HMS Caledonia (1862)

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Career
Laid down:	1860
Launched:	October 24, 1862
Completed:	July 1865
Broken up:	1886
Specification
Displacement:	6,832 tons
Original length:	252 ft (76.8 m)
Length on conversion:	273 ft (83.2 m)
Original beam	57 ft (17.4 m)
Beam on conversion:	58 ft 6 inches (17.8 m)
Original draught:	25 ft (7.6 m) light, 26 ft 6 inches (8.1 m) deep load
Draught on conversion:	24 ft (7.3 m) light, 26 ft 9 inches (8.2 m) deep load
Engine:	One-shaft Maudsley horizontal reciprocating I.H.P. 3,750
Speed under power:	12.5 knots
Rig:	Single-topsail barque, sail area 25,000 sq. ft
Speed under sail:	11.5 knots
Complement:	605
Armament 1865:	Ten 7-inch breech loading rifles Eight 100-pounder smoothbore Twelve 68-pounder smoothbore
Armament 1867:	Four 8-inch muzzle-loading rifles Twenty 7-inch muzzle-loading rifles
Armour:	Battery and belt 4.5 inch amidships and 3 inch fore and aft

HMS Caledonia was a broadside ironclad of the Prince Consort class.

In common with her sisters, HMS Prince Consort and HMS Ocean, she was converted on the building stocks to an armoured frigate from a 91-gun second-rate line-of-battle ship. The three ships of the class were intended to be improvements on HMS Royal Oak, which ship is often referred to as a half-sister to the rest of the class. In reality, the greater engine power was offset by the greater engine weight and greater weight of coal which had to be carried, so that the class had almost a two foot greater immersion aft as compared to Royal Oak, which caused their performance to be essentially identical.

[edit] Service History

HMS Caledonia was not completed, at Woolwich, until July 1865 because of delay in the delivery of her main armament. Once this was installed, she was commissioned as Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet, becoming by so doing the first ever British armoured flagship. She was temporarily withdrawn from service in 1866 for reconstruction, which involved the addition of a poop. Following this, she was flagship of the Channel Fleet until 1867, when she paid off for re-armament. She was flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet until 1869 (relieving HMS Victoria, the last British three-deck flagship) until 1872. She was the guardship in the Firth of Forth from 1872 until 1875. She paid off at Plymouth, and was laid up there until she was sold on September 30, 1886.