Iron ships, on the other hand, were found to be well adapted to withstand the racking stresses, the localized loads and the vibrations which were introduced by steam machinery; they were lighter than wooden ships, more capacious, more easily shaped to give the fine lines necessary for speed, cheaper and immeasurably stronger. In course of time the objections to them gradually vanished; by aid of the scientists the derangement of their compasses was overcome, the dangers from lightning were obviated, and the extent of the fouling to which their surfaces were liable was kept within limits. In course of time, in spite of natural preference and vested interest, and since the advantages of iron were confirmed by continuous experience, wood became almost entirely superseded by the metal for large mercantile construction. But in the case of warships, as we have seen, insuperable objections seemed to prohibit the change of material. No sooner had a step been taken by the Admiralty, in the ordering of a group of iron paddlewheel frigates in ’43, than an outcry arose; the wooden walls of England were in danger, the opponents of iron declared, and iron ships were wholly unsuitable for warlike purposes. More were ordered in ’46. Sir Charles Napier, whose opinion naturally carried great weight with the public, led the opposition, and when, in ’49, the artillery trial demonstrated the dangerous effects of shot and shell on thin iron plates, the advocates of iron were fain to admit the error of their opinions. The iron frigates were struck from the establishment and transformed—such of them as were completed—into unarmed transports.
As experience with iron ships accumulated, the feeling grew in certain quarters that the artillery trials, the results of which had been claimed as being decisive proof of the unsuitability of iron for warships, might not have been the last word upon the subject. The events of the Crimean War tended to emphasize the doubt and uncertainty. A few there were who saw in that war clear proofs of the superiority of iron over wood; who argued that, though iron had proved to be dangerous in the form of thin plates in certain circumstances, yet it had shown itself to be impervious both to shot and shell, and indeed an indispensable defence in certain circumstances when applied in sufficient thickness; that thicker plates than those condemned as dangerous might therefore prove to be a great protection against shell fire; and that, even as regards thin plates, the splintering effect of shell against these was small, from all accounts, compared with the incendiary effect of shell against timber. And in what other respects were the advantages of iron contested?
But, acting upon expert advice and influence, doubtless, by the remembrance of the Birkenhead and Simoon fiasco, the government still felt unable to sanction the use of iron, and it was not until news of the laying down of the Gloire reached England that a decision was made to adopt the new material, both as armour and for the hulls of warships.
The high protagonist of timber-built ships, it was shortly afterwards revealed, was Sir Howard Douglas: the most strenuous advocate of iron was John Scott Russell. For years, it appeared, Sir Howard had been the influential and successful adviser of the government against the adoption of iron. “I was consulted by Sir Robert Peel,” he wrote in 1860, “on his accession to the government, as to the use and efficiency of a certain half-dozen iron frigates, two of which were finished, and four constructing by contract. I stated in reply that vessels wholly constructed of iron were utterly unfit for all the purposes of war, whether armed or as transports for the conveyance of troops.” In the same paper he stated the arguments on which he had tendered this advice; and these arguments appeared so fallacious, and the facts on which they were based so disputable, as to seem to call for some reply from the builders of iron ships. Sir Howard had certainly strayed far from science in his unsupported statements as to the calamitous effects of iron if used for warships; and unfortunately he had allowed himself to stigmatize the Great Eastern, as representative of iron ships generally, as “an awful roller,” and as never having attained anything like her calculated speed. Scott Russell made a violent reply. “After establishing that Sir H. Douglas’s conclusions are the reverse of the truth,” he began, “I shall proceed to establish that the future navy of England must be an iron navy. That its construction must be founded on facts and principles, which Sir H. Douglas’s writings ignore, and his deductions contradict; and I believe I shall prove that if iron ships had been introduced at the time when Sir Howard says he sedulously and systematically opposed their introduction, the money which has been spent on a wooden fleet about to become valueless would have given England a fleet greatly more powerful than the combined navies of the world.”[163]
It may be conceded that in this public argument Scott Russell had the advantage: the architect of the Great Eastern had little difficulty in confuting the views of the artillerist. But by this time the battle between wood and iron had been fought and won. The Board of Admiralty, influenced by the arguments of Scott Russell and their own constructors, and in the presence of gigantic achievements in the form of iron-built liners, felt unable to agree with Sir Howard in his continued advocacy of timber; Sir John Pakington expressed his personal doubts to him in a correspondence. Expert opinion, naval officers and architects, leaned more and more in the direction of the new material, and, early in 1859, the decision was made to build an armoured frigate of iron. It was a momentous decision. The “wooden walls” had crumbled at last, and iron had won acceptance as alone able to cope with the new forces brought into existence by the progress of artillery and steam machinery. The opponents of iron could not sustain for long their arguments in favour of timber; experience was accumulating against them, and it was necessary to accept defeat. Chief among them was Sir Howard Douglas. There is, surely, something pathetic in the episode of his long-continued struggle against radical change; something tragic in the spectacle of this scientist, whose labours had done more, perhaps, than any other man’s for the efficiency of the nineteenth-century navy, in his old age casting the great weight of his influence unwittingly against the navy’s interest? How gamely the old general fought for his convictions is told us by his biographer, who with a natural warmth denounced the fierce criticism which Scott Russell had directed against a veteran of eighty-five winters, devoting his last hours to the service of his country. “His resistance to armour ships bore him down, his arguments met with unbelief, or elicited taunts, and ceased to influence the public. ‘All that I have said about armour ships will prove correct,’ he remarked, twenty-four hours before his death, toward the end of ’61. ‘How little do they know of the undeveloped power of artillery!’”
§
In June, 1859, some months before the launching of the Gloire, the reply was given: the Warrior was laid down. Up to this time the initiative, in the slow evolution of naval material, had rested mainly with France. From this moment England, having taken up the challenge, assumed the initiative and its responsibilities; and from now onwards, in spite of false moves, failures, and ineffective expenditures of money and labour, she regained more and more surely the preponderance in naval strength which she had possessed of old. At last a scientific era of naval architecture had opened. Up to this time the design and construction of warships had been treated as a mere craft: a craft hampered, moreover, by absence of method, reluctance to adopt new views, limitations as to size, interference and ever-varying decisions as to such factors as the extent of sail-power or the number of guns to be carried. By the official acceptance of scientific methods this was largely changed. By the raising of the old office of Surveyor to the dignity of Controller of the Navy, by the institution of a new school of naval architecture to take the place of that suppressed in 1832 (whose most eminent graduates, fittingly enough, were the chief witnesses against the debased state and management of naval construction as it was prior to 1860), by utilizing the services of men trained in mathematics, the effect on naval architecture soon became apparent. Originality had scope, forethought and cleverness had full play; men of considerable technical knowledge were pressed into service, who proved well able to cope with the new developments.
The outcome of this new orientation was the Warrior. It is usual to think of her as similar to the Gloire; like her she was designed to resist the 68-pounder unit of artillery, like her she carried a belt of iron armour 4½ inches thick, and was equipped with steam machinery to give her a high speed. Yet in important respects she differed from her French rival.
THE WARRIOR