Talk:List of ships of the line of the Royal Navy

Lost Years 1660-1677
Good progress, but we seem to have lost seventeen years somewhere. There is no reason why 1677 should be a start point for a new section of this article, I suggest you start it at 1660, and I shall add in the missing vessels. Rif Winfield 11:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine by me. I had meant to, but must have lost them along the way. Benea 12:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I have now added in the vessels (1st to 4th Rates), but would ask you to supply the stubs and links to them. Rif Winfield 16:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I must challenge the description of "Royal Navy of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom". This was never the Royal Navy of Scotland (which had its own warships); it was the Royal Navy of England until 1707, when it became the Royal Navy of Great Britain, and subsequently (in 1800, arguably) of the United Kingdom. Please leave as shown. Rif Winfield 17:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Incinerated Section
The following section seems to have been incinerated, and then replaced by a new structure. Was there a reason?

List of Line-of-Battle Ships of the Royal Navy (1660-1675)
The Royal Navy came formally into existence with the Restoration of Charles II (before the Interregnum, English warships had been the personal property of the monarch and were collectively termed "the King's Ships").
 * Number of main guns follows name (see Rating system of the Royal Navy)
 * These ships listed in the order of p160-162 The Ship of the Line Volume I, by Brian Lavery, pub Conways, 1983, ISBN 0-85177-252-8

Pre-War Construction

 * Second Rates
 * Royal Oak 76 (c. 1664) - Burnt 1667
 * Royal Katherine 84 (1664)

Second Dutch War Construction

 * Second Rate
 * Loyal London 80 (c. 1666) - Burned 1667
 * Third Rates
 * Cambridge 70 (c. 1666) - Wrecked 1694
 * Rupert 66 (c. 1666)
 * Defiance 64 (1666) - Burnt 1668
 * Warspite 70 (c. 1666)
 * Monmouth 66 (c. 1667)
 * Fourth Rates
 * Greenwich 54 (1666) - BU 1699 for rebuild
 * St Patrick 50 (1666) - Captured by the Netherlands 1667
 * St David 54 (1667) - Sank 1690, refloated, sold 1713

Inter-War Construction

 * 100-Gun Ships
 * Prince 100 (c. 1669/70) - Renamed Royal William 1692?
 * Royal James 100 (1671) - Burnt at the Battle of Solebay, 1672
 * Royal Charles 100 (1673) - Renamed Queen 1693, renamed Royal George, renamed Royal Anne 1756, BU 1767
 * 90-96-Gun Ships
 * Charles 96 (1668) - Rebuilt 1701.
 * St Michael 90 (c. 1668/69) – Rebuilt 1706 and renamed Marlborough
 * London 96 (c. 1670)
 * St Andrew 96 (c. 1670) - Renamed Royal Anne 1703, BU 1757
 * Third Rates
 * Resolution 70 (1667)
 * Edgar 72 (1668)

Third Dutch War Construction

 * First Rate
 * Royal James 100 (1675) - Renamed Victory 1691, rebuilt 1695
 * Third Rates
 * Swiftsure 70 (1673) – rebuilt 1696
 * Harwich 70 (1674) - Wrecked 1691
 * Royal Oak 74 (c. 1674) – rebuilt 1690
 * Defiance 64 (1676) – rebuilt 1695
 * Fourth Rates
 * Oxford 54 (1674) – Enlarged 1702, rebuilt 1727
 * Kingfisher 46 (1676) - BU 1699 for rebuild
 * Woolwich 54 (1675) - BU 1702 for rebuild

Major Rebuilds

 * First Rate
 * Royal Prince 92 (1663) – Burnt by the Dutch 1666
 * Second Rate'
 * Victory 82 (1665) – broken up 1691
 * Third Rate
 * Montague 62 (1675) – Rebuilt 1698
 * Fourth Rate
 * Constant Warwick 42 (1675) – Captured 1691

Captured Ships

 * Ruby (c. 1664, ex-French Rubis, captured 1666) – Hulk 1682, BU 1685
 * Stavoren (ex-Dutch, captured 1672) - Sold 1682
 * Arms of Rotterdam (ex-Dutch, captured 1673) – Hulk 1675. BU 1703

Other Captured Ships, where the provenance of the data is unknown

 * The following ships are not listed in The Ship of the Line Volume I, by Brian Lavery


 * Golden Lion 34/42 (ex-Dutch Gouden Leeuw, captured 1664)
 * Unity 34/42 (ex-Dutch Eendracht, captured 1665) - Captured by Netherlands 1667
 * Charles V 44/52 (ex-Dutch Carolus V, captured 1665) - Burnt 1667
 * Mars 44/52 (ex-Dutch Mars, captured 1665) - Sold 1667
 * (Black) Bull 34/40 (ex-Dutch Edam, captured 1665) - Captured by Netherlands 1666
 * Delfe 34/40 (ex-Dutch Delft, captured 1665) - Sold 1668
 * Zealand 34/40 (ex-Dutch Zeelandia, captured 1665) - Sold 1667
 * Young Prince 30/38 (ex-Dutch Jonge Prins, captured 1665) - Burnt 1666
 * Clove Tree 48/62 (ex-Dutch Nagelboom, captured 1665) - Captured by Netherlands 1666
 * Seven Oaks 44/52 (ex-Dutch Zevenwolden, captured 1665) - Captured by Netherlands 1666
 * West Friesland 44/54 (ex-Dutch Westfriesland, captured 1665) - Sold 1667
 * Black Spread Eagle 40/48 (ex-Dutch Groningen, captured 1665) - Sank 1666
 * Hope 34/40 (ex-Dutch Hoop, captured 1665) - Wrecked 1666
 * Guilder de Ruyter 42/48 (ex-Dutch Geldersche Ruiter, captured 1665) - Sold 1667
 * Saint Paul 34/40 (ex-Dutch Sint Paulus, captured 1665) - Sank 1666
 * Maria Sancta 42/50 (ex-Dutch Sint Marie, captured 1665) - Burnt 1666
 * Stathouse van Harlem 40/46 (ex-Dutch Raadhuis van Haarlem, captured 1667) - Scuttled 1690

Other Ships provenance of data unknown

 * The following ship is not listed in The Ship of the Line Volume I, by Brian Lavery


 * Falcon 42 (1666) - Captured by France 1694

The 1660-1677 section had been lost somewhere, so I created the new replacement. Comparing the two, all ships match except that I hadn't yet got around to listing the rebuildings. I'm quite happy to merge the two - retaining all data except the reference to the Falcon which (like the similar Sweepstakes, Nonsuch and Phoenix) was built in 1666 as a Fifth Rate (i.e. NOT a ship-of-the-line), although it was re-classed as a Fourth Rate in 1668. Give me a couple of days to get around to that, as I'm away today. As regards the original Dutch names of the prizes captured, do we want them included in this table, or should they go into referenced article(s)? Rif Winfield 04:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Rif - please could you merge them. Regarding the original Dutch names of the prizes captured, yes I think we do need them. I have no problems with your deleting the Falcon (1666). The reason it was mentioned was that it was in a previous version of the list - however as it was not listed in Brian Lavery's book, I listed Falcon as 'provenance of data unknown'.

My long-term aim is that there should be a footnotes for each ship listing the sources. There is a clever way of doing that so that we do not end up with thousands of identical footnotes.--Toddy1 17:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

List of ironclad ships-of-the-line of the Royal Navy (1860–1882)
The ironclads of 1860 onwards should NOT be included with the ships-of-the-line. As mentioned elsewhere, the long tradition of sgips-of-the-line came to an end in (about) 1860. The battleship evolved out of the ironclad FRIGATE - the early ships like Warrior were in fact officially built and classified as frigates, never as ships-of-the-line. Rif Winfield 17:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Rif, you have a point of view, which is normally summarised as: "it's all new." This point of view has occurred many times in defence history. I don't share it.
 * British naval writing of the 1860s and 1870s called both the old steam two-deckers and three-deckers, and the new ironclads line-of-battle ships.
 * Yes it is true that the semi-armoured ships of the Warrior class were to a development of the large frigate concept. On that basis you could argue that Achilles (improved-Warrior) and the Minotaur class were a continuation of that development.  That's it.  With the exception of the Achilles, these ships were not well-regarded.
 * Other early ironclads were converted from Bulwark class 2-deckers. This produced ships that were similar to the purpose-built French La Gloire and her many half-sisters.
 * Broadside ironclads that conformed to the definition of a frigate were classed as ironclad frigates. This is a matter of the definition of naval terms in the English language - not of lines of development.  It has no bearing on their role.

I think the fairest assessment of your point of view is that it is not entirely false.

My own view is that the big break was steam. The reality is that there were a whole series of over-lapping naval revolutions in the 19th and 20th Centuries, and some of these to some extent cancelled out previous revolutions. [And this would make a good subject for an article.]

Wikipedia is meant to have a Neutral point of view. Having the List of ironclad ships-of-the-line of the Royal Navy (1860–1882) on both the List of ships of the line of the Royal Navy and the List of battleships of the Royal Navy pages is a reasonable neutral point of view compromise.--Toddy1 18:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This is true. They're also there because it was felt that a lot of people, including the average reader might be confused about how these ships are classed, whether they are battleships, ships-of-the-line, etc., so we cover them on the different pages to give enough overlap so where there is a gray area, people will still find what they are looking for.  Benea 19:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't deny that listing the ironclads as a 'cross-over' group in both pages is useful in that it enables the reader to switch at any point between 1860 and 1880. While of course the role of the capital ship evolved due to the overlapping technological modernisations of the early/mid Victorian basis, and the introduction of steam assistance obviously played its part in this, this was only one factor. In other respects the wooden screw ships-of-the-line were entirely conventional - wooden hulls, broadside batteries of smooth-bore cannon (no change, in fact, from the armament of the purely sailing three-deckers and two-deckers), and a full conventional three-masted rig (the steam power was added only for assistance in calm and in battle, not for ocean cruising). In fact, if you look at the construction of these vessels (rather than the role) it becomes very obvious that the steam-assisted ship-of-the-line was built very much along the lines of its predecessors. Incidentally, Toddy, if you have by now received your copy of "The Sail and Steam Navy List" (as I hope you have), you will find that it contains in the introductory section exactly the article on the overlapping technological revolutions that you requested above. Rif Winfield 19:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Temple Class 68-gun ships (1756/57 orders)
Rather than include these two vessels with the 64-gun ships, it would be clearer if you treat them - the final version of the classic 70-gun ship (they were actually built to the lines and dimensions of the 1745 Establishment 70s) - as "1745 Establishment, as amended in 1756" in exactly the same way as the preceding Burford Class has already been treated as "1745 Establishment, as amended in 1754". I have amended accordingly. Rif Winfield 07:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Rebuilds of HMS Rupert
The 1666 Rupert was rebuilt at least twice, with different dimensions in each case. This kind of rebuild consists of breaking up the ships and using as much as practical of the wood in the construction of a new ship.

Note that the description in Lavery of the 1713 Rupert says that the tonnage before the rebuild was 843 tons. This implies the ship had had major alterations (or another rebuild) between 1666 and 1713.--Toddy1 07:58, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This is true. Unfortunately such alterations were not always documented, particularly during the 17th century, but in this particular case we have confirmation that the dimensions before the "rebuilding" to which you refer were 119ft keel x 36ft 6in, giving a tonnage of 843 27/94 bm. It is likely that what took place during this period, to increase her breadth by 3 inches, was a girdling rather than a full rebuilding; however Admiralty records don't contain details.
 * There is however a misprint in the date when the next rebuilding took place - it should read 11.1703 rather than 10.1713. Plymouth records (for ready reference to a published source, let me cite Kenneth Burns's excellent 1972 book on "Plymouth Ships of War", published by the National Maritime Museum, although my own data direct from Admiralty records confirms the dates) shows that the Rupert was taken to pieces at Plymouth in 1697, and "was rebuilt in Plymouth Dockyard under the supervision of Mr Rosewell.
 * On the 5 October 1703, the Admiralty ordered that she be launched at the latter end of the month and be fitted in all respects for service in the Channel." However, Admiralty records show that the actual re-launch took place on 11 November 1703. In September 1736 "orders were issued to take her to pieces, which was done at Portsmouth in 1736 prior to again being re-built (from 27.6.1737 to 27.10.1740 launch and 26.12.1740 completion) as a 60 guns ship of 1,070 tons burthen at Sheerness in 1740."
 * The Dimensions Book confirms the new tonnage from 1740 as 1,070 27/94 bm, equivalent to a keel length of 116ft 10in and a breadth of 41ft 6in (slightly more than the figures quoted in the article, which do not mathematically equate to the quoted tonnage). Rif Winfield 17:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The National Archives and ships of the line
The National Archives' Your Archives wiki requires information on many ships of the line. (See "Wanted pages"). Jackiespeel (talk) 17:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Citation issue
Many of the footnotes refer to an author by the name of "Lyons". However, the references list a "Lyon", which appears to be the correct spelling. How can we reconcile the footnotes with the reference list?Acad Ronin (talk) 16:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed.--Toddy1 (talk) 18:59, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * FYI, Acad, this was my late colleague and co-author David Lyon (definitely not Lyons!) who sadly died in a diving accident in 2000 - he was an enthusiastic marine archaeologist, among other things. Rif Winfield (talk) 16:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Tonnage for wooden ships
I have noted that quite a few of the individual entries listed on this page include "Tons burthen" as a measure of size but cite it in the form of long tons with a metric equivalent. This is completely incorrect and misleading. Tons burthen is a nominal measure of ship size in volumetric units, with one ton equal to between 94 and 100 cubic feet (depending on period) of the product of three of the ship's main dimensions (which three also varies with period). It originated with attempts to represent ship size as the theoretical number of wine tuns (casks) which could be carried, although it was an approximation only. One wine tun did weigh something like a long ton (depending on the actual size of the cask), but to quote ship tonnage in weight tons in this period is meaningless. Tons burthen was eventually replaced by displacement as a measure of size for warships. It would be most accurate to remove the long ton and metric tonne references to all of these entries, but it would be tedious (especially the explanation on every edit page). Is there a simple way to do this? Fred Hocker (talk) 20:05, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I just fix it on the article itself whenever I come across it. Acad Ronin (talk) 20:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)