:HMS Penelope (1867)

File:HMS Penelope diagrams Brasseys 1888.jpg, 1888]]

The chief constructor, Sir Edward Reed, was ill, so the design of this ship was entrusted to his assistant and brother-in-law, Nathaniel Barnaby, himself a future chief constructor. For reasons that have not survived, the Admiralty required that Penelope to be a ship of unusually shallow draught, possibly in light of the operations in the shallow Baltic Sea during the Crimean War of 1854–1855.Parkes, p. 115

The ship was {{Convert|260|ft|m|1}} long between perpendiculars and had a beam of {{Convert|50|ft|m|1}}. She had a draught of {{Convert|15|ft|9|in|m|1}} forward and {{Convert|17|ft|4|in|m|1}} aft. Penelope displaced {{Convert|4394|LT|t|lk=on}} and had a tonnage of 3,096 tons burthen.Ballard, p. 241 She had a complement of 350 officers and ratings.Roberts, p. 15 She was the first British capital ship to be fitted with a washroom.Lambert, p. 170

Penelope had a pair of Maudslay three-cylinder, horizontal-return, connecting-rod steam engines, each driving a single {{Convert|14|ft|adj=on}} propeller. The engines used steam provided by four boilers with a working pressure of {{Convert|30.5|psi|kPa kg/cm2|0|abbr=on|lk=on}}. The ship reached a speed of {{Convert|12.76|kn|lk=in}} from {{Convert|4703|ihp|lk=on}} during her sea trials on 1 July 1868.Ballard, pp. 246–247 She carried a maximum of 500 tons of coal,Parkes, p. 114 enough to steam {{Convert|1360|nmi|lk=in}} at {{Convert|10|knots}}.

The shallow-draught requirement forced Barnaby to build her with twin screws, as a single screw of larger diameter would have been mounted insufficiently deep to be effective. The Admiralty also wanted hoistable propellers as the reports from {{HMS|Pallas|1865|2}} and {{HMS|Favorite|1864|2}}, with their fixed propellers, were distinctly uncomplimentary about their sailing qualities. She was the only twin-screw ship ever to have hoisting screws.Ballard, pp. 197–198 Provision for the hoisting frames and twin rudders forced a very unusual shape to the stern, which unintentionally greatly increased drag.Brown, p. 29 The other issue was that the shallowness of her draught made her very unhandy under sail, and she was described as "drifting to leeward in a wind like a tea tray".Parkes, p. 117 Penelope was ship-rigged with three masts and a sail area of {{convert|18250|sqft|m2|0}}. Her speed under sail alone was only {{convert|8.5|kn}}. Her shallow draught gave her a metacentric height of {{convert|2.7|ft|m|1}} at deep load, which made her a very steady gun platform.Parkes, pp. 114, 117

Penelope{{'}}s main armament of eight rifled muzzle-loading (RML) RML 8 inch gun was concentrated amidships in a box battery. The guns at the corners of the battery were given additional gun ports, embrasured into the sides of the hull, to give her a limited amount of end-on fire.Ballard, p. 198 The shell of the 8-inch gun weighed {{convert|175|lb|kg|1}} and was rated with the ability to penetrate {{convert|9.6|in|mm|0}} of wrought-iron armour.Roberts, p. 6 The ship mounted three rifled breech-loading (RBL) RBL 40 pounder Armstrong gun as chase guns, one in the stern and two under the forecastle in the bow, although these were judged to be very ineffective weapons. She also carried a pair of RBL 20 pounder Armstrong gun saluting guns.

The waterline wrought iron armour belt of Penelope covered her entire length. It was {{convert|6|in|mm|0}} thick amidships, backed by {{convert|10|-|11|in|mm|0}} of wood, and thinned to 5 inches towards the ends of the ship. It had a total height of {{convert|5|ft|6|in|m|1}}, of which {{convert|4|ft|m|1}} was below water and {{convert|1|ft|6|in|m|1}} above. The sides of the {{convert|68|ft|m|1|adj=mid|-long}} box battery were also 6 inches thick, and its ends were protected by {{convert|4.5|in|mm|0|adj=on}} bulkheads. Between the battery and the belt was a {{convert|96|ft|m|0|adj=mid|-long}} strake of 6-inch armour, also closed off by 4.5-inch bulkheads.

File:HMS Penelope by Henry Morgan.jpg

Penelope, named after the wife of Odysseus,Silverstone, p. 256 was the fifth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy.Colledge, pp. 263–64 She was ordered in February 1865Winfield & Lyon, p. 250 and was the first iron-hulled ship to be built at Pembroke Dockyard.Phillips, p. 187 The ship was laid down on 4 September and was launched by the wife of the new captain-superintendent of the dockyard, Captain Robert Hall, on 18 June 1867.Phillips, pp. 187–88

Penelope was completed at Devonport Dockyard on 27 June 1868 for the cost of £196,789 and served in the Channel Fleet until June 1869. She was then guard ship at Harwich until 1882, which included summer cruises in company with the rest of the reserve fleet. On 7 January 1876, the German merchant ship Victoria ran into her at Harwich, causing minor damage.{{Cite news |title=Shipping Intelligence |newspaper=Daily News |location=London |date=8 January 1876 |issue=9270 }} She was part of the Particular Service Squadron mobilised during the Russian war scare of June–August 1878. On 18 January 1881, she was driven from her moorings at Harwich and ran aground in the River Stour.{{Cite news |title=Extraordinary Gale & Snowstorm |newspaper=Essex Standard |location=Colchester |date=22 January 1881 |issue=2615 |page=5 |volume=51 }}

In 1882, she was at Gibraltar under command of Captain St George Caulfield D'Arcy-IrvineFamous Fighters of the Fleet, Edward Fraser, 1904, p. 310 when the Anglo-Egyptian War began, and her shallow draught caused her to be sent to Egypt. Upon arrival in Alexandria, she assisted with the evacuation of European refugees for several days before the bombardment of the city began on 11 July. Penelope was the ship closest to the Egyptian forts and fired 231 rounds during the battle.Goodrich, Caspar F (Lt Cdr), Report of the British Naval and Military Operations In Egypt 1882, Navy Department, Washington, 1885, p. 30 The ship was only lightly damaged by Egyptian shells, with eight men wounded, one eight-inch gun damaged and one mainyard needing to be replaced. She became Rear-Admiral Anthony Hoskins's flagship when the British seized the Suez Canal to allow their troop transports to land at Ismailia.Ballard, p. 200

On 11 March 1883, Penelope was run into by the steam collier Dunelm at Sheerness, sustaining minor damage.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Latest Shipping Intelligence |date=13 March 1883 |issue=30766 |page=11 |column=E }} Penelope returned home after the war for a further five years' service at Harwich. She was paid off in 1887, refitted, and sent to Simonstown, South Africa, as a receiving ship the following year. In January 1897, Penelope was converted to a prison hulk and then sold for scrap on 12 July 1912 for the price of £1,650. The ship was broken up at Genoa, Italy, in 1914.

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{Cite book|last=Ballard|first=Admiral G. A.|title=The Black Battlefleet |year=1980|publisher=Naval Institute Press|location=Annapolis, Maryland |isbn=0-87021-924-3|author-link=George Alexander Ballard}}
• {{Cite book|last=Brown|first=David K.|title=Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860–1905|year=1997|publisher=Chatham Publishing|location=Barnsley, UK|isbn=1-86176-022-1}}
• {{Cite Colledge2006}}
• {{Cite book |title= Warrior: Restoring the World's First Ironclad |last=Lambert |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Lambert|year=1987 |publisher=Conway Maritime Press |isbn=0-85177-411-3}}
• {{Cite book |last=Parkes |first=Oscar |title=British Battleships |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |year=1990 |orig-year=1957 |isbn=1-55750-075-4|author-link=Oscar Parkes}}
• {{Cite book|last=Phillips|first=Lieutenant Commander Lawrie|title=Pembroke Dockyard and the Old Navy: A Bicentennial History|date=2014|publisher=The History Press|location=Stroud, UK |isbn=978-0-7509-5214-9}}
• {{Cite book|title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905|editor1-last=Chesneau|editor1-first=Roger|editor2-last=Kolesnik|editor2-first=Eugene M.|publisher=Conway Maritime Press|chapter=Great Britain and Empire Forces|author-last=Roberts|author-first=John|location=Greenwich, UK|date=1979|isbn=0-8317-0302-4|name-list-style=amp|url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/conwaysallworlds0000unse_l2e2}}
• {{Cite book|last=Silverstone|first=Paul H.|title=Directory of the World's Capital Ships |year=1984|publisher=Hippocrene Books|location=New York|isbn=0-88254-979-0}}
• {{Winfield}}

• {{Commons category-inline|HMS Penelope (ship, 1867)}}

{{British ironclads}}

{{1881 shipwrecks}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Penelope (1867)}}

Category:1867 ships

Category:Battleships of the Royal Navy

Category:Maritime incidents in January 1876

Category:Maritime incidents in January 1881

Category:Ships built in Pembroke Dock

Category:Victorian-era battleships of the United Kingdom