During the Crimean War, Captain Cowper Phipps Coles of the British Royal Navy constructed a raft with guns protected by a 'cupola' and used the raft, named "Lady Nancy", to shell the Russian town of Taganrog in the Black Sea. "Lady Nancy" "proved a great success", and Coles patented his rotating turret after the war. Following Coles' patenting, the British Admiralty ordered a prototype of Coles' design in 1859, which was installed in the floating battery vessel, , for trials in 1861, becoming the first vessel to be fitted with a revolving gun turret. Coles' design aim was to create a ship with the greatest possible all round arc of fire, as low in the water as possible to minimise the target.