The Defence-class ironclads were designed as smaller and cheaper versions of the Warrior-class armoured frigates.

This meant that they could not fit the same powerful engines of the Warrior-class ships and were therefore 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) slower and had far fewer guns.

The naval architect Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, a future Constructor of the Navy, considered that, in terms of combat, a Defence-class ship was worth one quarter of a Warrior.

[1] The hull was subdivided by watertight transverse bulkheads into 92 compartments and had a double bottom underneath the engine and boiler rooms.

The ship carried 450 long tons (460 t) of coal,[7] enough to steam 1,670 nautical miles (3,090 km; 1,920 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Firing tests carried out in September 1861 against an armoured target, however, proved that the 110-pounder was inferior to the 68-pounder smoothbore gun in armour penetration and repeated incidents of breech explosions during the Battles for Shimonoseki and the Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863–1864 caused the navy to begin to withdraw the gun from service shortly afterwards.

[13] The Defence-class ships had a wrought-iron armour belt, 4.5 inches (114 mm) thick, that covered 140 feet (42.7 m) amidships.

[15] Resistance was ordered on 14 December 1859 and laid down a week later by Westwood, Baillie at their shipyard in Cubitt Town, London.

[17][19] On 4 February 1899 she departed Spithead in tow of the Liverpool tugs Pathfinder and Wrestler for the Mersey, to be broken up.

In a gale in the Irish Sea on 8 February, her steam steering engine failed due to a boiler problem, she shipped water in the forward compartments and the stokehold.

In view of the leaks and the inability to steer, the tugs sought a port of refuge and brought her to anchor inside Holyhead Breakwater, in the outer harbour.

To prevent a total loss and a potential danger to navigation, she was towed further into the harbour and put ashore in Penrhos Bay.

On 13 March she was beached at Oglet Point, near Garston, where she was broken up by the ironfounders Monks, Hall & Co, of Warrington.