3-077-758 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

H.M.S. Trafalgar, steel armoured twin-screw turret-ship, 11, 940 tons, armed with four 67-ton guns, 1890. 'The gunnery trials of this new and powerful ship of war, launched at Portsmouth in 1887, and now shortly to be commissioned for active service, took place on Feb. 22...The Trafalgar, designed by Messrs. Barnes and Morgan, of the Construction Department of the Admiralty, is...built of steel, having two screw-propellers, with engines of 12,000 indicated horse-power, and has cost £863,000 for hull and engines. Her side-armour plating is 16 in. to 20 in. thick...The turret-guns are four 67-ton breech-loading rifled, and she carries eight five-inch rifled guns, eighteen quick-firing guns, and four mortars, with six torpedo-tubes. The speed of this ship is 16.50 knots an hour; her bunkers carry 1200 tons of coal, and she can steam 6500 miles with that supply of fuel...The change in the mounting of the guns, with the results of experience, has made it possible to introduce various modifications and improvements in the hydraulic loading-gear; which is not only better placed in consequence of the less confined spaces in which it works, but is simpler and much easier to handle and control'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.