GREAT as have been the changes brought about by steam navigation applied to commercial uses, the transformations of the navies of the world have been even more remarkable. It seems almost incredible that at the commencement of Her Majesty’s reign there were less than twenty steamships in the British navy, and none of them over 1,000 tons burthen. Of the 560 “sail” comprising the navy of 1836, ninety-five were “ships of the line.” The largest of these were styled “first-rate ships;” all of them wooden three-deckers, carrying 100 guns each, or more. One of the most difficult problems the Admiralty of that time had to solve was how to ensure a sufficient supply of oak timber for ship-building purposes. Forty full-grown trees to an acre of ground was accounted a good average; at that rate it required the growth of fifty acres to produce enough timber to build one seventy-four-gun ship; and as the oak required at least a hundred years to reach maturity, and the average life of a ship was not much over twenty-five years, the acreage required to produce the entire quantity was enormous. But the prospect of an oak famine was speedily dispelled by the substitution of iron and steel for wood in naval architecture.
“DUKE OF WELLINGTON” BATTLE-SHIP, 1850.
Of the 689 vessels of all kinds constituting the British navy in 1897, there are only about twenty-two wooden ones, and these are nearly all used either as store ships or training ships, seldom, if ever, to leave their anchorage. And so entirely has the paddle-wheel been superseded by the screw-propeller, there are not left a dozen paddle-steamers in the entire fleet, including the Queen’s yachts and a few light-draught river boats. As already mentioned the compound engine was introduced into the navy in 1863. The twin screw was first applied to the Penelope in 1868, and has since become universal in vessels of war, the result of these improvements being a marvellous increase of power and speed, with a great saving of fuel. Roughly speaking, a pound of coal is to-day made to produce four or five times the amount of power that it did in 1837.
Experiments had been made with steam power in the navy as early as 1841. In 1845 as many as nineteen sets of screw engines had been ordered for the Admiralty, but it was not until some years later that it came into general use. About 1851 the Duke of Wellington,[30] the Duke of Marlborough, the Prince of Wales, etc., all full-rigged ships, each armed with 131 “great guns,” were fitted with auxiliary steam-engines of from 450 to 2,500 horse-power. The introduction of iron armour-plating—first practised by the French towards the close of the Crimean war—presaged the beginning of the end of “the wooden walls of Old England,” and the disappearance forever of the beautiful white wings that had spread themselves out over every sea.
TORPEDO DESTROYER “HORNET,” 1896.