Service
Black Prince was ordered on 6 October 1859 from Robert Napier & Sons in Govan, Glasgow for the price of £377,954. The ship was laid down on 12 October 1859 and launched 27 February 1861. Her completion was delayed by a drydock accident at Greenock while fitting out, which damaged her masts. She steamed to Spithead in November 1861 with only jury-rigged fore and mizzenmasts. The ship was commissioned in June 1862, but was not completed until 12 September 1862. Black Prince was assigned to the Channel Fleet until 1866, then spent a year as flagship on the Irish coast. Overhauled and rearmed in 1867–68, she became guardship on the River Clyde. The routine of that duty was interrupted in 1869 when she and Warrior towed a large floating drydock from Madeira to Bermuda.
Black Prince was again refitted in 1874–75, gaining a poop deck, and rejoined the Channel Fleet as flagship of Rear Admiral Sir John Dalrymple-Hay, second-in-command of the fleet. In 1878 Captain H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh took command and the ship crossed the Atlantic to participate in the installation of a new Governor General of Canada. Upon her return Black Prince was placed in reserve at Devonport, and, reclassified as an armoured cruiser, she was reactivated periodically to take part in annual fleet exercises. Black Prince was hulked in 1896 as a harbour training ship, stationed at Queenstown, and was renamed Emerald in 1903. In 1910 the ship was moved to Plymouth and renamed Impregnable III when she was assigned to the training school HMS Impregnable before she was sold for scrap on 21 February 1923.
Read more about this topic: HMS Black Prince (1861)
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—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)