Transcriber’s Note
Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
THE EVOLUTION OF
NAVAL ARMAMENT
A SIXTY-GUN SHIP OF LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
From John Smith’s Sea-Man’s Grammar (1694 edition)
THE EVOLUTION OF
NAVAL ARMAMENT
BY
FREDERICK LESLIE ROBERTSON
ENGINEER COMMANDER, ROYAL NAVY
WITH EIGHT HALF-TONE PLATES AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD
10 ORANGE STREET LEICESTER SQUARE WC
1921
v
PREFACE
The notes on which these essays are based werecollected in the course of two commissions spentunder the lee of the Admiralty library, close to theRoyal United Service Institution, and in touch with theReading Room of the British Museum and other public sourcesof information.
The lack of a book describing in popular language thematerialistic side of naval history is, I think, generallyadmitted. Historians as a rule have devoted small space toconsideration of material; in particular, the story of therevolutionary changes in naval material which took placeduring the nineteenth century has never been placed beforethe public in convenient form. In the attempt to supply sucha description I have taken the liberty, as an engineer, of treatingof naval material as a whole; tracing, as well as mytechnical knowledge permits, the progress of all the threeprincipal elements—ship, gun, engine—and their interdependence.The result, faulty and incomplete as it is, maynevertheless be of considerable service, it is hoped, in clarifyingthe work of the historians and bridging the gap which dividesthe classic histories from our modern text-books.
I have considered our modern navy to begin with the“Admiral” class of battleship, about the year 1880.
My respectful thanks are due to the heads of three Admiraltydepartments: Captain R. H. Crooke, C.B., lately Director ofNaval Ordnance; Engineer Vice-Admiral Sir George Goodwin,K.C.B., LL.D., Engineer-in-Chief of the Fleet; and Sir EustaceT. D’Eyncourt, K.C.B., Director of Naval Construction; fortheir unofficial approval. I wish to acknowledge my indebtednessto the officials of the Admiralty and the R.U.S.I. libraries,vifor their invariable kindness; to the Directors of the British andS. Kensington Museums, for permission to reproduce picturesin their possession; to Mr. A. W. Johns, C.B.E., AssistantDirector of Naval Construction, Engineer Commander E. C.Smith, O.B.E., R.N., Mr. H. W. Dickinson, of the S. KensingtonMuseum, Mr. Edward Fraser, and Sir George Hadcock,F.R.S., R.A., of Elswick, for various help and criticism; andespecially to Mr. L. G. Carr Laughton, of the Admiraltylibrary, of whose advice and knowledge I have often availedmyself, and to whose encouragement the completion of thework has been largely due.
It only remains to state that the whole of the book is writtenand publishe