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► Royal Navy ► Vessels

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Soon after the start of the war it became clear that, in both the Baltic and the Black Sea, the Russian fleets did not intend to emerge from their fortified harbours to offer battle. The waters in the vicinity of these harbours, and in many other potential operating areas along those coasts, were too shallow to allow the existing British and French vessels, and particularly the ships of the line, to approach and engage Russian forces and fortifications on shore. Furthermore, the large size (presenting an easy target to the gunners on shore) and low manoeuvrability of the allied vessels were considered too great a risk to allow close combat with shore fortifications. When it proved impossible to obtain local merchant vessels suitable for conversion to gunboats (as had been the original optimistic plan), it was decided to order purpose built wooden hulled screw gunboats to designs by W.H. Walker.

A total of 156 vessels were built, divided over four classes: the Gleaner class was the original design; the Dapper class was an improved version of the Gleaner design. When even the (6 foot) design draught of these vessels proved too great for some situations, the shallow draft (4 foot design draft) Cheerful class was added; the Clown class was an improved version of this design. The hulls of all these classes were built at a large range of private yards and at Royal Dockyards. The machinery was built by John Penn of Greenwich, or by Maundslay, Son and Field of Lambeth, and the building of over 150 sets of engines in two years was a very early example of industrial mass production. The design was later further improved in the Algerine (1856; six vessels) and Britomart (1859, 20 vessels) classes.

The Gleaner class comprised six vessels, which were all employed in the Baltic in 1855, and were all present at the 1856 review. The first batch of Dapper class vessels (twenty in number) all saw service in either the Baltic or the Black Sea; only the vessels serving in the Baltic were home in time for the review. The remaining vessels (98 of the second batch of the Dapper class, 20 of the Cheerful class, and 12 of the Clown class) were completed too late to be involved in the campaign, although around 80 were completed in time for the review.

After the review many of the gunboats were placed in reserve (where they soon rotted away, many being built of unsuitable green, unseasoned, timber). Others became tenders - for example for the Coast Guard ships stationed around the British coast, or saw service in China in the late 1850s.

• Theatre: these gunboats were first used during the 1855 campaign of the war, where they were treated as tenders to ships of the line; the ship to which the gunboat was a tender is given between brackets
• Divn: the division to which the gunboat was allocated during, en shortly after, the 1856 review
• Fate: BU = broken up

Class characteristics (as built, average)

• Length b.p. = between perpendiculars
• B.M. = Builders Measure, although expressed in tons, this was a measure of volume which was just being replaced by Displacement (a measure of weight, also in tons)
• N.H.P. = nominal horse power, related to cylinder dimensions, and not to actual power production

The 2nd batch of Dapper class boats is sometimes referred to as the Albacore class.

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Literature: Osbon, Lion and Winfield, Clowes

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