Talk:HMS Prince of Wales (1860)/Archive 1

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Should not this article be moved to HMS Britannia (1860)? It was the final name of the ship and as such educated the majority of flag officers of the Royal Navy in the First World War and is notable as such. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 21:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No, it shouldn't be at HMS Britannia (1860) - there was no such ship. I have no objections to the article being at Britannia instead of Prince of Wales, as the reason given is quite sufficient for that, but it should be HMS Britannia (1869), with HMS Prince of Wales (1860) acting as a redirect to it. Martocticvs (talk) 15:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That conflicts with the advice given at Naming conventions (ships). It also makes no sense to me giving the year of the change of name rather than the year of launch. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 15:16, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Scratch what I said - it's the opposite of what I have done myself in the past! Current title is correct as you say. Martocticvs (talk) 18:23, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This ship was a major capital ship as Prince of Wales. The idea of naming the article after when it was a hulk is an absolute horror.--Toddy1 (talk) 19:11, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * See your talk page (drift repeated here:). H.M.S. Prince of Wales was never actually completed as a "major capital ship" and never went to sea under sail or steam and being fitted with only a foremast (see Captain S. W. C. Pack, R.N., Britannia at Dartmouth, p. 41).  And as a "hulk" Britannia was officially the school for the training of naval cadets.  In every decent biography of a naval officer out there from 1869 to 1905 you will see, "entered training ship Britannia" or some variation.  Not Prince of Wales. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 19:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The only reason I spotted that you had moved this article to Britannia was that I wanted to quote this ship as an example in Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(ships). This is a a capital ship. I wanted an example of a ship where the ship was better known as a hulk than as a warship. Nevertheless the idea that somebody would actually want to have the article on a major warship given the name it had as a training hulk is utterly astonishing.--Toddy1 (talk) 21:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

In the wooden ships era warships were managed differently from now. Whereas with modern ships the key date is completion, the key date with wooden sailing ships was launching. The process of "completing for sea" was something that was normally done by the crew; guns, masts and spars were standard items that were obtained from stores and were installed by the crew. With the screw two and three-deckers designed in the 1840s and 50s the key date is presumably the date of trials, since the boilers and engines must have been in full order at this date. In peacetime it was common for major warships to be kept "in ordinary" for years before being commissioned. Some 19th Century major warships spent most of their front line careers "in ordinary" – the Nelson is an extreme example. The Prince of Wales spent from 1860 to 1867 "in ordinary". During this time she was available to be commissioned for sea if needed. She was just as much part of the Royal Navy's front line strength as a warship in commission today.

There is a need for two articles:
 * One on the battleship Prince of Wales. That is what this article is.
 * One on the Britannia training establishment. This establishment has gone through a number of changes of name and premised.  The ex-Prince of Wales formed the major part of its premises from 1869 to 1905.  The article on this may be found at Britannia Royal Naval College].

I think the argument that this article should be renamed Britannia is based on a misapprehension about the status of the Prince of Wales from 1860 to 1867. If we were to allow the article to be renamed Britannia it would open the door to other name changes for ships whose front line lives were largely or entirely spent "in ordinary". This would render the naval history of early and mid 19th Century naval procurement very confusing, especially with capital ships as they were expensive to man in peacetime, and therefore particularly likely to be "in ordinary".--20.133.0.13 (talk) 12:50, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Seems to me this particular article should be named Prince of Wales because that's what the article is mostly about. There are only a couple of lines about the ship's history as Britannia. It would be incongruous to have an article named one thing when the bulk of the article is about another. Gatoclass (talk) 04:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Image by Henry J. Morgan
Is it HMS Britannia (ex HMS Prince of Wales) or previous one? --Maxrossomachin (talk) 11:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hard to be sure. Possibly this one, she was still in service by 1899, though the painting is clearly a retrospective one. At the time of painting, this Britannia was a moored hulk, whereas in the picture she is a fully masted seagoing vessel. However there is no sign of the midships funnel she would have had while as an active warship under the name Prince of Wales. Possibly a mistake on the part of the painter, or a deliberate pastiche. Otherwise there is little at this level of detail to tell the two apart, both Britannias were three-decked first rates. Benea (talk) 12:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)