maritime Museum, London. Napier papers, Glasgow University Archive Service, Glasgow. Charles Parsons correspondence, St John’s College archive, Cambridge. Charles Parsons papers, Birr Castle archive, Birr. W.T. Stead papers, Churchill College, Cambridge. William Houston Stewart papers, National Maritime Museum, London. George Stokes papers, Cambridge University Manuscripts Room, Cambridge. William Thomson papers, Glasgow University Special Collections, Glasgow. Baldwin Walker papers, Jagger Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town.

Parliamentary papers (House of Commons) Committee on designs for ships-of-war, 1872 (C477). Committee to inquire into case of H.M.S. Megaera, report, minutes of evidence, appendix, 1872 (C507). Correspondence between Admiralty and Rev. C.M. Ramus on certain Experiments, 1874 (313). Correspondence on turret ships, 1866 (395). Hansard. Letters from Admiralty to late Captain C.P. Coles, 1871 (163). Letter of Admiral Sir Spencer Robinson, K.C.B., to the First Lord of the Admiralty on the Report of the committee on designs for ships of war, 1872 (C487).



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Index

Admiral 108–9, 112 Admiralty claims of poor management of ship design and building 15–16, 101–2, 103–5, 148–9, 183–4, 226–7 Committee of Reference (Council of Science) 80–1, 82 Committee on designs 161, 165, 168, 170–4, 180–3 Committee on turret ships 147 council of construction 206 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) and 115–16, 119–20, 122–3, 227 reform of 16–17, 39–40 support for innovation 6–7, 18–19, 68, 248 Admiralty Experimental Works, Haslar 218–19, 228, 245, 269 Airy, George Biddell 12, 123, 134 American Civil War 126–7, 144–5, 150 Archimedes 72 armour 17, 95, 98, 111, 172, 199, 225 angulated armour 99–101 iron plate firing trials 144–5 requirements for protection 148–9, 173–4, 190, 208–9, 226–8 Armstrong, William 214, 229, 231, 267 Auckland, Earl of 80–2 authority 3, 13, 18–19, 22–3, 27, 28–9, 47–8, 69, 78, 141, 150, 186, 231, 233 controversies over 6, 19, 92, 136–7, 146, 153, 160, 174, 184–5, 205, 228–9 experience and 29, 33, 53, 183, 188 institutional 16, 63–4, 81, 91–2, 102–4, 130–1, 182, 200–3, 207, 209–10, 213, 215–16, 218–19, 260

mapping 11, 18, 20–2, 30, 43–4, 61–2, 82, 115–18, 168–9, 182, 189, 230, 272–6 political 15–16, 97, 129–30, 146–7, 152 the press and 57, 148, 193–5 social 20–1, 42, 49–50, 197 technical 46, 49, 97 Bacon, Reginald 234, 235, 238–9, 251, 266, 268 Barnaby, Nathaniel 114–15, 123, 153, 158, 183, 186–7, 214 Chief Constructor 153–4, 206, 209, 210, 232, 253 Director of Naval Construction (DNC) 213 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) and 91, 113 naval architecture and naval power 276–9 Reed, Edward James and 114, 171, 208–9 relationship with naval officers 138, 190–1 White, William H. and 211–12 Barnes, Frederick K. 109, 115, 123, 153, 158 Barrow, John 72 Beaufoy, Mark 11 Belcher, Edward 188 Bentham, Samuel 11 Beresford, Charles 136, 191, 200, 231–2, 234, 256, 262, 266, 267 Bidder, George 117, 170 Biles, John Harvard 125, 252, 266, 268 bilge keel 181 boilers 6, 71, 105, 252, 253 Bouguer, Pierre 14 Brassey, Thomas 205, 209, 213–14, 241, 244, 245 authority 197, 205–7 Briggs, John Henry 2, 7, 17, 63, 73

294 Index British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) 12, 108, 163 hydrodynamics 105–6, 176, 178 broadsides 71, 137, 138, 140, 142–3, 145, 147–8, 150–1, 166 Brunel, Henry Marc 186 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom 67, 72–3, 106–7, 142, 175 Burgoyne, Hugh 127, 128, 154 Cambridge mathematics tripos 114, 122 Central School of Mathematics and Naval Construction, Portsmouth 83, 113, 114, 122 Chapman, Fredrik 11 Chappell, Edward 72 Chatfield, Henry 30, 50, 55, 64–5, 114 William Symonds’s appointment as Surveyor (of the Navy) 30, 46–8 Chief Constructor (of the Navy) 14, 97, 131, 152, 190 reform to office 19, 205–6, 212–13 see also Barnaby, Nathaniel; Reed, Edward James; Watts, Isaac Childers, Hugh 126, 128, 130, 155, 157–9, 161–2, 169, 177–8, 203, 205 Cobden, Richard 84, 150–2 Cockburn, George 28, 35, 44, 57, 63–4, 79 criticism of experimental squadron 54–5, 66, 76–7 criticism of HMS Vernon 27–8, 53–4 School of Naval Architecture (SNA) 64–5, 81 steam 75 Cole, Henry 121 Coles, Cowper 147–9, 150–1 American Civil War 126–7, 144, 146 authority 127, 129, 130, 146, 156, 160 criticism of Edward Reed 138, 143, 147–8, 152–3, 195 HMS Captain 126, 127–8, 153–5, 157–9, 161–2 HMS Royal Sovereign (1857) 127, 142–3, 199 naval experience 126, 141–2 Osborn, Sherard and 127, 143 press, use of 143, 145, 147–8 Royal United Service Institution (RUSI) 138, 150

Tory support 130, 145, 149–50 turret shield 99–100, 141–2, 156 Colomb, Philip 214–15, 230–1, 234 Controller (of the Navy) 16–17, 18, 97, 104, 112, 147, 201, 205–6, 217, 224 see also Robinson, Robert Spencer; Stewart, William Houston; Walker, Baldwin Corbett, Julian 252, 259 Corry, Henry 63, 85–6, 116, 168 craftwork 9–10 ship design 15, 134, 210 Creuze, Augustin 64–5, 138–9 Crimean War 87, 126, 141, 143–4 Croker, John 35 Crossland, J.B.C. 115, 123 CSS Virginia, see USS Merrimack Cunard Line 72, 73, 108 Dawson, Lionel 256 Denny, William 111 Department of Science and Art 121–2 Deptford Dockyard 46 Derby, Earl of 149, 150, 169 Devonport Dockyard 27, 50, 120, 223–5 Director of Naval Construction (DNC) 19, 212–13, 216–17, 218, 267 see also Barnaby, Nathaniel; White, William H.; Watts, Philip Director of Naval Ordnance 223, 248, 250 Douglas, Howard 92, 98–9, 100 Dufferin, Lord 165, 171, 172, 174, 181, 187, 189 Dundas, Richard 96 Durston, Albert John 252, 258, 266, 268 education 9, 64, 83, 87, 114, 118–21, 124, 191–2, 261–2 apprenticeships 10, 44, 113, 134, 213 claims of French superiority 10, 14–15, 119 engineering training 245, 254, 257–8 see also Central School of Mathematics and Naval Architecture, Portsmouth; Royal School of Naval Architecture (RSNA); School of Naval Architecture (SNA) Edye, John 63, 82 Elder, David 108 Elliot, George 147, 161 criticism of Edward James Reed 163, 165, 195

Index opposition to civilian influence on ship design 173–4, 183 Elphinestone, James 149–50, 169 engine see reciprocating engine; steam turbine engineering 8, 10, 47, 62, 70, 107, 108, 124, 167, 183, 189, 191, 200, 201–2, 206–7, 210–11, 222, 237–8, 245, 255, 258, 263, 270, 273–4 Ericsson, John 68, 71 Ewing, James Alfred 242, 243 Director of Naval Education 252, 260 tests on the steam turbine 242, 244–5 experience 2, 15–16, 26, 29, 41–2, 49–50, 61, 78, 115, 134–5, 158, 183, 185, 224, 267 inconsistent with theory 14, 56, 133, 173, 178 sea 10, 12, 30, 33–4, 43–4, 46, 48, 52, 118, 130, 184, 188, 206, 212 war 50, 73–4, 139, 141 experiment 2, 4, 11, 68, 99–100, 105, 109, 112–13, 158–9, 190, 244–5, 267, 268, 269 authority to govern 61, 115, 137–8, 143, 147–8, 187, 266 scaled experiments 105–6, 107, 174–8, 181–2, 183–5 value of 12–13, 34, 77–8, 108, 139, 163–4, 187, 228 experimental cruise 37–8, 64, 65–7 authority of 29, 50, 52–4, 67 criticism of 38–9, 54–6, 76 Royal Yacht Club (RYC) and 32, 37 expertise 22–3, 29, 46, 68–9, 91–2, 115, 243, 266, 272 problematic term 20, 23 Fairbairn, William 92, 99, 123 Fincham, John 13–15, 33, 37–8, 55–7, 79, 86 firing trials 99, 144, 268 First Lord of the Admiralty 16–17, 32, 35, 39–40, 103, 157, 205 judge of ship design 16, 48, 131 Fishbourne, Edmund 53, 92, 137–9, 161, 184, 194–5 criticism of Edward James Reed 138, 183 criticism of William Froude 176–7, 183–4, 194 hydrodynamics 125, 184–5, 189 Fisher, John 199, 215, 222–3, 234, 248–9, 252–5, 265–7, 275–6

295

enthusiasm for new technology 237, 249, 270 HMS Dreadnought 236–7, 243, 249, 263, 266–7 HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) 199, 223–4 naval career 223, 249–50 naval education 237–8, 257–9, 261 naval reforms 248, 250–1, 253–4 Thomson, William and 250, 266 fleet review 60–1, 139–40, 166, 239–41, 246 Ford, John 94, 111 freeboard see ship design Fremantle, Edmund 222, 234 French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 10, 31–2, 90, 140, 144 Froude, R.E. 178, 219, 228, 245, 264, 266, 269 Froude, William 123, 135, 146, 175–6, 182–3, 188–9, 193, 194, 201, 209, 211, 219, 273–4 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom and 107, 175 demonstrations 178, 187, 189 HMS Devastation 180–1, 183–4, 185–8 model experiments 125, 169, 176–8, 179–80 ship resistance 122, 177–9 ship stability 135, 155, 176–7, 180–2, 187 Gard, W.H. 265–6 Gladstone, William 136, 159, 161–2, 201, 217, 218, 223 Gloire 91, 98, 100 Admiralty’s response to 94–5 Goschen, George 17, 136, 168, 205, 206, 216, 264 Graham, James 2, 27, 35–6, 44, 57–8 Admiralty reform 39–41, 62, 83 support for William Symonds 26, 41–2, 54 Great Britain 67, 73 Great Eastern (Leviathan) 99, 111 ship stability 135, 175 wave-line theory 105, 107 Great Exhibition 98, 121 Grey, Earl 39–41 Haddington, Earl of 63, 67 Halsted, Edward Pellew 92 Hamilton, George 195, 200, 214–16, 217, 218, 223, 224, 227 Hamilton, Richard Vesey 260–1 Hampton Roads 127, 144, 147

296 Index Hardwicke, Earl of 45, 116 Harris, William Snow 9, 87–8 Hay, John 58, 80–1, 99, 101, 149, 150, 168 Herschel, John 55 Hirst, Thomas Archer 213 HMS Agamemnon 60, 68, 141, 206 HMS Alecto 68, 72 HMS Amethyst 247–8, 269 HMS Audacious 220 HMS Barham 53–5 HMS Black Prince 108, 111, 112 HMS Captain 126, 153, 160–3, 166, 167–8, 171, 193, 204 capsizing 128–9, 155 court martial 155–6, 159 design 129–30, 138 freeboard 153, 155, 156–7, 199 inclining experiment 157–8 Lairds of Birkenhead 150, 153, 158 political construction 129, 149–50, 152, 159–60 ship stability 154–5, 159, 163, 181, 195 trials 127–8, 154–5 see also Coles, Cowper; Reed, Edward J. HMS Cobra 247 HMS Columbine 34–5, 36, 37, 42, 72 HMS Comet 68 HMS Daring 66, 67 HMS Devastation 165–8, 172–3, 255, 276–7 alterations to initial design 171, 173 freeboard 171–2 model experiments 180–1 parliamentary discussion 168, 169, 185–6 ship stability 181–2, 183–4 trial 186–9 HMS Dreadnought (1906) 200, 235–7, 249, 252–3 criticism 239, 251 design committee 224, 266–7 importance of speed 236–7, 267 steam turbine 238, 243, 254, 268–9 trial 238–9 see also Fisher, John HMS Eden 268–9 HMS Edinburgh 60, 86–7 HMS Enterprise 148 HMS Espiegle 65–6, 67 HMS Excellent 40, 98, 100 gunnery school 140, 215, 223, 249, 261 HMS Flying Fish 66 HMS Harlequin 36

HMS Highflyer 85 HMS Inflexible 208–9, 249 HMS Marlborough 197 HMS Megaera 201–2, 203–5, 207, 209, 212, 213, 215, 273 HMS Minotaur 140, 276 HMS Monarch 127, 128, 148–9, 154–5, 156, 158 HMS Odin 74 HMS Pantaloon 35, 42 HMS Prince Albert 143 HMS Queen 66–7, 81 HMS Rattler 68, 72, 86 HMS Research 148, 152 HMS Royal Albert 85 HMS Royal Arthur 197 HMS Royal Sovereign (1857) 127, 142–3, 146, 147, 199 HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) 197–200, 224, 227–9, 233 armour 199, 225–6, 229–31 criticism 225, 226–7, 229–30 design committee 223–5 freeboard 199, 225–6, 232 HMS Scorpion 150 HMS Sidon 60, 74 HMS Snake 36 HMS St George 140 HMS Stromboli 141 HMS Terrible 74, 140 HMS Thetis 65 HMS Tribune 85 HMS Vernon 26–8, 36, 53–4 criticism 27–8, 54–5 support 28, 53 torpedo school 223, 249 HMS Victory 236, 255, 264 HMS Viper 247 HMS Warrior 89, 91, 93–4, 96, 108, 128 Admiralty mismanagement of ironclad shipbuilding 99, 103–4 HMS Waveney 268 HMS Wivern 150 Hope, Charles Webley 138 Hope, James 155, 209 Hornby, Geoffrey 149, 183, 231 House of Commons 78, 129, 131, 233 hull form 63, 65, 86, 108, 177–8, 219 see also hydrodynamics Hume, Joseph 28, 44, 58, 75, 76 Huxley, T.H. 9

Index hydrodynamics 1, 12, 14, 18, 138–9, 175–6, 194–5 model experiments 105–7, 174, 176–81, 187, 195 ship resistance 106–8, 109–11, 177–9 stream-line theory 178 wave-line theory 105–7, 109, 178 ship stability 47, 54, 65, 100–1, 139, 143, 154–5, 157–8, 163, 180–2, 189, 208, 267, 276 inclining experiment 158, 186 ship roll and 175, 179–81, 184–6 visual observations 135, 175–6, 189 hydrography 11, 12 Inman, James 35, 52, 57, 80 Institution of Civil Engineers 117, 170, 252, 264 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) 18, 91, 125, 134, 175, 188, 229, 243 Admiralty and 115–16, 119–20, 122–3, 227 authority 117–19 education 119–22, 124 formation 113–14 objectives 114–15, 118–19 patrons 115–16 relationship with naval officers 118, 131, 135–6 instruments 9, 10, 178, 250 see also measurement iron 3–4, 88, 91, 117–18 advocates 92, 97–8 armour 94, 98–101, 111 construction of iron ships 15, 92–3, 117 firing experiments on iron plates 100 opponents 70, 97, 98–9 shipbuilders 18, 93–4, 107–8, 111–12 shipwrecks 92 ironclad 12, 24, 92, 94–7, 102–3, 139–40 design aesthetics 89–91, 166–8 technical complaints 98, 101–2, 111–12 versus forts 143–4, 146, 150–1 see also HMS Warrior Jellicoe, John 251, 266, 268 John Penn & Sons 75, 87, 115 Key, Astley Cooper 143, 154, 192, 213 King Edward 243, 247

297

Laird, John 126, 145, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153–4, 155, 158 Lang, Oliver 41, 63, 74, 79, 86, 114, 131 Lauderdale, Earl of 34, 147, 172, 188 Lindsay, William Schaw 59, 84, 85 Lloyd, Thomas 72–3, 86, 97, 170 Lushington, Vernon 187, 203 Maitland, Anthony, 32 Maitland, Thomas 32 Marryat, Frederick 30, 48–9, 51 authority 49 Metropolitan Magazine 40, 48–9 William Symonds’s appointment as Surveyor (of the Navy) 48–50 Martin, Thomas Byam 16, 33, 35, 41, 42–3, 44, 65 mathematics 1–2, 10, 12, 33, 40, 50, 80, 98, 107, 119–20, 123, 124, 125, 130, 162–3, 175, 177, 184 McKerlie, John 53–4 measurement 10, 95 precision 135, 180 mechanics 18, 33, 40, 49, 56, 63, 72, 109, 123, 184, 193, 262 Melville, Viscount 34, 35, 64 Merrifield, Charles 134, 176, 188, 196, 234 metallurgy 15, 18, 120 Milne, Alexander 17, 128, 156, 157 model experiments see hydrodynamics Moseley, Henry 83 Napier, Charles 28, 67, 71, 77, 87, 136 criticism of Admiralty management of steam warships 73, 75, 77–9 HMS Sidon 60, 73–4 Napier, James Robert 108, 112, 176 HMS Black Prince 108, 111 Rankine, W.J. Macquorn and 108–9, 111 Robinson, Robert Spencer and 112–13 ship resistance 109 Napier, Robert 70–1, 75, 108 Naval Defence Act (1889) 2, 198, 224 naval strategy 143, 144, 151, 168, 214, 222 blue-water security 143 coastal defence 143, 145, 168 Navy Board 26–7, 40–1, 46, 67 comptroller 16, 33, 35 site of Tory patronage 26, 40, 42–3 Navy Civil Departments Bill 39, 44 navy estimates 82, 103, 122, 183, 212

298 Index Nelson, Horatio 28, 58, 140, 231, 236, 239, 249, 261 Northbrook, Earl of 128, 157, 159, 210, 213, 214 O’Connell, Maurice 45–6 Osborn, Sherard 99–100, 127 Coles, Cowper support for 127, 143, 147, 160–1, 174 Paget, Clarence 16, 95–7, 104, 116, 120–1, 122, 212 Pakington, John 85, 88, 103 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) 116, 120 HMS Captain 130, 137, 149–50, 152, 155, 156–7 Palmerston, Viscount 1–2, 73, 77, 143 Parry, Edward 68–9 Parsons, Charles 238, 241–2, 244, 268–9 steam turbine 240–1, 243–8 Peel, Robert 58, 63, 78, 98 Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Company 60 physics 9, 110, 190, 259 Portland, Duke of 35, 36, 37, 66 Portsmouth Dockyard 13, 33, 36, 40, 59, 79, 80, 120, 147, 199, 205, 224, 250, 252 propulsion 3, 4, 70, 71, 105, 123, 192, 241–2, 247, 254, 255, 268 paddlewheel 68, 71, 72 see also reciprocating engine; sail; screw propeller; steam turbine Queen Alexandra 247 Ramus, Charles Meade 178–9, 194 Rankine, W.J. Macquorn 108–9, 123, 165, 170, 176, 186, 192, 211 criticised for abstract theory 110–11 Napier, James Robert and 108–9, 111 ship resistance 109–10, 112–13 reciprocating engine 238, 242, 243, 245, 247, 268, 269 Reed, Edward James 19, 91, 93–4, 123, 132, 144–5, 151–2, 155–9, 169–70, 177, 207–8, 220–1 antagonism with naval officers 133–4, 136, 161, 163, 190, 194–5, 229–31

authority of naval architects 19, 22, 87, 91, 146, 148, 150, 163 Barnaby, Nathaniel and 114, 171, 208–9 Chief Constructor (of the Navy) 131–3, 138, 153, 154 Coles, Cowper and 126, 127, 130, 138, 142–3, 147–8 criticism of HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) 225, 226–7 editor of Mechanics Magazine 87, 117 editor of Naval Science 165, 193–5 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) 91, 113–15, 115–16, 274 Member of Parliament 193, 233 White, William H. and 195, 217–18, 227–30, 234 Rendel, George 209, 210, 215 Ripon, Earl of 217–18, 223 Robinson, Robert Spencer 18, 97, 111–12, 130, 138, 143, 148, 150, 153, 155–7, 161–2, 169–70, 173, 174, 188, 201–3, 221 Rothery, Henry Cadogan 202–3, 207 Royal Corps of Naval Constructors 211–13 Royal Dockyards 2, 35, 41, 64–5, 83, 92, 114, 151, 210–11, 215–17 authority of Dockyard superintendent 203, 207 authority of naval architects 19, 200, 205–6, 212–13, 218 co-ordination of design 85, 213, 217–18 see also Deptford Dockyard; Devonport Dockyard; Portsmouth Dockyard; Woolwich Dockyard Royal Mail Steam Packet Company 60, 72, 73, 109 Royal Naval College 19, 189, 211, 213, 231 Royal School of Naval Architecture (RSNA) 119–22, 176, 191 career opportunities for graduates 178, 210–12 lecturers 122–3 location 121–2 mathematics and hydrodynamics 123–5 Royal Society 9, 12, 34, 57, 69, 72, 87, 251 Royal Society of Arts 98, 115 Royal United Service Institution (RUSI) 136–9, 141–2, 150, 189–91, 195 naval architecture 92, 135–6, 137–9, 183–4

Index notions of science 136–7 patrons 136 Royal Yacht Club (RYC) 32, 35, 42 membership 32–3 squadron 32–3, 37, 54 stimulating naval architecture 36, 38, 74 views on steam 70–1 Russell, John Scott 93, 97–8, 106–7, 109, 185, 196 authority of naval architects 104–5, 117– 18, 129, 159–60 criticism of Admiralty management of naval architecture 18–19, 101–2, 103, 112–13 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) 91, 113–14, 118 model experiments 106, 176 Royal School of Naval Architecture (RSNA) 119, 120–1 wave-line theory 105–6, 107, 178 Ryder, Alfred 53, 161, 170, 173–4, 183, 189, 195 sail 3, 7, 17, 32, 33, 37–8, 54, 56, 60, 77, 86–7, 89, 129, 153, 154–5, 157, 160, 166, 169, 173, 177, 259 Samuda, Joseph 92, 93, 143 School of Naval Architecture (SNA) 35, 40, 43, 47, 52, 67, 119 careers of graduates 30, 44, 46–7, 72, 79, 82 graduates petition to design a ship 64–5 social background of students 30, 51 Scoresby, William 12, 134, 181 Scott, Percy 251 screw propeller 3, 5, 68–9, 71–3 conversion to 59, 75–6, 86–7, 140 hull shape 84–6 Sea of Azoff 141 Selborne, Lord 248, 251–2, 255, 257, 260, 263 Seppings, Robert 41–2, 43, 46, 49, 51, 63 Sewell, John 11 ship design 2–3, 7, 8–9, 12–15, 15–20, 50, 52, 61, 82–3, 92, 119, 163, 170–1, 192, 207 authority of naval architects 16–19, 20–2, 28–9, 30, 62, 131, 210, 212, 230, 275 balancing design features 56–7, 152, 172, 190, 233–5

299

experience at sea, and 56–7, 126–7, 134 experiments 11, 102, 131, 171, 175 freeboard 18, 80, 157, 171–2, 213, 232, 276 HMS Captain 127, 129, 153, 154–5 HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) 199, 225–6 judging 8, 17, 27, 29, 37–8, 47, 53–4, 75, 82, 93–4 policy 10, 94, 223–4, 250–1, 265 uncertainty 108, 139–40 see also education; hull form; hydrodynamics ship resistance see hydrodynamics ship stability see hydrodynamics shipwright 2–3, 6, 10–13, 14–15, 18, 30, 40, 42, 46–7, 48–9, 55, 57, 63–4, 79, 81, 87, 121, 134 work at Chatham Dockyard 64–5 see also Chatfield, Henry; Fincham, John; Lang, Oliver; Watts, Isaac Shoeburyness 144, 145 Shubsole, William 13 Smith, Francis Petit 68, 71–2 Smith, Thomas Assheton 70–1 Society for the Improvement of Naval Architecture (SINA) 11, 13 Somerset, Duke of 96–7, 101–2, 120, 124, 130, 143 defence of Admiralty shipbuilding 102–3 South Kensington 121–2, 124, 177, 191, 264 Stead, W.T. 198, 219–21, 222–3, 240 steam 3, 5, 49, 60–1, 69–70, 75, 78–9 advocates 67–9, 70–1, 73–5 see also steam engine; steam turbine steam engine conversion of warships 83–5, 86–7 naval architecture and 61, 76–7, 86 steam turbine 238, 241–3, 244–7, 254 HMS Dreadnought 238, 243, 254, 268–9 trials with naval vessels 247–8 steel 15, 279 Stewart, William Houston 183, 205–6, 210, 232 Surveyor (of the Navy) 15, 16, 28 authority of 61, 63–4, 79, 81, 85–6 changes to office 41–3, 81–3, 103–4 credentials of 41–2, 44–7, 82 see also Controller (of the Navy); Symonds, William; Walker, Baldwin

300 Index Swinton, Alan Archibald Campbell 244 Symonds, Thomas 154, 172 Symonds, William 28–9, 31–3, 35, 61, 70, 73 HMS Queen 66–7 HMS Vernon 26–7, 28, 36, 53–4 opposition within the Royal Dockyards 30, 40, 46–8, 55, 64–5 relationship with Whig politicians 37, 41–2 representations of 30, 43–6, 48–50 retirement 76–9, 81 self-fashioning of 33–4, 50–2 Surveyor (of the Navy) 28–30, 42–3, 57, 62, 63–4, 74–5 Walker, Baldwin and 62, 66–7, 82 technological change 3–5, 6–8, 21, 68, 93, 137, 237, 254 test tank 69, 174, 176, 178–80, 182, 186, 218–19 construction of 177–8 see also Admiralty Experimental Works, Haslar; Froude, William Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company 89, 94, 140 Thomson, William 111, 165, 170–1, 179–80, 186, 266–7 Admiralty, influence at 187, 250 Fisher, John and 250, 266 Thornycroft, John 266 trials 4, 27, 36, 37–8, 52–3, 65–7, 72–3, 96, 100, 109, 126, 137, 146–7, 187–9, 238–9 sea as trial space 135, 178 see also experimental cruise Turbinia 240–2, 243–4, 245–6, 247 see also Parsons, Charles; steam turbine turret 126–8, 137–8, 142–6, 149–51, 162, 165–6 support within the Royal Navy 140, 147 see also Coles, Cowper; HMS Captain; HMS Monarch; HMS Royal Sovereign (1857) USS Merrimack 144 USS Monadnock 134, 146 USS Monitor 127, 145–6, 172, 191 British naval policy and ship design 144 Coles, Cowper and 126–7 Vernon, Lord 27, 34–5, 36 Victoria and Albert 37, 240

Victoria, Queen 32, 37, 60, 83, 197, 239 Walker, Baldwin 59, 62, 85–6, 94 naval career 62, 97 Paget, Clarence and 16, 96–7 steam conversions 59, 83–5 Surveyor (of the Navy) 81–3, 87 Symonds, William and 62, 66–7, 82 Warburton, Henry 29, 45 Watkin, Henry 185–6, 193 Watt, James 70 Watts, Isaac 82, 85, 109, 131, 143 Chief Constructor (of the Navy) 91, 114 HMS Warrior 144 Second Assistant to the Surveyor (of the Navy) 82, 97 Watts, Philip 215, 244, 250, 252, 255 Director of Naval Construction (DNC) 264–5, 266, 267–8 Whewell, William 12 White, John 66, 86, 115 HMS Daring 65–6, 67 White, William H. 19–20, 125, 158, 211–12, 244, 245–6, 264, 274, 276 authority of naval architects 22, 200–1, 217, 218–19, 228–30, 233–4 Barnaby, Nathaniel and 211–12 Director of Naval Construction (DNC) 214–16, 218, 228, 263–4 HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) 199, 223–5, 227–8 publications 191, 192, 211 Reed, Edward James and 195, 217–18, 227–30, 234 relationship with naval officers 191–3, 230–1 Royal Corps of Naval Constructors 211–14 wood 3, 15, 89, 92, 98, 99, 102, 103, 112, 140, 145 Woolley, Joseph 57, 118–19, 122, 123, 165, 170, 176, 193, 195, 209, 275 Central School of Mathematics, Portsmouth 83, 115 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) 91, 113–14, 124 Woolwich Dockyard 27, 63, 72, 79, 86, 87, 114 Yarborough, Earl of 32, 36, 48 Yarrow, Alfred 241