page_title: HMS Thunderer (1872)
section_title: Construction and career
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Thunderer (1872) / Construction and career
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS Thunderer at anchor prior to 1879
context_page_description: HMS Thunderer was one of two Devastation-class ironclad turret ships built for the Royal Navy in the 1870s. She suffered two serious accidents before the decade was out and gained a reputation as an unlucky ship for several years afterward. The ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1878 and was reduced to reserve in 1881 before being recommissioned in 1885. Thunderer returned home in 1887 and was again placed in reserve. She rejoined the Mediterranean Fleet in 1891, but was forced to return to the UK by boiler problems the following year. The ship became a coast guard ship in Wales in 1895 and was again placed in reserve in 1900. Thunderer was taken out of service in 1907 and sold for scrap in 1909.
context_section_description: Thunderer, the fifth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy, was laid down on 26 June 1869 at Pembroke Dockyard, Wales. Construction was subsequently halted for a time in 1871 to modify the ship to improve her stability and buoyancy by extending the breastwork to cover the full width of the hull which increased the ship's freeboard amidships and provided additional accommodation for the crew. The ship was launched on 25 March 1872 by Mrs. Mary Meyrick, wife of Thomas Meyrick, MP. Two years later she was transferred to Portsmouth Dockyard to finish fitting out.
  On 14 July 1876, Thunderer suffered a disastrous boiler explosion which killed 45 people. One of her boilers burst as she proceeded from Portsmouth Harbour to Stokes Bay to carry out a full-power trial. The explosion killed 15 people instantly, including her commanding officer; around 70 others were injured, of whom 30 later died. This was the Royal Navy's most deadly boiler explosion through the whole century. A model representing the failed boiler was made and is now in the Science Museum, London. The explosion was caused because a pressure gauge was broken and the safety valve had corroded in place. When the steam stop valve to the engines was closed, pressure in the boiler rose and could not be released. The four box boilers were the last in service in the Navy and operated at what would even then would have been considered a relatively low pressure, for more modern boilers, of 30 psi (210 kPa). The boiler was repaired and the ship was completed on 26 May 1877 at a cost of £368,428.
  Thunderer was commissioned in May 1877 for service with the Reserve Fleet Particular Service Squadron and was then assigned to the Channel Squadron. During this time, she was fitted with experimental 16-inch (406 mm) torpedoes. She sailed for the Mediterranean in 1878 under the command of Captain Alfred Chatfield.
  The ship suffered another serious accident in January 1879 when the left 12-inch 38 ton gun in the forward turret exploded during gunnery practice in the Sea of Marmora, killing 11 and injuring a further 35. The muzzle-loading gun had been double-loaded following a misfire. According to Admiral of the Fleet E.H Seymour,
  "Both turret guns were being fired simultaneously, and evidently one did not go off. It may seem hard to believe such a thing could happen and not be noticed, but from my own experience I understand it. The men in the turret often stopped their ears, and perhaps their eyes, at the moment of firing, and then instantly worked the run-in levers, and did not notice how much the guns had recoiled. This no doubt occurred. Both guns were at once reloaded, and the rammer's indicator, working by machinery, set fast and failed to show how far the new charge had gone."
  The accident contributed to the Royal Navy changing to breech-loading guns, which could be more conveniently worked from inside the turrets. The fragments of the destroyed gun were re-assembled and displayed to the public at the Woolwich Arsenal. The committee of inquiry decided that the gun had been double-loaded, but this view was widely questioned, including by Sir William Palliser, designer of the Palliser shell used by these guns. Palliser's view instead was that the shot had been obstructed by a portion of the millboard disc rammed above the shell. Hydraulic power-ramming was thought to be implicated in the double loading as the telescopic hydraulic rammer had not made the double loading obvious, as a manual ramrod would have done. One piece of evidence supporting the double loading theory was the presence of an additional stud torn from a Palliser shell, found amongst the wreckage within the turret. Thunderer was then regarded as an unlucky ship and was placed in reserve at Malta in 1881 and had her machinery overhauled. Her armament was augmented with a pair of 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo launchers and a half-dozen 1-inch (25 mm) Nordenfelt guns on the hurricane deck. She was recommissioned in 1885 and remained with the Mediterranean Fleet until she was paid off at Chatham Dockyard. The future
caption: Thunderer at anchor, before 1879
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