Naval Reforms

Question 1

Why did the Navy reduce in size after 1815

Answer 1

• Congress of Vienna in 1814-15 ushered a new era of peace in Europe
• there became a question of how much was needed in terms of Naval size

Question 2

How and why did the role of the British navy change after 1815

Answer 2

• no other navy of any significance left in the world
• what was important was to police the British trade routes and protect British commerce
• secure the growth of the British Empire
• Britain abolished slave trade in 1807 and the Royal Navy where in charge of enforcing this
• most of the battleships that fought Nap were decommissioned
• became prison hulks or floating supply depots

Question 3

how battleships were in active duty in 1817

Answer 3

• only 13

- the main strength of the navy was in frigates, sloops and brigs which could work with impunity around the world

Question 4

what was gunboat diplomacy

Answer 4

• we have the biggest and best ships and naval hegemony so don’t pipe up and test us because we will win
• tool for political persuasion
• seaborne police force
• Algiers (1816) and Acre (1840) are examples of this
• both bombarded by the navy as retaliation for acts thought to be against British interests

Question 5

discuss the speed of the shift from sail to steam and why

Answer 5

• first were commissioned in 1820s but the transition was slow
• deeply conservative sea lords were suspicious of the new power source
• they found it unreliable compared to traditional methods of sail
• 1828 - request made for a new steamer to take mail from Malta to Ionian Islands
• request dismissed by Melville

Question 6

what did Melville (first Lord of the Admiralty) declare about steam ships

Answer 6

• the introduction of steam was calculated to strike a fatal blow to the naval supremacy of the Empire

Question 7

what did Melville’s successor James Graham think about a shift from sail to steam

Answer 7

• he oversaw the first operational steamships
• HMS Medea was a small battleship propelled by a steam driven paddle
• HMS Gladiator was a larger battleship with the same means of propulsion
• he thought that steamships were only suitable for ancillary tasks like moving supplies or as tugs for larger ships but he still did more than Melville

Question 8

what is a disadvantage of the steam powered paddle that propelled the ships

Answer 8

• vulnerable to enemy fire and being in the middle of the ships it prevented it from firing a full broadside

Question 9

what happened in the 1850s in regard to the shift from sail to steam

Answer 9

• the Navy began a programme of building steam-powered battleships using a screw propeller rather than a paddle

Question 10

who was the first to begin introducing steam engines and screw propellers

Answer 10

the French

- introduced them to frigates in the early 1940s

Question 11

why did Britain start adding steam to their frigates in 1945

Answer 11

• they were worried the French had stolen the march

Question 12

HMS Agamemnon

Answer 12

• built 1852

- still had full sail rigging

Question 13

HMS Devastation

Answer 13

• 1973

- first steam powered ship without rigging

Question 14

discuss the issue with wood

Answer 14

• it struggled to carry the weight of steam engines and coal needed to power them
• Wooden hulls could only carry their equivalent weight and so were limited to a small size steam engine
• needed iron hulls to carry the engines

Question 15

discuss ironcladding

Answer 15

• wooden hulls but with iron sheets on the outside

Question 16

when did the French start building iron clad hulls and how did the Royal Navy respons

Answer 16

• 1858

- the Royal Navy responded with the first fully iron warship, HMS warrior in 1860

Question 17

what was another reason from the shift from wood to iron aside from the weight of steam engines

Answer 17

• increasing size of guns
• designs for a new revolutionary canon in the late 1850s was larger than previous and so needed a bigger ship
• HMS warrior was equipped with the Armstrong Whitworth 110 pounders
• as iron warships got bigger so did the guns

Question 18

what happened when the guns got so big in the late 1850s

Answer 18

• they became so big they needed to be mounted in on-deck turrets rather than below the deck
• brought the end of the full broadside
• the created more damage which saw a further need to move away from wooden ships - iron cladding

Question 19

when were the Graham reforms

Answer 19

1832

Question 20

what were the Graham reforms

Answer 20

• he reversed the policy of naval descaling
• began a programme of refitting existing ships and building new ones
• believed Britain’s global position depended on it and that the navy had been reduced too much.

Question 21

what size fleet did the Royal Navy have in 1830

Answer 21

• investment low due to gun boat diplomacy and hegemony after French wars
• a handful of large battleships with 120 or 80 guns
• most battleships carried between 60-74 guns
• largest number of vessels were frigates with 46 guns