page_title: Majestic-class battleship
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Majestic-class battleship / Design
caption_attribution_description: British battleship HMS Royal Sovereign (1891).
context_page_description: The Majestic class of nine pre-dreadnought battleships were built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1890s under the Spencer Programme, named after the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Poyntz Spencer. With nine units commissioned, they were the most numerous class of battleships in history. The nine ships, HMS Majestic, Caesar, Hannibal, Illustrious, Jupiter, Magnificent, Mars, Prince George, and Victorious, were built between 1894 and 1898 as part of a programme to strengthen the Royal Navy versus its two traditional rivals, France and Russia. This continued the naval re-armament initiatives begun by the Naval Defence Act 1889.
  The Majestics introduced a number of significant improvements to British battleship design, including armoured gun shields for the barbette-mounted main battery guns. The ships were armed with a main battery of four BL 12-inch Mark VIII guns, the first large-calibre weapon in the Royal Navy to use smokeless propellant, which made it superior in almost all respects to earlier, larger guns. They were also the first British ships to incorporate Harvey armour, which allowed them to carry a much more comprehensive level of protection.
context_section_description: In 1891, Rear Admiral Jackie Fisher, then the Controller of the Royal Navy, issued a request for a new battleship design based on the Royal Sovereign class, but that incorporated a recently designed 12 in (305 mm) gun and Harvey armour, which was significantly stronger than compound armour. The Director of Naval Construction, William Henry White, prepared a preliminary design for a 12,500-tonne (12,300-long-ton) ship armed with four of the 12 in guns and protected with an armour belt that was 9 inches (229 mm) thick. White submitted the design on 27 January 1892 to the Board. Due to the greater resilience that Harvey armour provided, less of it could be used for the same level of protection, allowing for significant weight reduction. As a result, the protection scheme was made stronger and more comprehensive than in the Royal Sovereigns, while minimising increased displacement. This included the fitting of fully enclosed armoured gun shields for the main battery guns.
  The Board approved the design and intended to lay down three ships under the 1892 programme, but work on the 12 in gun was taking longer than predicted, and so construction was delayed to the 1893 programme. By that time, the third ship of what was to be the Majestic class was redesigned as a second-class battleship, Renown, leaving only two ships to be laid down under the 1893 estimates. By August 1893, however, the public perceived the strength of the Royal Navy to have fallen relative to its traditional rivals, the French and Russian navies. John Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed a large naval expansion plan referred to as the Spencer Programme that included seven more Majestic-class battleships to soothe public opinion.
  The Majestics were to be a benchmark for all successor pre-dreadnoughts. While the preceding Royal Sovereign-class battleships had revolutionised and stabilised British battleship design by introducing the high-freeboard battleship with four main-battery guns in twin mountings in barbettes fore and aft, it was the Majestics that settled on the 12 in main battery and began the practice of mounting armoured gunhouses over the barbettes; these gunhouses, although very different from the old-style, heavy, circular gun turrets that preceded them, would themselves become known as "turrets" and became the standard on warships worldwide. The Majestic class, the largest class of battleships ever built, were some of the most successful battleships of their time, and they were widely copied. Indeed, the Japanese Shikishima class and the battleship Mikasa were based directly on the Majestics.
caption: HMS Royal Sovereign, upon which the design for the Majestic class was based
exif: {}