Review of the Fleet at Spithead by the Queen. 1878.

The Naval Review at Spithead, the Royal yacht passing through the Lines.

Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 24th August 1878.

By Josiah Robert Wells (1849-1897).

Framed coloured engraving.

Width: 71.5 cm. Height:  54.5 cm

The Royal Yacht Victoria & Albert is sailing between lines of warships. A naval review requires a large, sheltered and deep anchorage, so in England it usually occurs in the Solent off Spithead. Queen Victoria and her daughter Princess Beatrice had embarked in the afternoon and were joined by Prince Arthur and the Prince and Princess of Wales. The Queen recorded in her Journal that it was ‘a beautiful sight … The Iron Clads looked splendid’ and she was impressed by ‘the 2 torpedo boats, Vesuvius & Lightning, which rushed about at the rate of 20 Knots an hour’. The Times newspaper noted that only a small section of the Fleet took part in the review but that it was still ‘a force almost equal to the entire maritime resources of any one continental Power, not alone numerically, but also as to fighting capacity’.