Royal Mail issue stamps to mark 500 years of Royal Navy
- Published
The Royal Mail has released a new set of stamps showing eight Royal Navy ships from history. This is the world-famous Mary Rose from 1511. She was one of King Henry VIII's ships and served for 33 years in many important wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany.
This incredible vessel is HMS Victory. She is best known for her role as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars.
This is HMS Beagle - a 10 gun ship. It was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames and cost £7,803. Though it was designed for warfare it wasn't needed so was instead used to transport famous naturalist Charles Darwin around the world.
This is the HMS Warrior. Britain’s first iron fully-armoured battleship. Launched in 1860, at the time of the British Empire, Warrior was the pride of Queen Victoria’s fleet. The largest, fastest and most powerful warship of her day, she was powered by steam and sail.
Sovereign of the Seas was a English Navy warship during the 17th-century. She was armed with a whopping 102 bronze guns at the insistence of King Charles I. At the time there was resistance to it being built because it was so big there were concerns that it couldn't be harboured anywhere. It was later renamed Sovereign, and then Royal Sovereign.
HMS Dreadnought was a Royal Navy battleship that completely changed naval power. She was the first to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time. Dreadnought means 'a fearless person'. Her first outing in 1906 was such an advance in naval tech that her name became associated with an entire generation of battleships called the 'dreadnoughts'.
HMS King George V was the lead ship of five British battleships of the Royal Navy. It was a key ship during operations in the Second World War. In May 1941, along with HMS Rodney, King George V was involved in the hunt for and pursuit of the infamous German battleship the Bismarck
HMS Queen Elizabeth is an aircraft carrier. The Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carriers are the largest warships ever built for the UK Royal Navy. They can carry up to 70 aircraft each. It is a huge 280m - the length of three full-size football pitches - and can carry 1,600 people.