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'Warrior' (1860)

Launched on 29 December 1860 and completed less than a year later, HMS 'Warrior' was the first of Britain’s seagoing iron-built warships. The publicity that attended the appearance of this powerful ship, particularly with reference to Anglo-French rivalry at the time, has tended to obscure the fact that she was more the product of steady advances in warship design than a reaction to the sudden appearance of the ironclad 'La Gloire'. Never destined to be employed in combat, the 'Warrior' still proved herself a successful design. She was also a harbinger of the enormous technological changes which were to sweep through the Royal Navy over the following decades. Superior in general terms to all other warships afloat in 1861, she was overshadowed within five years by the newer and even more formidable HMS 'Achilles'. A valuable warship nonetheless, 'Warrior' lasted nearly 20 years before her active service came to an end in 1880.
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About this collection

Launched on 29 December 1860 and completed less than a year later, HMS 'Warrior' was the first of Britain’s seagoing iron-built warships. The publicity that attended the appearance of this powerful ship, particularly with reference to Anglo-French rivalry at the time, has tended to obscure the fact that she was more the product of steady advances in warship design than a reaction to the sudden appearance of the ironclad 'La Gloire'. Never destined to be employed in combat, the 'Warrior' still proved herself a successful design. She was also a harbinger of the enormous technological changes which were to sweep through the Royal Navy over the following decades. Superior in general terms to all other warships afloat in 1861, she was overshadowed within five years by the newer and even more formidable HMS 'Achilles'. A valuable warship nonetheless, 'Warrior' lasted nearly 20 years before her active service came to an end in 1880.

The plans from the Admiralty Collection held by the National Maritime Museum cover the technical story of this fascinating warship from her original inception in the late 1850s, the alterations carried out during her career with the fleet, her conversion to a depot ship in 1902, and her final relegation to an oil pipeline pier in 1945.