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Home » War and Rebellion » Arms and equipment » Warships

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A German prize war ship, taken during the First World War
  • The 'HMS Duke of Wellington', the once-famous flagship of Sir Charles Napier, was launched at Pembroke Dock in 1852. She is pictured here before her towering masts and sails were added. Throughout the 1850s, Pembroke Dockyard produced the last of the Royal Navy's great wooden line of battleships and played a pioneering role in the development of early steam propulsion. 'HMS Duke of Wellington' and other big wooden liners of the decade were converted while building to carry steam, being 'cut asunder' on the slips and lengthened to make room for boilers and engines. The three-decker 'HMS Duke of Wellington' was initially launched as the 'HMS Windsor Castle' on 14 September 1852, the same day as the Iron Duke died at Walmer. Her name was changed in his honour a few days later. 'HMS Duke of Wellington', manning 131 guns, served as a flagship in the Baltic during the Russian War. She was later relegated to harbour service and used as one of the depot ships for berthing the men of the Portsmouth Dockyard Reserve. Source: Lawrence Phillips, 'Pembroke Dockyard' in David W. Howell (ed.), 'Pembrokeshire County History. Volume IV. Modern Pembrokeshire 1815-1974' (Haverfordwest: Pembrokeshire Historical Society, 1993), p. 158.
The battleship 'HMS Duke of Wellington', 1852
  • The front page of a special edition of the Central Wales News and Radnorshire Standard with the latest reports from the Great War. Published at 6.30 pm on a Sunday evening, 30 August 1914, the paper notes that 'the Navy has accounted for a good 'bag' of enemy warships at very little cost. The German navy gunnery, evidently, is not of a high standard'.
First World War newspaper, Radnorshire, August 1914, front page [image 1 of 3]
  • The Riverton was a commercial vessel, torpedoed by the Germans off Land's End in 1945. It was towed to Swansea Docks for repair, but broke in two in Swansea Bay. Its stern was left in the sea off Mumbles Head, and remained there for many years, whilst its bow was made sea-worthy at Swansea, and towed to the Tyne for repair.
The 'Riverton', pictured 28 April 1905 [image 1 of 2]
  • The bow of the Riverton, having been made seaworthy at Swansea Docks, leaving for the Tyne where it was repaired. The stern remained in the sea off Mumbles Head, until it was blown up.
Bow of the 'Riverton', leaving Swansea for the Tyne, c.1945 [image 2 of 2]
  • Captain John Macgregor Skinner RN, Comptroller of the Angesey Hunt 1810. Skinner was born in Perth Amboy, North America, in 1760, the son of Courtland Skinner, Brigadier-General in the English Army. In 1776 he joined the Royal Navy and was an officer on the HMS Phoenix during the War of American Independence. Skinner had lost the sight of one eye as a boy and was wounded and lost an arm in combat. In 1793 he joined the Post Office shipping service and for a number of years he commanded the Holyhead to Ireland packet. He was drowned at sea in 1832 after both he and his mate were washed overboard during a storm. A monument was erected in his memory in Holyhead, paid for by contributions from the people of the town. This image is from a scrapbook compiled c. 1947 by Edith and Gwendolen Massey, Cornelyn, Beaumaris. The scrapbook provides a detailed history of the Anglesey Hunt and contains a number of coloured illustrations and photographs. The Anglesey Hunt boasts the title of being the oldest hunt in Britain: its earliest minute book dates back to 1757.
Anglesey Hunt Scrapbook, volume 1 [image 8 of 14]