Dockyards, ROYAL. Under the names of the several towns where the royal dockyards are situated those establishments are briefly noticed. Under the present heading a few remarks may be useful concerning the whole of them collectively.
Most of the royal ships are built by the government at one or other of the dockyards at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Sheerness, Chatham, and Pembroke. Each of these establishments comprises covered slips on which the ships are built, docks in which they are kept, and all the appliances for rigging them out for sea. Boat-building and mast-making are also carried on; and in some, though not all of the yards, ropemaking, sailmaking, anchor-forging, blockmaking, and other manufacturing operations connected with the finishing and furnishing of ships. There are also arrangements connected with the storing of guns and other munitions of war. The yards at Plymouth, Gosport, and Deptford are limited to large establishments for victualling the navy; while machinery is repaired and constructed in the dockyards proper. To enable ships to be repaired and refitted abroad, there are royal dockyards at Gibraltar, Malta, Halifax, Bermuda, Jamaica, the Cape of Good Hope, Ascension, Trincomalee, Esquimalt, Sydney, and Hong-kong. Since the creation of a steam-navy, and the large substitution of iron for wood in shipbuilding, an increasing proportion of the royal ships are built in private yards. All the royal dockyards are under the Admiralty, and each is governed by a distinct set of officers responsible only to that department. The chief officer, called the superintendent, is always a naval officer—an admiral at the larger yards, a captain at Sheerness and Pembroke; and the office is deemed an honourable recognition of past services. The superintendent controls all the other officers, and all the artificers and labourers employed; examines the accounts, authorises the payments, and is responsible for the stores. When a new ship is to be built, or other work executed, the superintendent receives general instructions from the Admiralty, while special instructions are conveyed to other officers more immediately concerned with the actual working. In yards where steam-machinery is repaired and fitted, engineers form an important part of the establishment. The artisans of the dockyards comprise shipwrights, platers, cankers, joiners, smiths, millwrights, blockmakers, sailmakers, ropemakers, &c.; while under these is a large body of labourers.
In 1895-96, £1,810,000 was voted for wages in the dockyards at home and abroad. These charges are exclusive of £2,655,000 for materials. The increased expenditure in recent years on the navy (in 1884-85 the sum spent in building new ships was £2,472,000, in 1894-95 it was £4,500,000) has involved a large increase in the outlay on the dockyards, both for personnel and materials. Of the seven first-class battleships included in the programme commenced in 1894-95 five were built in the dockyards, and two by contract in private yards. The general direction of the royal dockyards is under the superintendence of the Controller of the Navy, under whom are many professional and technical officers. See also COALING STATIONS.
In the United States, the bureau of yards and docks superintends the construction of docks, naval grounds, buildings, and civil engineering work for the navy. There are seven navy yards—Portsmouth (63 acres), Charlestown (Boston, 80 acres),
Brooklyn (80 acres), League Island (Philadelphia), New London, and Washington; and three naval stations—Norfolk, Pensacola, Mare Island (San Francisco). It is proposed to close most of these, and retain but three—at Brooklyn, Norfolk, and San Francisco, with a repair arsenal at Washington.
The great naval centres of France are Cherbourg, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, and Toulon. Germany has three ports of war—Kiel, Danzig, and Wilhelmshafen. Trieste and Pola are the Austrian naval harbours. Russia has Cronstadt and Sebastopol at home, and Vladivostok in the Amur territory. See ARSENAL.