HMS Black Prince was the third ship of that name to serve with the Royal Navy. She was the world's second ocean-going, iron-hulled, armored warship, following her sister ship, HMS Warrior. For a brief period the two Warrior-class ironclads were the most powerful warships in the world, being virtually impregnable to the naval guns of the time. Rapid advances in naval technology left HMS Black Prince and her sister obsolete within a short time. HMS Black Prince spent more time in reserve and training roles than in first-line service.
HMS Black Prince was 380 feet 2 inches long between perpendiculars and 420 feet long overall. HMS Black Prince had a beam of 58 feet 4 inches and a draught of 26 feet 10 inches. The ship displaced 9,137 long tons. The hull was subdivided by watertight transverse bulkheads into 92 compartments and had a double bottom underneath the engine and boiler rooms.
HMS Black Prince was ordered on 6 October 1859 from Robert Napier & Sons in Govan, Glasgow for the price of £377,954. The ship was laid down on 12 October 1859 and launched 27 February 1861. Her completion was delayed by a drydock accident at Greenock while fitting out, which damaged her masts. HMS Black Prince steamed to Spithead in November 1861 with only jury-rigged fore and mizzenmasts. The ship was commissioned in June 1862, but was not completed until 12 September 1862. HMS Black Prince was assigned to the Channel Fleet until 1866, then spent a year as flagship on the Irish coast. Overhauled and rearmed in 1867–68, she became guardship on the River Clyde. The routine of that duty was interrupted in 1869 when she and Warrior towed a large floating drydock from Madeira to Bermuda.
HMS Black Prince was again refitted in 1874–75, gaining a poop deck, and rejoined the Channel Fleet as flagship of Rear Admiral Sir John Dalrymple-Hay, second-in-command of the fleet. In 1878 Captain H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh took command and the ship crossed the Atlantic to participate in the installation of a new Governor General of Canada. Upon her return HMS Black Prince was placed in reserve at Devonport, and, reclassified as an armored cruiser, she was reactivated periodically to take part in annual fleet exercises. Black Prince was hulked in 1896 as a harbor training ship, stationed at Queenstown, and was renamed Emerald in 1903. In 1910 the ship was moved to Plymouth and renamed Impregnable III when she was assigned to the training school HMS Impregnable before she was sold for scrap on 21 February 1923.
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