For a list of ships of 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...

, see List of Royal Navy ships.

The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889 by Rif Winfield and David Lyon is a historical reference work providing details of all recorded ships in commission or intended to serve in the Royal Navy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...

 from 1815 to 1889. Where available in Admiralty records (from which all the data is sourced), it gives the location of construction, dates of construction (ordering, keel laying, launch and commissioning), principal dimensions and tonnage, armament, machinery (for steam vessels) and fate of every ship of the Royal Navy over the period.

David Lyon's The Sailing Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy, Built, Purchased and Captured, 1688-1860 had been published in 1993, a ground-breaking study of the sailing vessels of the Royal Navy from the Glorious Revolution

Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...

 of 1688 until the close of the Age of Sail

Age of Sail

The Age of Sail was the period in which international trade and naval warfare were dominated by sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid 19th century...

. He had planned a follow-up on the ships of the Royal Navy in the era of transition from sail to steam power, and began work in preparation for that volume. Sadly, this was cut short by his death in a diving accident during 2000 in the Bahamas (he was an enthusiastic underwater archaeologist).
Shortly after his death, his colleague Rif Winfield, author of the best-selling Fifty Gun Ship, and subsequently the author of a series of volumes under the heading British Warships in the Age of Sail, took over David's accumulated notes, added them to his own extensive research on Royal Naval warships, and carried on this work to produce what the Journal for Maritime Research described as
The book is a valuable reference work and the only complete single-volume published record for ships of the late Georgian era

Georgian era

The Georgian era is a period of British history which takes its name from, and is normally defined as spanning the reigns of, the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain : George I, George II, George III and George IV...

 (1714-1837) and of the early (1837-1860) and middle (1860-1889) Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 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...

. Rif Winfield's subsequent three-volume British Warships in the Age of Sail

British Warships in the Age of Sail

British Warships in the Age of Sail is a series of books by maritime historian Rif Winfield comprising a historical reference work providing details of all recorded ships in commission or intended to serve in the Royal Navy from 1603 to 1817.-Scope:...

series has expanded this material to incorporate all vessels of the British (before 1704, English) Navy between 1603 and 1817, and incorporated the results of extra research since the publication of their Sail and Steam Navy List.