NICE INKED CDV OF SUB. LIEUT. ANNESLEY B. PRANCE OF THE ROYAL NAVY
LISTED AS LIEUT. AND COMMANDER APRIL 27, 1896
SEEN WEARING AN EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN MEDAL AND A KHEDIVE'S STAR FOR THE BOMBARDMENT OF ALEXANDRIA ~ The Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882.
Admiral Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which had previously sailed to the harbor of Alexandria to support the khedive Tewfik Pasha amid Ahmed ‘Urabi's nationalist uprising against his administration and its close ties to British and French financiers. He was joined in the show of force by a French flotilla as well. The move provided some security to the khedive, who withdrew his court to the now-protected port, but strengthened ‘Urabi's nationalists within the army and throughout the remainder of Egypt. On 11 June, anti-Christian riots began in Alexandria. The city's European residents fled and the Egyptian ‘Urabist army began fortifying and arming the harbor. An ultimatum to cease this build-up being refused, the British fleet began a 10½-hour bombardment of the city without French assistance. Historians argue about whether Admiral Seymour exaggerated the threat from the Egyptian batteries at Alexandria in order to force the hand of a reluctant Gladstone administration. Once the British had attacked the city, they then proceeded to a full-scale invasion to restore the authority of the khedive. Egypt remained under British occupation until 1956.
SERVED ABOARD THE HMS INFLEXIBLE ~ ARMORED PLATED SHIP ~ Inflexible mounted larger guns than those of any previous British warship and had the thickest armour ever to be fitted to a Royal Navy ship. Controversially, she was designed so that if her un-armoured ends should be seriously damaged in action and become water-logged, the buoyancy of the armoured centre section of the ship would keep her afloat and upright.
The ship was the first major warship to depend in part for the protection of her buoyancy on a horizontal armoured deck below the water-line rather than armoured sides along the waterline.
She was also the first Royal Navy ship to be completely lit by electricity, and the first to have underwater torpedo tubes. The electrical installation provided 800 volts DC to power arc lamps in the engine and boiler rooms and Swanin candescent bulbs in other parts of the ship. The circuitry was complicated because the lighting consisted of sets of 18 Swan lamps and an arc lamp arranged in series. Each incandescent bulb was fitted with an automatic mechanism to switch in a resistor to maintain continuity should it fail, so that the set of 19 lights would not be extinguished if one failed. The arrangement also led to the first fatal electrocution on a Royal Navy ship, in 1882, after which the Navy adopted an 80 volt standard for its ships.
The ship was equipped with many other novelties, including water tanks to dampen the roll, which turned out to be useless. Much of the ship was without natural illumination, and Fisher had different deck levels painted in contrasting colours to make it easier for crew members to find their way around the ship.
HMS DREADNOUGHT ~ was an ironclad turret ship built for the Royal Navy during the 1870s. Construction was halted less than a year after it began and she was redesigned to improve her stability and buoyancy. Upon completion in 1879, the ship was placed in reserve until she was commissioned in 1884 for service with the Mediterranean Fleet. Upon her return 10 years later, she became a coast guard ship in Ireland for two years. The ship then became a depot ship in 1897 before she was reclassified as a second-class battleship in 1900. Dreadnought participated in the annual fleet manoeuvres for the next two years before she became a training ship in 1902. The ship was taken out of service three years later and sold for scrap in 1908.