HMS Iron Duke (1870)

Iron Duke at anchor
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Iron Duke
Namesake	Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Ordered	26 September 1867
Builder	Pembroke Dockyard
Cost	£208,763
Laid down	23 August 1868
Launched	1 March 1870
Completed	21 January 1871
Commissioned	1 April 1871
Decommissioned	1890
Reclassified	Converted to coal hulk, 1900
Fate	Sold for scrap, 15 May 1906
General characteristics
Class and type	Audacious-class ironclad
Displacement	6,034 long tons (6,131 t)
Tons burthen	3,774 (bm)
Length	280 ft (85.3 m) (p/p)
Beam	54 ft (16.5 m)
Draught	22 ft 7 in (6.9 m)
Installed power	4,268 ihp (3,183 kW) 9 rectangular boilers
Propulsion	2 shafts; 2 horizontal-return, connecting-rod steam engines
Speed	13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph)
Complement	450
Armament	10 × RML 9 in (229 mm) 12-ton rifled muzzle-loading guns 4 × RML 6.3-inch (160 mm) 71-cwt guns[Note 1] 6 × RBL 20 pdr 3.75 in (95 mm) rifled breech-loading guns
Armour	Waterline belt: 6 to 8 in (152 to 203 mm) Battery: 6 in (102 to 152 mm) Bulkheads: 4 to 5 in (102 to 127 mm)
Service record
Part of:	China Squadron 1871–75, 1877–83 (flagship) First Reserve Squadron 1875–77 Channel Fleet 1885–90

HMS Iron Duke was the last of four Audacious-class central battery ironclads built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. Completed in 1871, the ship was briefly assigned to the Reserve Fleet as a guardship in Ireland, before she was sent out to the China Station as its flagship. Iron Duke returned four years later and resumed her duties as a guardship. She accidentally rammed and sank her sister ship, Vanguard, in a heavy fog in mid-1875 and returned to the Far East in 1878. The ship ran aground twice during this deployment and returned home in 1883. After a lengthy refit, Iron Duke was assigned to the Channel Fleet in 1885 and remained there until she again became a guardship in 1890. The ship was converted into a coal hulk a decade later and continued in that role until 1906 when she was sold for scrap and broken up.
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