Design
Victoria was constructed at a time of innovation and development in ship design. She was originally to have been named Renown, but the name was changed before launching to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, which occurred the year that the ship was launched. Her arrival was accompanied by considerable publicity that she was the most powerful ironclad afloat, with the thickest armour, heaviest guns, as well as being one of the fastest and one of the largest ironclads. However, the design proved less successful in practice. The ship was nicknamed 'the slipper' (or with her sister ship Sans Pareil also attached to the Mediterranean squadron, 'the pair of slippers') because of a tendency for her low forecastle to disappear from view in even a slightly rough sea.
The forward deck held a single turret with two BL 16.25 in (413 mm) Mark I guns. Aft was a BL 10 in (250 mm) gun protected by a gun shield. This design, which followed that of the preceding ironclad battleship Conqueror, was a compromise from original intentions of having main armament fore and aft and meant the guns could only fire sideways or forward of the ship. The great weight of the turret meant that it had to be mounted low so as to improve the ship's stability, and that a similar gun could not be fitted aft. The 16.25 in (413 mm) gun was chosen because similar, large guns had been used in foreign ships, and because of difficulties in obtaining the navy's preferred 13.5 in (340 mm) design. The gun barrels were found to be so heavy that they drooped when installed on their mountings and could only fire 75 rounds before barrel wear became excessive. If the guns were fired forward, it was found that the recoil buckled the deck. Her main armour extended only along some 162 ft (49 m) of her total 340 ft (100 m) length varying from 16–18 in (41–46 cm) thick. By comparison, the French battleship Amiral Baudin, constructed at a similar time, had 21.5 in (55 cm) armour along her whole length. However, the British design produced a faster ship with greater range and larger guns.
She was the first battleship to be propelled by triple-expansion steam engines. These were constructed by Humphrys, Tennant and Company of Deptford and had cylinders of diameters 43 in (1,100 mm), 62 in (1,600 mm) and 96 in (2,400 mm) with stroke of 4 ft 3 in (1.30 m). They produced 12,000 ihp (8,900 kW) under forced draught, or 7,500 ihp (5,600 kW) under open draught. She was also the first Royal Navy ship to be equipped with a steam turbine, which was used to power a dynamo.
A detailed model of the ship was exhibited at the Royal Navy exhibition in 1892 and another in silver was given to Queen Victoria by the officers of the Navy and Royal Marines as a Jubilee gift.
Read more about this topic: HMS Victoria (1887)
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