HMS Edinburgh was an ironclad battleship of the Colossus class

Colossus class battleship (1882)

The Colossus class battleships were ironclad warships, carrying their main armament in turrets, which served in the Victorian Royal Navy from 1882...

 which served in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 of the Victorian era. She was the sister ship of HMS Colossus

HMS Colossus (1882)

The second HMS Colossus was a Colossus class second-class British battleship, launched in 1882 and commissioned in 1886. She had a displacement of 9,520 tons, and an armament of 4 × 12-inch breechloaders, 5 × 6-inch guns and had a respectable speed of 15.5 knots. She served in the Mediterranean...

, being started before her but being completed after.

Edinburgh was the first British battleship since HMS Warrior

HMS Warrior (1860)

HMS Warrior was the first iron-hulled, armour-plated warship, built for the Royal Navy in response to the first ironclad warship, the French Gloire, launched a year earlier....

, launched in 1860, to carry breech loading artillery as part of her main armament. Warrior had been equipped with 10 110-pounder Armstrong

100-pounder breech-loader

The Armstrong RBL 7 inch gun, also known as the 110-pounder, was an early attempt to use William Armstrong's new and innovative breechloading mechanism for heavy rifled guns.-Description:...

 breech loading guns, which had not proved satisfactory, to complement her 26 muzzle-loaders.

Edinburghs guns were carried in two turrets positioned near the centre of the ship, and the turrets were mounted en echelon. It was expected that, by mounting the turrets in this way, at least one gun from each turret could fire fore and aft along the keel line, and all four guns could fire on broadside bearings; it was intended that every part of the horizon could be covered by at least two guns. In practice it was found that firing too close to the keel line caused unacceptable blast damage to the superstructure, and cross-deck firing similarly caused damage to the deck.

Before Edinburgh the positioning of the conning tower in British ironclads had produced a variety of solutions; the difficulty was that the two important factors involved, maximum protection and maximum visibility, were essentially mutually incompatible. In this ship the conning tower was positioned forward of the foremast for good all-round vision; the chart-house was, however, placed on its roof, and the whole area surrounded by small guns, stanchions and other obstructions to the view; the problem was not solved until the political will to build larger ships in turn allowed more space for command facilities.

Service history

Her completion was delayed due to a lengthier than expected development time for her armament. An example of the Mark II twelve-inch breech loader exploded on board HMS Collingwood

HMS Collingwood (1882)

HMS Collingwood was an ironclad battleship of the Royal Navy. She was the first example of the Admiral-class and was named after Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, Horatio Nelson's second-in-command in the British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar....

 while on trial, and Edinburgh had to wait, as did other ships, for the Mark IV. She was commissioned at Portsmouth in July 1887 for the 1887 Golden Jubilee Fleet Review

Fleet Review, Royal Navy

A fleet review is a traditional gathering of ships from a particular navy to be observed by the reigning monarch or his or her viceroy, a practice allegedly dating back to the 15th century. Such an event is not held at regular intervals and originally only occurred when the fleet was mobilised for...

, and was then posted to the Mediterranean, where she was commanded by Commander

Commander

Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...

 (later Admiral

Admiral

Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...

 Sir) Percy Scott

Percy Scott

Admiral Sir Percy Moreton Scott, 1st Baronet GCB KCVO was a British Royal Navy officer and a pioneer in modern naval gunnery.-Early years:...

 until 1890. Her posting to the Mediterranean ended in 1894.

She was then briefly guardship at Hull, and was then guardship at Queensferry until 1897, when she went into reserve. In 1908 she was converted for use as a target ship, being fitted with fully backed and supported modern armour plates; the intention was to test and measure the effect on these plates of oblique impact by armour-piercing shells filled with lyddite, the most potent explosive of the period. As a result of these trials, which revealed major shortcomings in British high-explosive shells, the Controller, Jellicoe

John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe

Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO was a British Royal Navy admiral who commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in World War I...

, ordered that the design of these shells should be improved. He was shortly thereafter appointed in command of the British Atlantic Fleet

British Atlantic Fleet

The Atlantic Fleet was a major fleet formation of the Royal Navy.There have been two main formations in the Royal Navy officially called the Atlantic Fleet. The first was created in 1909 and lasted until 1914...

, and this instruction was not carried out. At the Battle of Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

many British armour-piercing shells either did not pierce German armour, or did so but failed to explode, because of this failing.