Presented by Andrew Choong, Curator at The National Maritime Museum. This study day examines the development of British battleships over a period of nearly a century,
from the appearance of the first ironclads in the 1860s to the last of the great ‘big gun’ capital ships
in the 1940s. Battleships began this era with a central role to play within the battlefleets of the major
seafaring nations, as much instruments of diplomatic policy and focal points of national pride as
they were fighting vessels. Technological advances brought about by the Industrial Revolution
offered the prospect of making these imposing warships even more formidable but also presented
great difficulties as the Royal Navy endeavoured to keep pace. The 20th Century brought with it war
on a global scale, severely testing Britain’s battleships and the assumptions that underpinned their
use. By 1945, sweeping changes in naval warfare had rendered the battleship an expensive luxury,
one that impoverished Britain could no longer afford.