HMS Warrior 1861, Portsmouth Dockyard

HMS Warrior was the first iron-hulled, armour-plated warship, built for the Royal Navy in response to the first ironclad warship, the French La Gloire, launched a year earlier.

When completed in October 1861, Warrior was by far the largest, fastest, most heavily armed and most heavily armoured warship the world had seen. She was almost twice the size of La Gloire and thoroughly outclassed the French ship in speed, armour, and gunnery.

Warrior did not introduce any radical new technology, but for the first time combined steam engines, rifled breech-loading guns, iron construction, iron armour, and the propeller in one ship, and all built to an unprecedented scale.

Here she is in the Autumn sun-shine. She never saw action and ended her days as an oil hulk at Milford Haven.

Now magnificently restored as a museum ship at Portsmouth.