Edward James Reed - Chief Constructor of the Navy
1863-1870
An engineer and naval scientist by training, rather than an experienced naval officer, his appointment as Chief Constructor at the age of 33 was not wholeheartedly welcomed. It was a difficult time for naval architects, with three revolutions taking place - the introduction of steam power, armour plating for ships, and explosive shells replacing cannon balls.
Nevertheless, he managed to tread a middle line between necessary progress and wariness of the more extreme plans of others,
Coles's included. Indeed he was having to withstand
Coles’s pressure, even in his first year.
Reed and his team have been credited with a method of iron shipbuilding which was still the standard method used in the 20th century; they also produced in
HMS Devastation a ship without forecastle, poop or masts to interfere with
Coles’s turrets, the forerunner of a long line of modern battleships.
After much frustration with the Admiralty, and having born a long running dislike from the First Lord of the Admiralty, Hugh Childers,
(including, as it happens, Childers' refusal to allow Reed to go on one
of Captain's cruises) he left the Admiralty to go into industry in July 1870 - just two months before
HMS Captain, built without his approval, foundered. This
departure was described as a national disaster by the Controller,
Vice-Admiral Robert Spencer Robinson (himself described as having one of
the best brains of any Victorian admiral, an attribute which may have
led to his being sacked the following year by Childers).
Reed subsequently became a Member of Parliament, (from
which position he was able to attack his successors at the Admiralty),
and became Vice-President of the Institution of Naval Architects until
his death in 1906.
HMS Captain
1870