Victorian Royal Navy

The history of the Royal Navy under Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901) began in the confidence of the post-Trafalgar era and ended in a Dreadnoughts arms race which outlived Victoria and continued until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

1850s

Crimean War

Naval arms race

1860s

Another naval arms race ensued in this decade.

1870 to 1889

"The 'Dark Ages' of the Victorian Navy" is a phrase coined by Dr Oscar Parkes. [ Parkes, "British Battleships", p 230.] for the period from 1870 to 1889 during which the Navy maintained its global dominance at low cost.

Parke's View

"The ten years after the laying-down of the "Alexandra" and "Temeraire" [in 1873] may well be called the 'dark ages' of the Victorian Navy. For six years the Conservatives were in power, during which time the Service was openly neglected. For his first year in office the First Lord was Mr. Ward Hunt, who although anxious to do his best for the Service proved quite unable to make any stand against Disraeli's policy of drastic naval economy, and may well be remembered as our most ineffective naval administrator… [He] was a sick man for most of his term of office and died in 1877." [ Parkes, "British Battleships", p 230.]

"Although the cost of individual ships was rising rapidly, the Estimates were kept at round about £11 millions, and our administration was mainly a matter of waste and reckless economy which might well have succeeded in endangering the peaceful security of the Empire… Naval construction was reduced to five armoured ships in five years." [ Parkes, "British Battleships", p 230.]

"But apart from the parsimonious attitude of the Treasury some excuse for lack of stronger action on the part of the Board may be found in the general tendency to question whether the big battleship could still be regarded as the foundation of naval strength. With her very status under question and very element of her being – gun-power, armour, speed and size – subjects for the keenest controversy, it is not surprising that the Admiralty were constrained towards a policy of delay and caution while its mind was being made up." [ Parkes, "British Battleships", p 230.]

A Contemporary View of the State of the Royal Navy in the mid-1870s

"The total strength of the British navy in 1877 was 533 vessels, of 677,883 tons, and which carried 5080 guns, some being of the enormous weight of 81 tons. It should be explained, however, that more than half of these were returned as ‘in reserve and building’, the number in commission being 230 ships, with a tonnage of 307,072 tons and 1939 guns. The ironclad fleet comprised 61 vessels, many of which were of far more powerful construction than those of any other nation in the world. … There served in the fleet in commission 25,500 officers and men, 2854 boys, and 6385 marines, being a total naval complement of 34,770." ["The National Encyclopaedia", Volume IX. p 405.]

Cost

"The cost of the navy in 1877, as will be seen below, was about £10,700,000, as compared with about £6,000,000 in France, £4,000,000 in the United States, £2,500,000 in Russia, and £1,600,000 in Germany. The naval charges in the case of France, however, include those for the administration of the colonies, both being under the same minister." ["The National Encyclopaedia", Volume IX. p 405.]

"The cost of the British navy in 1850 was £6,492,397; 1854-55 (during the Russian War), £14,490,105; 1856, £19,754,585; 1859, £9,215,487; 1861, £13,331,668; 1863, £11,370,588; 1867, £10,676,101; and in 1872 £9,900,486." ["The National Encyclopaedia", Volume IX. p 407.]

Personnel

"Within the last few years there has been a very marked improvement in the character and general intelligence of the men in the royal navy, a result doubtless partly due to the far higher standard of education now fixed for naval officers. Till 1873, the only effort to encourage scientific study among naval offices was due to a small college at Portsmouth; but thanks to the energy and persistent efforts of Dr. Wooley, the late director of education to the Admiralty, scientific education in the navy, conducted continuously and efficiently is now considered essential, instead of being as formerly permissive. The necessary machinery for carrying this into effect is supplied at Dartmouth by the Britannia, for the instruction of cadets before they go to sea, by the appointment of naval instructors while they are at sea, before receiving their commissions, and by the Naval College, which completes their training and offers them afterwards when on half-pay the opportunity of voluntary study." ["The National Encyclopaedia", Volume IX. p 407.]

The "Two-Power Standard"

The "Dark Ages" ended with the Naval Defence Act of 1889, passed by the government of Lord Salisbury and facilitating the spending of an extra £20 million on the Royal Navy over the following four years. This was the biggest ever peacetime expansion of the navy : ten new battleships, thirty-eight new cruisers, eighteen new torpedo boats and four new fast gunboats. Traditionally (since the Battle of Trafalgar) Britain had possessed a navy one-third larger than their nearest naval rival but now the Royal Navy was set to the Two-Power Standard; that it would be maintained "to a standard of strength equivalent to that of the combined forces of the next two biggest navies in the world". [Andrew Roberts, Salisbury: Victorian Titan (Phoenix, 2000), p. 540.] This was aimed at France and Russia.

ee also

*History of the Royal Navy#Pax Britannica, 1815–1895
*History of the Royal Navy#Age of the battleship, 1895–1919
*Fleet Review#Queen Victoria

Notes

References

Parkes, Oscar "British Battleships", first published Seeley Service & Co, 1957, published United States Naval Institute Press, 1990. ISBN 1-55750-075-4

"The National Encyclopaedia", Library Edition, pub William Mackenzie, mid-1870s, Volume IX.