HMS Northumberland (1865)

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Career
Laid down:	October 10, 1861
Launched:	April 17, 1866
Commissioned:	October 8, 1868
Sold:	1927
Specification
Displacement:	10,784 tons
Length:	400 ft pp, 407 ft overall
Beam:	59 ft 6 inches
Draught:	27 ft 9 inches
Engine:	One-shaft Penn horizontal trunk I.H.P. = 6,545
Speed under power:	14.13 knots
Rig:	5 masts, sail area 32,377 sq. ft
Best sailing speed:	7 knots
Complement:	Nominal 705, actual 800
Designed armament:	Forty-eight 68-pounder smoothbore Two 7-inch breech loading rifles Eight 40-pounder breech loading rifles
Armament 1868	Four 9-inch muzzle-loading rifles Twenty-two 8-inch muzzle loading rifles Two 7-inch muzzle-loading rifles
Armament 1875:	Seven 9-inch muzzle-loading rifles Tweny 8-inch muzzle-loading rifles Two 20-pounder breech-loading rifles Four torpedo discharge carriages
Armour:	Battery 5.5 inches Belt 5.5 inches amidships, 4.5 inches fore and aft. Transverse bulkheads 5.5 inches. Conning tower 4.5 inches.

HMS Northumberland was a broadside ironclad warship of the Victorian era, and was the third ship of the Minotaur class to be commissioned.

Although she had been laid down as a sister to the other Minotaurs, she was altered while on the building slip after Sir Edward Reed succeeded Isaac Watts as Chief Constructor. It had originally been planned to arm her with smoothbore muzzle-loading cannon; the plans were revised to permit her to carry breech loading rifles manufactured by Sir Henry Armstrong; and by the time of her commissioning the Navy had reverted to the use of muzzle-loading rifles. It was decided to equip her with 9-inch and 8-inch muzzle loaders, as against 9-inch and 7-inch in her sisters. To compensate for the extra weight of these guns, the battery was reduced in length and the armour protection thereof was shortened.

She was initially designed with three masts, but she was completed with five in conformity with her sisters. Her first captain, Roderick Dew, had all of her yards painted black so that she could be visually distinguished from the other five-masted ships, whose yards were white.

Northumberland was on the building slip for five years, and when the time came to launch her construction was far advanced, and her weight was greater than the launch-weights of contemporary ships. She was stuck for an hour while the tide ebbed, then slid part-way down and came to a halt with her stern out of the water. She was persuaded into the water at the next spring tide by a combination of pontoons, jacks and tugs. While she was hung up her builders, Mare and Company, went into liquidation, causing further delay in her completion. Her first posting was to the Channel Fleet, where she remained until 1873. During this time she helped HMS Agincourt to tow the Bermuda dock to Madeira. She collided with HMS Hercules on Christmas Day, 1872, sustaining underwater damage. After repair she became Rear Flagship, Channel until 1875, and was then paid off for refit and re-armament. She returned to the Channel in 1879, and served there until 1885; she was refitted from 1885 to 1887, and then returned yet again to the Channel until 1890. She was in reserve at Portland until 1891, and at Devonport thereafter until 1898. Under the name Acheron she was a stoker training ship at The Nore until 1909, when she was converted into a coal hulk with the designation CD 68. She was sold in 1928 and transferred by her new owners to Dakar.

[edit] References

Oscar Parkes British Battleships ISBN 0-85052-604-3

Conway All the World's Fighting Ships ISBN 0-85177-133-5

[edit] External Reference

HMS Northumberland [1]