HMS Warrior (1860)

Warrior
History
United Kingdom
Name	Warrior
Ordered	11 May 1859
Builder	Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Blackwall, London
Cost	£377,292
Laid down	About August 1859
Launched	29 December 1860
Completed	24 October 1861
Commissioned	1 August 1861
Decommissioned	31 May 1883
Renamed	Vernon III, March 1904 Warrior, 1 October 1923 Oil Fuel Hulk C77, 27 August 1942 HMS Warrior (1860), 1985
Status	Museum ship (50°47′54″N 01°06′32″W / 50.79833°N 1.10889°W / 50.79833; -1.10889)
General characteristics
Class and type	Warrior-class armoured frigate
Displacement	9,137 long tons (9,284 t)
Length	420 ft (128.0 m) (o/a)
Beam	58 ft 4 in (17.8 m)
Draught	26 ft 10 in (8.2 m)
Installed power	10 rectangular boilers 5,772 indicated horsepower (4,304 kW)
Propulsion	1 shaft; 1 Trunk steam engine
Sail plan	Ship rig
Speed	14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Range	2,100 nmi (3,900 km; 2,400 mi) at 11 kn (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Complement	706 officers and ratings
Armament	26 × Smoothbore muzzle-loading 68-pdr (206 mm) guns 10 × Rifled breechloading 110-pdr (178 mm) guns 4 × Rifled breechloading 40-pdr (121 mm) guns
Armour	Belt: 4.5 in (114 mm) Bulkheads: 4.5 in (114 mm)

HMS Warrior is a 40-gun steam-powered armoured frigate^{[Note 1]} built for the Royal Navy in 1859–1861. She was the name ship of the Warrior-class ironclads. Warrior and her sister ship HMS Black Prince were the first armour-plated, iron-hulled warships, and were built in response to France's launching in 1859 of the first ocean-going ironclad warship, the wooden-hulled Gloire. Warrior conducted a publicity tour of Great Britain in 1863 and spent her active career with the Channel Squadron. Obsolescent following the 1873 commissioning of the mastless and more capable HMS Devastation, she was placed in reserve in 1875, and was "paid off" – decommissioned – in 1883.

She subsequently served as a storeship and depot ship, and in 1904 was assigned to the Royal Navy's torpedo training school. The ship was converted into an oil jetty in 1927 and remained in that role until 1979, at which point she was donated by the Navy to The Maritime Trust for restoration. The restoration process took eight years, during which many of her features and fittings were either restored or recreated. When this was finished she returned to Portsmouth as a museum ship. Listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Warrior has been based in Portsmouth since 1987.
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