Author : Percival A. Hislam
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780666388469
Total Pages : 100 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (884 download)
Book Synopsis The Navy of To-Day (Classic Reprint) by : Percival A. Hislam
Download or read book The Navy of To-Day (Classic Reprint) written by Percival A. Hislam and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-02-26 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Navy of to-Day The establishment of the national dockyards was an im portant step in the development of our naval forces. Woolwich has been described as the mother-dock of England, but there seems little doubt that Portsmouth was actually the first to be established, the date being 1495. The Thames yard followed shortly after, Chatham in 1510, and Deptford in 1513; and for nearly two hundred years these sufficed, for it was not until 1691 that Devonport dockyard was opened, followed by Sheerness in 1712 and Pembroke in 1812. For some years past Portsmouth and Devonport have been the only national yards to undertake the con struction of large ships. In point of fact they cannot be said really to build them, as their work consists mainly in putting together the materials supplied by the great con tracting firms in the north. Chatham and Pembroke still build small ships of the cruiser classes, and submarines are also built at the latter place; but Sheerness has been special ised as a repairing yard for torpedo-craft. So far as ship building is concerned, Woolwich and Deptford ceased to exist in 1869. Some idea of the amount of work dealt with in these establishments may be obtained from the numbers of workmen employed in them. On July 1, 1913, the figures were: Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, 9200; Sheerness, 2250; and Pembroke, 2120: the whole exceeding the population of Lancaster. A great new naval establishment is in course of construction at Rosyth, on the Firth of Forth, and this is to be completed in 1916. As at present intended, however, this will be used exclusively for repairs, and not for shipbuilding. From the time of the defeat of the Spanish Armada down to the introduction of iron Shipbuilding there were no great or far-reaching changes in warship design. Naval architecture, of course, improved, and ships increased considerably in Size; but the guns which were mounted in our first ironclad, the Warrior, fired a shot only two pounds greater in weight than that of the heaviest guns mounted in our Ships at the Armada. The Sovereign of the Seas, launched at Woolwich in 1637. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
