3-021-205 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Launch of the Victoria, iron-clad frigate built for the Queen of Spain at Blackwall, [London], 1865. Warship built by the Thames Iron Works Company. '...her armament [is] thirty guns of large calibre; and her engines, which were made by Penn and Co., of 1000-horse nominal power...two Catholic clergymen...proceeded to bless the ship in the form prescribed by the Roman ritual, using the following prayer "Be propitious, O Lord! to our supplication, and with thy holy right hand bless this ship and all whom it bears, as Thou didst deign to bless the ark of Noah floating over the deluge."...The ship was then sprinkled with holy water, and, the religious rite thus completed, the Duchess de Montpensier took her appointed station, bottle in hand, the ship's name, Victoria, was pronounced, the frail glass shivered against the iron plates, the strokes of a thousand hammers were heard all together, and in less than two minutes the great ship was floating proudly in the wet dock, surrounded by a whole fleet of tug-boats and row-boats...There was a good deal of cheering, and the band played "Rule Britannia" and the Spanish national hymn'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.