HMS Northumberland

Figure 1:  HMS Northumberland (British broadside ironclad battleship, commissioned in1868) in harbor, while fitted with her original five-masted rig, circa 1868-1875. Copied from the photographic album Types of Ships in the British Navy, prepared in 1877. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.   

Figure 2:  HMS Northumberland moored to a buoy while carrying her original five-masted rig, circa 1868-1875. Copied from the photographic album Types of Ships in the British Navy, prepared in 1877. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 3:  HMS Northumberland seen from astern while alongside a wharf while carrying her original five-masted rig, circa 1868-1875. Note her sternwalk and boats. Copied from the photographic album Types of Ships in the British Navy, prepared in 1877. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 4:  HMS Northumberland at anchor after her rig was reduced from five to three masts in 1875-1879. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.  

Figure 5:  HMS Northumberland in harbor, drying canvas aloft, after her rig was reduced to three masts during the later 1870s. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, DC. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 6:  HMS Northumberland  in harbor while serving as the English Channel Squadron’s Second Flagship, 1890. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, DC. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 7:  HMS Northumberland, center, and HMS Agincourt (British broadside ironclad, commissioned in 1868), at left, photographed together while serving in the English Channel Squadron after 1879, when Northumberland was reduced from five-masted to three-masted rig, but prior to 1889, when Agincourt was placed in reserve. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, DC. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 8:  Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. View of Funchal harbor, taken by local photographer M.d.O. Perestrello during the 1870s or 1880s. Four British battleships are present, among them two of the three "five masters" (Minotaur, Agincourt and Northumberland). The ship at far right, partially hidden by the land, appears to be HMS Monarch. From the collection of Captain E.L. Bennett, USN. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

 

Named after a county in England, the 10,780-ton HMS Northumberland was a broadside ironclad battleship of the Minotaur class that was built by the Millwall Iron Works at Millwall, England. Northumberland was the third and final ship of the Minotaur class and was a modification of the type represented by HMS Minotaur and HMS Agincourt, the other two ships in the class. Northumberland was approximately 400 feet long and 59 feet wide, had a top speed of 14 knots, and had a crew of 800 officers and men. The ship was originally armed with an astonishing 48 68-pounder smoothbore guns, two 7-inch breech-loading guns, and eight 40-pounder guns, although this armament changed dramatically in later years.

Northumberland was of very similar appearance to the other two ships in her class, with five masts atop a long hull, but she had a shorter battery with an armored bulkhead at each end of the ship, plus an armored conning tower. Like her near sisters, she was laid down in 1861 and took a long time to complete. Her launching in 1866 encountered major problems, as she became stuck on the slipway and did not enter the water for a month. Further delayed by the financial collapse of her builders, the ship was finally commissioned in October 1868.

Northumberland’s first seven years of service was mostly spent with the English Channel Squadron, but in 1869 she was given a special task. In company with HMS Agincourt, Northumberland towed a large floating dry dock to Madeira, Portugal, where the ironclads HMS Warrior and HMS Black Prince took over and towed the dock to its final destination in Bermuda. While at the port of Funchal in Madeira, on Christmas Day 1872, her anchor chain parted during a storm and Northumberland drifted across the battleship HMS Hercules’ ram bow. Northumberland suffered serious underwater damage, but her compartmented iron hull limited the flooding and she was able to steam to Malta for repairs. The accident showed just how much punishment an ironclad of this class could withstand and still remain afloat.

Beginning in 1875, Northumberland underwent an extensive refit and overhaul, losing two of her five masts and receiving a new set of guns. After her overhaul was completed, Northumberland was armed with seven 9-inch muzzle-loading guns, 20 8-inch muzzle-loading guns, and two 20-pounder breech-loading guns. The ship rejoined the English Channel Squadron in 1879. Except for another period of dockyard refit from 1885 to 1887, Northumberland was active for the next decade, including a tour of duty as the Channel Squadron’s flagship.

Northumberland, though, was by now quite obsolete given the more modern steel battleships that were entering the Royal Navy. She was harbor bound from the early 1890s onward, initially in reserve and then as a stokers training ship (under the new name Acheron). In 1909, the ship was converted into a coal hulk and had 18 years’ service in this humble, yet important, role. Sold by the Royal Navy in 1927, the old former battleship was used as a hulk (now named Stedmound) at Dakar, Senegal, until 1935, at which point she was scrapped after almost 70 years of service.

HMS Black Prince

Figure 1:  HMS Black Prince at anchor with a steam launch alongside, circa the 1880s. Note the sheet anchor amidships, just below the forward funnel, and this ship's distinctive 15-foot figurehead. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 2:  HMS Black Prince at anchor with a steam launch alongside, circa the 1880s. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image. 

Figure 3:  Line engraving of HMS Black Prince published in Harper's Weekly, 1866. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 4:  "Jubilee" Fleet Review at Portsmouth, England, 23 July 1887. British warships anchored off Portsmouth, England, during the naval review held in honor of Queen Victoria's 50th year on the throne. Identifiable ships (all dressed with flags) include (from left to right): HMS Minotaur (with five masts); HMS Agincourt (with five masts); HMS Glatton (right center, in middle distance); HMS Black Prince (behind Glatton); and HMS Prince Albert (to the right of Glatton). A small yacht is steaming by in the right foreground. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.   

 

 

Figure 5:  "Jubilee" Fleet Review at Portsmouth, England, 23 July 1887. British warships firing salutes while anchored off Portsmouth, England, during the naval review held in honor of Queen Victoria's 50th year on the throne. Identifiable ships (all dressed with flags) include: HMS Minotaur (extreme left); HMS Agincourt (with five masts, in left distance); HMS Glatton (left center); HMS Black Prince (center, with three masts); and HMS Prince Albert (right center, nearest to camera). US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 6:  Original caption on this photograph was: “H M iron single screw battleship (later cruiser) H.M.S. Black Prince,” launched at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1861 and scrapped in 1923. Masts manned and flying flags as per a naval review prior to 1903. Photograph is from the book The Royal Navy : A History from the Earliest Times to the Present, Volume 7, by William Laird Clowes, published 1903 by S. Low, Marston and Company. London, England. Click on photograph for larger image.

 

Figure 7:  HMS Black Prince when she was used as a training ship in Queenstown Harbor, Ireland, 1898. Royal Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 8: Officers of HMS Black Prince in 1898. Royal Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image. 

Figure 9:  The crew of HMS Black Prince in 1898. Royal Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image. 

Figure 10:  Sail instruction on board HMS Black Prince when she was used as a training ship, circa 1898. Royal Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image. 


Built by Robert Napier & Sons at Glasgow, Scotland, the 9,200-ton HMS Black Prince was an ironclad frigate that was completed on 27 September 1862. She was the third ship in the Royal Navy to bear that name and was the second ocean-going, iron-hulled, armored warship, following her sister ship, HMS Warrior. For a brief period in naval history, the two Warrior class ironclads were the most powerful warships in the world, their armor being nearly impregnable to the naval guns that existed at that time.  Black Prince was approximately 420 feet long and 58 feet wide and had a crew of 707 officers and men. The ship was armed with 26 smoothbore muzzle-loading 68-pounder guns, 10 rifled breech-loading 110-pounder guns, and four rifled breech loading 40-pounder guns. Black Prince was equipped with sails and one two-cylinder steam engine that produced 5,772 horsepower, giving the ship a top speed of 13.6 knots under steam power alone. Both Black Prince and Warrior were also rigged with 48,400 square feet of sail. Black Prince, though, could only do 11 knots under sail, two knots slower than Warrior. 

After entering service, Black Prince was assigned to the Royal Navy’s English Channel Fleet until 1866, then spent a year as flagship off the coast of Ireland. The ship was overhauled and re-armed from 1867 to 1868 and then became the guard ship on the Clyde River. The routine of that duty was interrupted in 1869, when she and her sister ship, HMS Warrior, towed a large floating dry dock from the Azores to Bermuda. 

Black Prince was again overhauled from 1874 to 1875 and then rejoined the Channel Fleet as the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir John Dalrymple-Hay, second-in-command of the Royal Navy. In 1878, Captain H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh took command of Black Prince and the ship crossed the Atlantic to participate in the installation of a new Governor General of Canada. After returning to England, Black Prince was placed in reserve at Devonport and re-classified as an armored cruiser. The ship was re-activated periodically to participate in annual fleet exercises. 

Unfortunately, rapid advances in naval armament and technology, as well as the manufacture of new steel warships, soon made ironclads like Black Prince and Warrior obsolete. No longer capable of confronting steel battleships, Black Prince became a harbor training ship in 1896, stationed at Queenstown, Ireland. She was re-named Emerald in 1903. In 1910, the ship was taken to Plymouth for use as a training ship and was re-named Impregnable III. The old ship was eventually sold for scrapping in 1923, after a career spanning an amazing 61 years. 

Ships like Black Prince and Warrior bridged the gap between wooden warships and the new steel battleships that were built towards the end of the nineteenth century. For a limited period in naval history, ironclads were the most powerful warships in the world.