DREADNOUGHT DESIGNER RETIRES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3399, 14 December 1911, Page 5

DREADNOUGHT DESIGNER RETIRES.

A MERITORIOUS CAREER. Sir Philip Watts, K.C.8., will shortly. in accordance with the age rules, relinquish his appointment as Director of Naval Construction, hut will still be available as adviser to the Admiralty. Sir Philip Watt® will always be famous in the history of the Navy for his connection with the Dreadnought, of which he wa6 the designer. Towards the end of 1904, Lord Selborne. who was then First Lord, announced that the board had appointed “a Special Committee on Designs to assist them and the Director of Naval Construction in tihe consideration of certain questions to be submitted to it by the board in connection with the features of the future designs of different _ types of fighting ships.” The committee’s recommendations were approved by the board, and embodied in the Dreadnought type of battleship and 1 the Invincible type of cruiser. The main features in which the new battleship differed from its immediate predecessors was ini the all-one-calibre big gun armament (in place of a mixed armament of big guns), in the increase of speed, in the height of the freeboard, and in the great increase of manoeuvring power.