The first HMS ''Wivern'' was an

ironclad An ironclad is a steam engine, steam-propelled warship protected by Wrought iron, iron or steel iron armor, armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships ...

turret ship built at

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

, England. She was one of two

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

s secretly ordered from the John Laird Sons & Company shipyard in 1862 by the

Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

. Her true ownership was concealed by the fiction that she was being built as the Egyptian warship ''El Monassir''. She was to have been named CSS ''Mississippi'' upon delivery to the Confederacy. Her sister was built under the false name ''El Tousson'' and was to have been renamed CSS ''North Carolina''. In October 1863, a few months after their launch and before they could be completed, the UK Government seized the two ironclads. In 1864, the Admiralty bought them and commissioned them into the

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 F ...

: ''El Monassir'' as HMS ''Wivern'' and ''El Tousson'' as . ''Wivern'' had a long Royal Navy career, until she was scrapped in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

in 1922.

Design and description

''Mississippi'' and her sister were intended, together with other warships, to break the Federal blockade of Confederate coastal cities and to hold some Northern cities for ransom.Scharf, p. 784 The ships had a length between perpendiculars of , a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of ,Gardiner, p. 20 and a draught of at

deep load The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into wei ...

. They displaced . The hull was divided by 12 watertight bulkheads and the ships had a

double bottom A double hull is a ship Hull (watercraft), hull design and construction method where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull ...

beneath the

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

and boiler rooms. Their crew consisted of 152 officers and ratings.Parkes, p. 78 The ''Scorpion''-class ships had two horizontal direct-acting steam engines, built by Lairds, each driving a single propeller shaft, using steam provided by four tubular

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central h ...

s. The engines produced a total of which gave the ships a maximum speed of . ''Wivern'' reached a maximum speed just over during her sea trials on 4 October 1865.Putnam, p. 14 The ships carried of coal, enough to steam at . They were barque-rigged with three masts. ''Wivern'' was the first ship to have tripod masts to reduce interference with the firing arcs of the

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

s. The funnel was made semi-retractable to reduce wind resistance while under sail.Parkes, p. 79 No ordnance had been ordered by the Confederates before the ships were seized in 1863, but in British service they mounted a pair of 9-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns in each turret. The guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells. According to Parkes, going from full depression to full elevation supposedly took one hour in smooth water and with an even keel! The ''Scorpion''-class ships had a complete waterline

belt Belt may refer to: Apparel * Belt (clothing), a leather or fabric band worn around the waist * Championship belt, a type of trophy used primarily in combat sports * Colored belts, such as a black belt or red belt, worn by martial arts practition ...

of wrought iron that was thick amidships and thinned to at the bow and at the stern. It completely covered the hull from the upper deck to below the

waterline The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water. Specifically, it is also the name of a special marking, also known as an international load line, Plimsoll line and water line (positioned amidships), that indi ...

. The armour protection of the turrets was quite elaborate. The inside of the turret was lined with of iron boiler plate to which T-shaped beams were bolted. The space between the beams was filled with of

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...

. This was covered by an iron lattice thick that was covered in turn by of teak. The iron plates were bolted to the outside using bolts that ran through to the interior iron "skin". The area around the gun ports was reinforced by 4.5-inch plates to give a total thickness of 10 inches. The turret roof consisted of T-shaped beams covered by iron plates.Putnam, p. 11

Construction and career

The British government seized the pair of ironclads in October 1863, before they could be completed. In early 1864, the Admiralty purchased both for the

. Completed in October 1865, ''Wivern'' was assigned to the Channel Fleet until 1868. After a refit that reduced her sailing rig from a barque to a

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

, the ship served briefly as a

guard ship A guard ship is a warship assigned as a stationary guard in a port or harbour, as opposed to a coastal patrol boat, which serves its protective role at sea. Royal Navy In the Royal Navy of the eighteenth century, peacetime guard ships were usual ...

Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

and then went into reserve. In 1880 she was dispatched to

to serve as the station

there. The naval architect

Edward James Reed Sir Edward James Reed, KCB, FRS (20 September 1830 – 30 November 1906) was a British naval architect, author, politician, and railroad magnate. He was the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1863 until 1870. He was a Liberal politician ...

wrote: "the turret-ship 'Wivern', belonging to the Royal Navy, has a low free-board (about 4 feet), and is very lightly armoured, while her armament is also very light. Yet on one occasion her behaviour at sea was so bad that she had to be brought head to wind in order to prevent her shipping large, and, of course, dangerous, quantities of water, the extreme angle of roll rising to 27 degrees each way."Pages 138-9 Reed, Edward J ''Our Ironclad Ships, their Qualities, Performance and Cost'', published John Murray, 1869. One of her commanding officers was Captain Hugh Talbot Burgoyne, VC who was later appointed the commanding officer of . ''Wivern'' remained in Hong Kong until sold for scrap in 1922, having been reduced to harbor duties from 1904.

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wivern (1863), Hms Scorpion-class ironclads Ships built on the River Mersey 1863 ships Victorian-era battleships of the United Kingdom