Admiral Phipps Hornby, the hero of the straits ascent (and the commander at Portsmouth), orchestrated a campaign to reach public opinion over the head of the hostile Gladstone government. In September 1884 the journalist W T Stead, who was sympathetic to the navy, began publishing a series of articles called ‘The Truth About the Navy’ in the influential Pall Mall Gazette. Phipps Hornby’s covert conduit to the press was Captain John Fisher, the future First Sea Lord.57 Initially First Lord Northbrook was unrattled, saying that he had no idea what he would do with any large supplemental budget. Naturally First Naval Lord Admiral Cooper Key felt that he could not say that his resources were inadequate. As the campaign gained momentum, Gladstone’s government felt compelled to give way. On 10 November Northbrook admitted in a speech at the Guildhall that more armoured ships and cruisers were needed, and that it was particularly important that the smaller ships be faster. On 2 December the government announced an additional £5.5 million for imperial defence (£3.1 million for the navy, £2.4 million for the army, naval ordnance and base fortifications) over the next five years, beginning with the 1885-86 program (reduced from the Admiralty estimate that £11 million was needed). Public opinion was so aroused that this rather large program was widely considered inadequate, Cooper Key becoming extremely unpopular within the navy for supporting the earlier government position.
The Northbrook Program amounted to 1 ironclad, 2 torpedo rams, 5 armoured cruisers, 10 torpedo cruisers, and 30 torpedo boats, beyond the normal annual programs. The money was later redistributed to buy 2 battleships (Victoria and Sans Pareil), 5 armoured cruisers (Orlando class), 6 torpedo cruisers (Archer class), and 14 torpedo boats (presumably including 4 torpedo gunboats). Among the first indications that the Northbrook Program would be carried out was the announcement of requests for tenders for six of the ten projected torpedo cruisers. Any backsliding on Gladstone’s part was prevented by the 1885 war scare, which reinforced Stead’s point that the navy was not powerful enough. From the navy’s point of view the greatest success was that Stead made the strength of the Royal Navy a permanent and prominent public concern.
The British situation was exacerbated by a gun crisis: given the recent shift from Woolwich muzzle-loaders to Armstrong breech-loaders, there was a strong perception in 1884 that guns, particularly heavy ones, were not being produced nearly rapidly enough. The French seemed far ahead, and that sense contributed to the feeling of impending naval crisis.
After the Gladstone administration fell in 1885, new First Lord Hamilton determined on a large sustained program to ensure British naval superiority over both France and Russia (which were increasingly seen, realistically, as a combined threat).
Hamilton fired DNC Barnaby, who had been associated with the penny-pinching of the past. For example, Barnaby seems to have been fascinated with the idea of pushing down the size (hence the cost) of protected cruising ships. He also became associated with the idea of arming large fast merchant ships, which in Gladstone’s terms might well be seen as a way of avoiding building expensive fast cruisers. Gladstone’s aversion to spending probably explains why, in 1885, Captain Fisher pressed for a fast torpedo depot ship, but only as a conversion of a merchant ship – because building a special warship for that purpose would cut construction of more vital ships. Under the new regime, fast merchant ships were still worth arming in wartime – but only as supplements to the core of specially-built warships.
Hamilton was looking forward to a more expansive future. He needed a visionary DNC who could and would design the large modern warships he expected to finance. He appointed William H White, who had been Barnaby’s assistant before being hired by Armstrong to design spectacular export cruisers.58 White designed so many of the ships in this book that its subtitle might almost have been ‘The White Era’. Having made a name at Armstrong (Elswick), White returned to the Admiralty as DNC, accepting a considerably reduced salary. In compensation the Admiralty shipped Barnaby’s deputy Philip Watts to Armstrong as chief naval architect. Watts in turn replaced White in 1902.
Although Gladstone returned briefly to office in 1886, Hamilton was soon back, remaining in office between 9 August 1886 and 25 August 1892. He reached his goal with the 1889 Naval Defence Act. White worked with Hamilton to develop a rolling program which would maintain a modern Royal Navy. To that end White assigned ships effective lifetimes, which were formally proposed in 1891: 22 years for armoured, protected, and partially protected ships (including nearly all cruisers), i.e., depreciation of 4 per cent per year; and 15 years (6 per cent) for corvettes, sloops, torpedo cruisers, gun-vessels, gunboats, troopships, etc.59 Lifetimes implied a regular replacement program.
White also prepared a report showing that 72 ships should be discarded between 1888 and 1891. That transformed Hamilton’s major new construction program into a far more acceptable 70-ship replacement program. On the eve of the 1888 manoeuvres, the Naval Lords were asked for a confidential report showing what the navy would need in the event of a war with France. It was to include the requirements of a war against France and Russia, should it be necessary (as in 1885) to defend Constantinople. This was Hall’s war, with Russia added. On this basis the Naval Lords asked for 65 ships – 8 first-class and 2 second-class battleships, 8 large cruisers, 25 second-class cruisers, 4 third-class cruisers, and 18 torpedo gunboats. The Naval Lords also wanted the building program reviewed no later than 1892-93, to prevent any break in construction. A program was submitted to the Cabinet about October 1888. It was soon buttressed by the post-manoeuvre report described above, which (with parts of the manoeuvre report itself) was released to Parliament in February 1889
On 7 March 1889 Lord George Hamilton introduced the Naval Defence Act: 21.5 million for 70 ships, including 8 first-class and 2 second-class battleships, 9 large Edgar class cruisers, 29 second-class cruisers (21 Apollo and 8 Astraea class), 4 third-class cruisers (Pallas class), and 18 torpedo gunboats. This multi-year program became possible when the British national debt was refinanced on favourable terms (the 32 ships to be built by contract were paid for out of the Consolidated Fund, to be spread over the seven years ending 31 March 1896, but the 38 ships to be built in Royal Dockyards were paid for out of annual votes).
By this time both the Russians and the French had bases outside Western Europe from which they could raid British territory in the Pacific. Australia was clearly increasingly at risk if war broke out. The key issue, revived again and again, was how to distribute the burden. The first Colonial (defence) Conference, meeting in 1887, proposed a deal in which the Australians would subsidize a British squadron. On this basis ships, including Pearl class cruisers, were ordered in 1888. The same conference released portions of the report of the earlier Carnarvon Committee (on colonial defence) which cast doubt on the Royal Navy’s ability to protect the Empire.
The 1889 Act (and to a much lesser extent the 1884 Northbrook Program) was treated at the time as the dawn of a new Royal Navy, rejecting the sluggish and retrograde thinking of the past. That was natural. Until 1884 the Admiralty failed again and again to get across to its political masters what was needed to maintain British naval supremacy. In 1956 Dr Oscar Parkes labelled the pre-Act period ‘the Dark Ages of the Admiralty’ in his history of British battleships. In fact there was considerable continuity, particularly in strategic thinking. There was less continuity in technology, but that was simply because the technology kept changing at breakneck speed. The main darkness of the dark ages was political: the Admiralty’s failure to gain political traction, hence the money it needed.
The 1889 Act included