List of breastwork monitors of the Royal Navy

Reed gave these ships a superstructure to increase seaworthiness and raise the freeboard of the gun turrets so they could be worked in all weathers.

This meant that they could dispense with the masts, sails and rigging needed to supplement their coal-fired steam engines over any distance.

Reed took advantage of the lack of masts and designed the ships with one twin-gun turret at each end of the superstructure, each able to turn and fire in a 270° arc.

[1] These ships were described by Admiral George Alexander Ballard as being like "full-armoured knights riding on donkeys, easy to avoid but bad to close with".

[2] Reed later developed the design into the Devastation-class, the first ocean-going turret ships without masts, the direct ancestors of the pre-dreadnought battleships and the dreadnoughts.

[4] HMS Glatton was derived from the design of the first breastwork monitors, but sacrificed the rear turret for thicker armour and larger guns with which to attack enemy ports.

She was given a deep draught to improve her seaworthiness, but her low freeboard meant that she had very little ability to weather head seas.

[5] HMS Hotspur was similar in layout to Glatton, but she was given more freeboard by the addition of an unarmoured structure above her waterline armour belt.

The two Conqueror-class ships were enlarged versions of Rupert with heavier guns, thicker armour and a steel hull.

[20] HMS Rupert was an enlarged version of Hotspur with a rotating turret, two smaller guns, and heavier armour.

She was thereafter held in reserve at Portsmouth until being mobilised for the Particular Service Squadron during the Russian war scare from April to August 1885.

They were ostensibly for coast defence purposes, but the Admiralty planned to use them to attack enemy ports and for operations in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea.

[25] The pace of construction was initially quite fast, but the fitting-out work slowed drastically as the threat of war declined.

[29] Both ships were assigned as tenders to the gunnery schools in Devonport and Portsmouth, although Conqueror did participate in Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee Fleet review in July 1887.