3-011-517 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Dudgeon's new double-screw iron steam-ship Flora, 1862. 'A most important and interesting trial-trip has been made with this new vessel, attended with an unusual degree of interest...from the fact that the peculiar form of the vessel's construction and the disposition of her propelling steam-power, if successful on trial, combined the requisites required for our smaller ships of war...and smaller craft, as gun-vessels of six guns and less, inasmuch as she was the representative of a class of ship capable of carrying a heavy armament of guns, with a large engine-power, at a light draught of water, possessing at the same time a power of manoeuvring in a small space such as could not, under any circumstances, be possessed by a vessel with the ordinary single screw [ie propeller]...there can be no doubt that the Flora is the fastest screw steam-ship afloat. Her builders are Messrs. Dudgeon, of Millwall (both of hull and engines)...The Flora, however, is the first vessel that has been fitted with two screws and engines working separately and independently of each other; and herein lies the value of the principle in a military point of view, as giving a ship a means of rapidly revolving under steam and changing her position to any required point'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.