1745 Establishment The 1745 Establishment was the third and final formal establishment of dimensions for ships to be built for the Royal Navy . It completely superseded the previous 1719 Establishment , which had subsequently been modified in 1733 and again in 1741 ( but not formally replaced on either occasion ) . Although partially intended to correct the problems of the ships built to the earlier Establishments , the ships of the 1745 Establishment proved just as unsatisfactory , and important changes in the make - up of the Admiralty and Navy Board s finally led to the end of the establishment era by around 1751 . Origins . When the 1706 Establishment had come into effect , British naval architecture had been set on a path of conservatism that caused stagnation in the advance of shipbuilding in Great Britain . Over the course of the existence of the 1706 and 1719 Establishments , the sizes of ships had remained relatively unchanged : the gundeck length of a 70 - gun third rate of 1706 was , compared with in 1733 . By comparison , the 70 - gun French ship " Ferme " captured by the Royal Navy in 1702 was , and the 70 - gun " Magnanime " of 1744 , captured in 1748 was . This was almost as long as the to which British first rate s were to be built according to the 1741 proposals . With the end of Robert Walpole ' s government in 1742 , the Board of Admiralty was re – organised , and the civilian Earl of Winchilsea was appointed First Lord . Under the new administration , there were some half - hearted attempts at reform , with the ordering of the 90 - gun to be razeed to 74 - guns , as a response to the increasing French and Spanish practice of building 74 - gun ships , and an experiment in building larger ships for their class resulted in the construction of and . The Duke of Bedford , again a civilian , was appointed First Lord in December 1744 . He relied upon Rear - Admiral George Anson , who had refused promotion to flag rank under the previous First Lord . The fiasco that was the Battle of Toulon highlighted many of the problems in British shipbuilding , with several ships unable to open gunports due to a combination of a lack of stability and insufficient height of the ports above the waterline . It was observed by Commodore Charles Knowles that the British 70 - gun ships were ' little superior to [ the French ] ships of 52 guns . ' Many of the fleet ' s problems were blamed on Sir Jacob Acworth , the Surveyor of the Navy since 1715 , and an unsuccessful attempt to remove him was mounted by one of the members of the Board of Admiralty , Henry Legge . For the previous Establishments , the dimensions had been decided upon through consultation with the Surveyor and senior shipwrights ; instead in June 1745 the Admiralty took the lead when it decided to deal with the problem of ship sizes , and set up a committee to review proposals made by the Navy Board . The original purpose of the Establishments was to standardise the fleet , but because ships had been built and rebuilt at various times to varying established dimensions , there was little more standardisation than had been present before the 1706 Establishment came into being . The new Establishment of 1745 was intended to correct this situation , and at the same time solve the issues with British ships that had been the cause of complaint by sea officers for several years . The Admiralty had intended that the 80 - gun ships should no longer be built , they being too short and lacking in stability so as not to be able to open their lower ports in anything much above a calm sea . The committee the Admiralty had set up disagreed with their assessment however , and the suggestion to switch to 74 - gun ships in lieu of the 80s was rejected . The size of ships was to be limited according to the depth of water available in the country ' s ports , and so even the 90 - gun ships were to remain smaller than some French and Spanish 74s . Despite these setbacks , the Admiralty had achieved much greater increases in the sizes of ships than with the previous establishments . Furthermore , the ship types of pre - 1741 were restored ( i . e . the 64s returned to being 70s , the 58s to 60s , etc . ) . The earlier establishments had merely laid out the principal dimensions for each type of warship from the 100 - gun first rate s down to the 20 - gun sixth rate s ( although with effect from the 1719 Establishment this was augmented by defining the sizes and thicknesses of wood to be used in the construction ) , and had left the actual design of each vessel to the Master Shipwright in each Naval Dockyard , with the Surveyor of the Navy responsible only for common designs for those ships built by contract by mercantile shipbuilders . However , under the new 1745 Establishment the responsibility for preparing designs ( " draughts " ) for all ships was given to the Surveyor of the Navy , with the Master Shipwrights now responsible only for constructing ships to those common Surveyor ' s designs for each type of vessel . Additionally , the control over the Establishments was passed from the Admiralty to the Privy Council , a move intended to remove the possibility of changes being made in the future . Despite the rejection of their proposal that 74 - gun ships should replace 80s in the new establishment , the Admiralty succeeded in having , which was building as an 80 , modified to be completed as a 74 , though she was never considered a particularly successful ship , and was the smallest 74 - gun ship of the 18th century . Individual ship types . A different set of Establishment dimensions was defined for each size of ship , other than the smallest ( i . e . the unrated ) vessels . In the main ( the exceptions being the 64 - gun and 58 - gun ships , as shown below ) the armament remained that set out under the 1743 Establishment of Guns ( created by Order of the King in Council , 25 April 1743 ) ; this was applied retrospectively to all ships order to be built subsequent to 1 January 1740 . First rates of 100 guns . As provided for under the 1743 Establishment of Guns , the 100 - gun first rate was to carry an armament of : Second rates of 90 guns . As provided for under the 1743 Establishment of Guns , the 90 - gun second rate was to carry an armament of : Third rates of 80 guns . As provided for under the 1743 Establishment of Guns , the 80 - gun third rate was to carry an armament of : Third rates of 70 guns . The 1743 Establishment of Guns had provided for the former 70 - gun third rate to be reduced from 70 - gun to 64 - gun ships , each with an armament of : Under the 1745 Establishment they were restored to 70 guns and were to carry an armament of : Fourth rates of 60 guns . The 1743 Establishment of Guns had provided for the former 60 - gun third rate to be reduced from 60 - gun to 58 - gun ships , each with an armament of : Under the 1745 Establishment they were restored to 60 guns and were to carry an armament of : Fourth rates of 50 guns . As provided for under the 1743 Establishment of Guns , the 50 - gun fourth rate was to carry an armament of : Fifth rates ( 44 - gun ) . As provided for under the 1743 Establishment of Guns , the 44 - gun fifth rate was to carry an armament of : Sixth rates ( 20 - gun or 24 - gun ) . As provided for under the 1743 Establishment of Guns , the 24 - gun sixth rate was to carry an armament of : Amendments to the 1745 Establishment . When the first of the new ships began entering service , it became apparent that they were not so successful a design as had been hoped . Captains complained of their poor sailing qualities , and so the Admiralty sought permission from the Privy Council to make amendments to the designs in 1750 . The changes agreed mainly affected the 90 , 80 and 60 - gun ships , although changes were made to the draughts of all sizes of ships . By 1752 , it was felt necessary to petition the Council for further alterations to be made to the designs , and again in 1754 . On this occasion , the Admiralty decided to omit certain details — namely a increase in the length of the 70 - gun ships — from their proposals , so as to better the chances of their being accepted . However , by this time it was clear that the ships of the 1745 Establishment were a thorough disappointment . End of an era . In 1755 Joseph Allin retired from his post as Surveyor of the Navy on ill health . He had been joint Surveyor with Jacob Ackworth until Ackworth ' s death in 1749 , and sole Surveyor thereafter . The Admiralty reacted swiftly and appointed Thomas Slade and William Bateley as the new joint Surveyors , and shortly thereafter two new 70 - gun ships were ordered to be built to Slade ' s draught , which represented a significant increase in size over their predecessors — as opposed to the of the 1754 amendments . Although nominally ordered as 70s , these new third rates were in fact the first of the 74s , and represented the end of the 70 - gunner as a ship type on the navy lists . The era of crippling conservatism in British shipbuilding completed its slow death when Anson , by now the First Lord of the Admiralty , had the Navy Board reorganised with people who would support the Admiralty rather than fight with it , as had been the case previously .