‘A black vicious ugly customer as ever I saw, whale-like in size, and with as terrible a row of incisor teeth as ever closed on a French frigate’ – Charles Dickens

HMS Warrior, the Royal Navy’s first ocean-going ironclad warship, was launched in London on 29 December 1860. Included below is a report of the launch that was published in the Liverpool Daily Post of 31 December 1860 and an illustration of the vessel as she appeared just after completion.