our iron clad fleet h m s minotaur built on the thames armored battleship steamer battery 1865
HMS Minotaur, a 10,690-ton broadside ironclad built at Blackwall, England, was one of six vessels built to the original British concept of an armored battleship: a very long and relatively fast iron-hulled steamer, carrying an extensive sail rig and a large broadside battery of medium-sized (by emerging standards) guns. She was also one of the three completed with five masts and, with her sister, HMS Agincourt, had her gun deck almost completely coated with iron armor, a longer expanse of protection than fitted to the other four ships of the type. Minotaur took a long time to reach active service: keel laid in September 1861, launched in December 1863, completed for experimental service in 1865 and commissioned in April 1867 (though some standard sources don't have her completed until December 1868). During the next twenty years, with time out for refit and rearmament in 1873-1875, Minotaur was flagship of the Channel Squadron, flying the flags of a dozen Admirals. Other than the pomp and circumstance of flagship duty, her career was relatively free of notable events. In 1868 she nearly sank HMS Bellerphon in a collision, and in July 1882 missed by a day the Royal Navy's only battleship combat action of her era, the bombardment of Alexandria, Egypt. Present at Spithead during Queen Victoria's Jubilee Naval Review in mid-1887, she was decommissioned at the end of that year. Now thoroughly obsolete, Minotaur was placed back in service in 1893 as a harbor training ship, first at Portland and, from 1905 to late 1919, at Harwich. As was often the case for such subsidiary service vessels, she was renamed several times, becoming Boscawen II in 1904, Ganges in 1906 and Ganges II in 1908. The old battleship was sold for scrapping in 1922.
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Photo credit: © 19th era / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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