Majestic-class battleship
The Majestic class of nine pre-dreadnought battleships were built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1890s under the Spencer Programme, named after the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Poyntz Spencer. With nine units commissioned, they were the most numerous class of battleships. The nine ships, HMS Majestic, Caesar, Hannibal, Illustrious, Jupiter, Magnificent, Mars, Prince George, and Victorious, were built between 1894 and 1898 as part of a programme to strengthen the Royal Navy versus its two traditional rivals, France and Russia. This continued the naval re-armament initiatives begun by the Naval Defence Act 1889.
HMS Mars
HMS Royal Sovereign, upon which the design for the Majestic class was based
Right elevation, deck plan, and hull section as depicted in Brassey's Naval Annual 1902; the shaded areas represent the ship's armour protection.
Majestic's forward 12 in gun turret; note the 12-pounder mounted atop the turret
Pre-dreadnought battleship
Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and their classification as "pre-dreadnought" is retrospectively applied. In their day, they were simply known as "battleships" or else more rank-specific terms such as "first-class battleship" and so forth. The pre-dreadnought battleships were the pre-eminent warships of their time and replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s.
HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) was the first pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy.
HMS Ocean was typical of pre-dreadnought battleships
HMS Dreadnought shows the low freeboard typical for early ironclad turret-ships. This ship, launched in 1875, should not be confused with her famous successor, launched in 1906, marking the end of the pre-dreadnought era.
HMS Ramillies was the fourth ship of the influential Royal Sovereign class. The diagonal tubes are spars for torpedo nets.