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HMS Polyphemus
Three ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS ''Polyphemus'', after the Polyphemus of Greek mythology. * was a 64-gun third rate launched in 1782, active in the Napoleonic Wars, converted to a powder hulk in 1813 and broken up in 1827. * was a wooden paddlewheel sloop launched in 1840 and wrecked off Jutland in 1856. * was a torpedo ram in use from 1881 to 1903. * The ''Polyphemus'' class was a semi-submerged torpedo cruiser armed with eight torpedoes, proposed in 1914. There had been an argument about the naval estimates at the start of 1914, with Liberal opinion, including Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George, objecting to ever-escalating naval expenditure, especially with a General Election due within a year or so. Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) wanted to substitute 15 submarines for one planned battleship and six ''Polyphemus''es for another. On 24 July 1914 Admiral Doveton Sturdee submitted two memos criticising the high cost of t ...
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Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the middle decades of the 17th century, and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superiority globally. Owing to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, to ref ...
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Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two Major party, major List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs (British political party), Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites and reformist Radicals (UK), Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century it had formed four governments under William Ewart Gladstone, William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule Movement, Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 United Kingdom general election, 1906 general election. Under Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed Liberal welfare reforms, reforms that created a basic welfare state. Although Asquith was the Leader of t ...
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Freeboard
In sailing and boating, a vessel's freeboard is the distance from the waterline to the upper deck level, measured at the lowest point of sheer where water can enter the boat or ship. In commercial vessels, the latter criterion measured relative to the ship's load line, regardless of deck arrangements, is the mandated and regulated meaning. In yachts, a low freeboard is often found on racing boats, for increased speed (by reducing weight and therefore drag). A higher freeboard will give more room in the cabin, but will increase weight and drag, compromising speed. A higher freeboard, such as used on ocean liners, also helps weather waves and so reduce the likelihood of being washed over by full water waves. A low-freeboard vessel is susceptible to taking in water in rough seas. Freighter ships and warships use high freeboard designs to increase internal volume, which also allows them to satisfy International Maritime Organization (IMO) damage stability regulations, due to in ...
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Doveton Sturdee
Admiral of the Fleet (Royal Navy), Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet (9 June 18597 May 1925) was a Royal Navy officer. After training as a torpedo officer, he commanded two different cruisers and then three different battleships before becoming commander of the 1st Battle Squadron (United Kingdom), 1st Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet. He went on to command the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and then the 2nd Cruiser Squadron. Just before the start of the First World War Sturdee became Chief of War Staff at the British Admiralty, Admiralty. In November 1914 the Royal Navy suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Coronel. In response Sturdee was sent to the South Atlantic Station, South Atlantic to seek out the German squadron, commanded by Graf Maximilian von Spee, which had caused the damage at Coronel. On 8 December 1914, while coaling at Stanley, Falkland Islands, Stanley, Sturdee encountered von Spee and the subsequent action became known as the B ...
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Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship,Stoll, J. ''Steaming in the Dark?'', Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 36 No. 2, June 1992. now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of into the United Kingdom's Royal Navy heralded a revolution in the field of battleship design. Subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS ''Dreadnought'', were referred to as "dreadnoughts", though the term eventually became obsolete as dreadnoughts became the only type of battleship in common use. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy.Sondhaus, L. ''Naval Warfare 1815–1914'', . A global arms race in battleship cons ...
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Submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and Autonomous underwater vehicle, robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub. Submarines are referred to as ''boats'' rather than ''ships'' irrespective of their size. Although experimental submarines had been built earlier, submarine design took off during the 19th century, and they were adopted by several navies. They were first widely used during World War I (1914–1918), and are now used in many navy, navies, large and small. Military uses include attacking enemy surface ships (merchant and military) or other submarines, and for aircraft carrier protection, Blockade runner, blockade running, Ballistic missile submarine, nuclear deterrence, reconnaissance, conventio ...
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First Lord Of The Admiralty
The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the direction and control of the Admiralty, and also of general administration of the Naval Service of the Kingdom of England, Great Britain in the 18th century, and then the United Kingdom, including the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, and other services. It was one of the earliest known permanent government posts. Apart from being the political head of the Naval Service the post holder was simultaneously the pre-eminent member of the Board of Admiralty. The office of First Lord of the Admiralty existed from 1628 until it was abolished when the Admiralty, Air Ministry, Ministry of Defence, and War Office were all merged to form the new Ministry of Defence in 1964. Its modern-day equivalent is the Secretary of State for Defence. History In 1628 ...
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Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five UK Parliament constituency, constituencies. Ideologically an Economic liberalism, economic liberal and British Empire, imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to Spencer family, a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British Raj, Br ...
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David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during the First World War, social reform policies including the National Insurance Act 1911, his role in the Paris Peace Conference, and negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State. Early in his career, he was known for the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and support of Welsh devolution. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister; the party fell into third party status shortly after the end of his premiership. Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, to Welsh parents. From around three months of age he was raised in Pembrokeshire and Llanystumdwy, Caernarfonshire, speaking Welsh. His father, a schoolmaster, died in 1864, and David was raised by his mother and her shoemaker brot ...
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Chancellor Of The Exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is a high-ranking member of the British Cabinet. Responsible for all economic and financial matters, the role is equivalent to that of a finance minister in other countries. The chancellor is now always Second Lord of the Treasury as one of at least six lords commissioners of the Treasury, responsible for executing the office of the Treasurer of the Exchequer the others are the prime minister and Commons government whips. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for the prime minister also to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer if he sat in the Commons; the last Chancellor who was simultaneously prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer was Stanley Baldwin in 1923. Formerly, in cases when the chancellorship was vacant, the L ...
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Torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such a device was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive, or fish torpedo; colloquially a ''fish''. The term ''torpedo'' originally applied to a variety of devices, most of which would today be called naval mine, mines. From about 1900, ''torpedo'' has been used strictly to designate a self-propelled underwater explosive device. While the 19th-century battleship had evolved primarily with a view to engagements between armored warships with naval artillery, large-caliber guns, the invention and refinement of torpedoes from the 1860s onwards allowed small torpedo boats and other lighter surface combatant , surface vessels, submarines/submersibles, even improvised fishing boats or frogmen, and later light aircraft, to destroy large shi ...
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Polyphemus
Polyphemus (; grc-gre, Πολύφημος, Polyphēmos, ; la, Polyphēmus ) is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's ''Odyssey''. His name means "abounding in songs and legends". Polyphemus first appeared as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the ''Odyssey''. The satyr play of Euripides is dependent on this episode apart from one detail; Polyphemus is made a pederast in the play. Later Classical writers presented him in their poems as heterosexual and linked his name with the nymph Galatea. Often he was portrayed as unsuccessful in these, and as unaware of his disproportionate size and musical failings. In the work of even later authors, however, he is presented as both a successful lover and skilled musician. From the Renaissance on, art and literature reflect all of these interpretations of the giant. Odysseus and Polyphemus Ancient sources In Homer's epic, Odysseus lands on the island of the ...
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