forward one was made redundant by the forward extension of the belt. The conning tower ranged in thickness from and the upper deck was thick inside the citadel and outside. Construction and career Dreadnought, the fifth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy, was laid down on 10 September 1870 at No. 2 Slip, Pembroke Dockyard, Wales with the name of Fury. Construction was subsequently halted for a time in 1871 to redesign the ship and she was renamed Dreadnought on 1 February 1875. The renamed ship was launched on 8 March by Mrs. Agnes Wood, daughter of William Courtenay, 11th Earl of Devon. She was completed on 15 February 1879 at a cost of £619,739. The ship was then immediately placed in reserve until 1884 when she was commissioned for service with the Mediterranean Fleet. Dreadnought was fitted with ten 1-inch (25 mm) Nordenfelt guns on the hurricane deck when she was commissioned. The ship sailed for the Mediterranean Sea on 14 October and remained there for the next decade. The future King George V served aboard in 1886–88. She returned to British waters in September 1894 and began a refit at Chatham Dockyard that included the replacement of her Nordenfelt guns with six quick-firing (QF) 6-pounder and ten QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns. Dreadnought became a coast guard ship at Bantry Bay, Ireland in March 1895. Two years later, in March 1897, she was relieved of that duty and became a depot ship in July at Devonport. The ship was reboilered and had more QF guns installed in 1898. Dreadnought was reclassified as a second-class battleship in 1900 and took part in British fleet manoeuvres in that year and the following one. In June 1902, she was refitted at Chatham to serve as a tender to HMS Defiance, torpedo school ship at Devonport, and later as a depot ship. She took part in the fleet review held at Spithead on 16 August 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII, and was commissioned as tender four days later, on 20 August 1902. Lieutenant Harry Louis d′Estoteville Skipwith was appointed in command in October 1902. She was taken out of service and transferred to the Kyles of Bute in 1905. The ship was sold to Thos. W. Ward for scrap for £23,000 on 14 July 1908 and was broken up by February 1909. Footnotes References External links