In 1842, when Britain still ruled the waves, it was unthinkable that Queen Victoria should be deprived of a decent royal yacht. It is striking from Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel’s letter below just how quickly it was commissioned as a replacement for the aging Royal George. The following July, the Queen wrote to the Duchess of Norfolk that ‘we shall probably be making some aquatic excursions in our new yacht’ in September.
‘Our new yacht’, was the Victoria and Albert, the first steam-powered royal vessel, 200 ft in length, fitted with a 430hp engine and two guns. According to her biographer, Lytton Strachey, the 24-year-old Victoria was delighted with her new ship.
'"I do love a ship!" she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the greatest agility, and cracked jokes with the sailors.' The Queen offered it to the navy as a hospital ship during the Crimean War, but is only saw service with the royal family, making some 20 voyages until it was replaced by Victoria and Albert II in 1855.
‘Our new yacht’, was the Victoria and Albert, the first steam-powered royal vessel, 200 ft in length, fitted with a 430hp engine and two guns. According to her biographer, Lytton Strachey, the 24-year-old Victoria was delighted with her new ship.
'"I do love a ship!" she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the greatest agility, and cracked jokes with the sailors.' The Queen offered it to the navy as a hospital ship during the Crimean War, but is only saw service with the royal family, making some 20 voyages until it was replaced by Victoria and Albert II in 1855.
 |
Queen Victoria's visit to Le Tréport, September 1843, by Louis Gabriel Eugène Isabey |
Whitehall 22 September 1842
Sir Robert Peel presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs leave, with reference to your Majesty’s note of yesterday, to state that the first act of Sir Robert Peel on his return from Scotland was to write to Lord Haddington [First Lord of the Admiralty] and strongly urge upon the Admiralty the necessity of providing a steam yacht for your Majesty’s accommodation.
Sir Robert Peel trusts that your Majesty may entirely depend upon being enabled to make any excursions your Majesty may resolve upon in the early part of next summer in a steam vessel belonging to your Majesty, and suitable in every respect for your Majesty’s accommodation.
Sir Robert Peel . . . now finds that the Admiralty is building a large vessel to be worked by steam power, applied by means of a revolving screw instead of paddles. It may be doubtful whether the same degree of velocity can be attained by means of the screw, particularly in a very large vessel. Of this a full trial will be made.
Sir John Barrow [Second Secretary to the Admiralty] assures Sir Robert Peel that he has been on board a steam-boat moved by the screw and that the working of the engine is scarcely perceptible; that there is none of the tremulous motion which accompanies the beats of the paddles, and that it will be possible to supply an apparatus by means of which the smoke can be consumed and the disagreeable smell in great measure prevented.
Sir Robert Peel will leave nothing undone to ensure your Majesty’s comfort and safety in any future naval excursions that your Majesty may be pleased to make.
