2-799-015 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

H.M. Iron steam-frigate "Trident", 1845. 'The Trident is the first Iron Steam-Ship-of-War ordered by her Majesty's Admiralty to be built. She was launched from Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare's extensive building-yard, at Blackwall [on the River Thames in London]...The iron skin is 3/4 inch thick at the keel, diminishing upwards at the gunwale to 1/2 inch. The skin contains 1400 plates of iron, which are rivetted to each other, and to the ribs and keel, by 200,000 rivets. Each rivet was wrought red hot, and required the united labours of three workmen and two boys to rivet it in its corresponding hole...The weight of the iron hull is 380 tons. The total weight of the ship, with her machinery, coals, water, guns, and stores for sea-going, is calculated at 900 tons'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.