Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

When steam navigation came, it came to stay.

But though the Admiralty hesitated, others did not. Probably the first steam-driven ship of war which ever went to sea, though not the first mechanically propelled war vessel—the Far East, as we have seen, ante-dating us in this matter by a couple of centuries—was the Rising Star. She was certainly the first to traverse the waters of the Atlantic from north to south, and the first steam warship to round Cape Horn and pass into the Pacific.

The Rising Star was a remarkable ship in many ways. She was built at Rotherhithe for the tenth Earl of Dundonald when, as Lord Cochrane, he was engaged by the Chilian Government to create and take command of the Chilian navy, and stipulated that a steamship should be built as the best means of neutralising the difference between the Chilian and Spanish naval forces. The Rising Star was really taken out by Major the Hon. William Cochrane. Owing to various vexatious delays in construction, she did not reach completion in time to permit of her arrival in time to participate in the war, the energetic Admiral Cochrane having, in the meantime, disposed of the Spanish fleet with his customary thoroughness. The ship was begun at Kier’s yard in 1820, and arrived at Valparaiso in April, 1822. How she was propelled is a matter of conjecture. At one stage of her career she had paddles of some sort, and also paddle-wheels, but when she finally left England a different system altogether appears to have been adopted, which seems to have been an application of the jet method, by which the ship is propelled by forcing out of streams of water through apertures in the hull below the water level.

The Rising Star is shown in a contemporary engraving of her to have been a full-rigged ship, without royals, and carrying, besides the ordinary square sails of her rig, peculiarly shaped square-headed staysails between the masts.

This vessel has been referred to in several books as the Rising Sun; it is as well that the error be corrected and her right name given. The statement that the Rising Sun went to Chili for Lord Cochrane in 1818 is erroneous, though often made both in this country and in America.

The Admiralty thought so little of steam engines at first that it did not trouble to record the names of its early steamers in the navy list. Owing to the representations of Marc Isambard Brunel, the Admiralty consented to try steam, and experimented with two small paddle-boats, the Monkey, built at Rotherhithe in 1821, and the Comet, built at Deptford in 1822, which were acquired to be used as tugs or despatch boats. The former was a vessel of 210 tons, and had engines of 80 nominal h.p.[29] by Messrs. Boulton and Watt. The two cylinders were each about 35½ inches diameter, with a stroke of 3 feet 6 inches, and, working at 26½ revolutions per minute, gave a mean piston speed of 185 feet per minute. It will be interesting and instructive to contrast these figures with those of the latest engines in warships, which will be found in another chapter. The Active and Lightning followed in 1822 and 1823 respectively, their names appearing together with a few others for the first time in the official navy list for March, 1828.[30] None of these steamers, however, could be classed as war vessels. From this year to 1840 seventy other steam vessels were added to the navy. All the early steamers were built in private yards, and the contractors had even to provide the engine-room staffs, which were taken over together with the steamers. By 1832, the Admiralty bestirred itself and built its first steamer, the Salamander, but until 1840 none was over 1,000 tons, and all were of wood, propelled by paddle engines, and such guns as some of them carried were small and ineffective. With the increase of the size of the vessels came a more than corresponding increase in the power of the engines. The Rhadamanthus, for instance, built in 1832, had engines capable of being worked up to 400 indicated h.p., though they were of 200 h.p. nominal. The safety valves carried a load of 4 lb. to the square inch, and the total weight of the machinery was 275 tons. In 1839, five wooden steamers were built for the Admiralty, and two of them, the Hecla and Hecate, of 817 tons, and 250 h.p. each, were sent to Scott’s, at Greenock, to be engined, and were the first naval vessels to have their machinery fitted on board in Scotland.

But when men like Brunel, Scott Russell, and Laird of Birkenhead, were loudly advocating the adoption of steam-propelled war vessels, and the steamers were proving their superiority over the sailing ships in every respect, the Admiralty was compelled to pay attention. These men also urged the adoption of iron in place of wood for shipbuilding. The idea was ridiculed. It was in vain that it was pointed out that, though a piece of iron would sink and a piece of wood of the same size would float, the true test of buoyancy lay in the total weight of the material used in the construction of a hull, and that a hull of given external dimensions and built of iron would be more buoyant than a hull of the same dimensions and built of wood, and that the difference in favour of iron amounted to as much as 20 to 35 per cent.

The mere fact that iron steamers were already in existence had little influence with the Admiralty. The first of these was the Aaron Manby, built at Horsely in 1821, for Captain (afterwards Sir) Charles Napier and the gentleman after whom she was named. Others were doing service in Ireland. In 1832, Messrs. McGregor, Laird and Co. had the Elburkah constructed for employment on the Niger; she was 70 feet long, by 18 feet beam, and 6 feet 6 inches depth. Two years later Mr. Laird built at Birkenhead the Garry Owen, a little vessel only 125 feet long and fitted with two engines of a total of 90 nominal h.p. She went ashore during a gale on her maiden voyage, having as companions in misfortune several wooden vessels, and was the only one to be refloated, being little the worse for her misadventure. This proved the strength of an iron-built ship beyond doubt, and iron coasting steamers after this became comparatively numerous.

The first iron warship, a frigate, was proposed by Laird in 1836, and built at his yard at Birkenhead in 1842; it was offered during construction to the Admiralty, which would have none of it, so it was sold to the Mexican Government, which christened it the Guadeloupe. This vessel was 175 feet in length, by 30 feet 1 inch beam, and had a depth of hold of 16 feet.

The East India Company appreciated the value of iron steamers suitable for war purposes, and placed an order with Laird in 1839. One of those, the Nemesis, built under this order, went to India via the Cape, and took part in the China operations in 1840-2. She was struck several times by cannon balls and holed. Her commander, Captain Hull, reported in his evidence before the Royal Commission, in 1848, on the naval estimates, that the holes were made clean and without splinters, thus disposing of the theory that iron when struck by a shot would splinter worse than wood. Her armament consisted of two 32-pounder pivot guns so mounted as to give her a wide range of fire, and as she drew but five feet of water she may be regarded as the first of the shallow river-gunboats which have done such excellent service in so many parts of the world.