Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/182

 towards the realisation of the desired qualities. Launched in May 1865, she was a high freeboard ship, fully rigged as then seemed necessary to seamen; she was protected by a complete belt at the waterline, and amidships rose an armoured citadel enclosing the main battery and covering the vitals of the ship. An attempt to gain end-on fire was made by mounting a smaller battery behind armour in the bows, but in later ships this expedient was improved on by the introduction of recessed ports for the guns at the corners of the central battery. Structurally also the Bellerophon was an important ship, for in her Reed introduced a new system of framing, known as the longitudinal and bracket-frame system, which was better suited than the old method to the use of iron, which was still quite a novel material for the hulls of men-of-war.

At the same time an entirely different type of armoured ship was advancing in favour. This was the low freeboard monitor, with its heavy guns mounted in turrets, a type which had done well in the peculiar circumstances of the American civil war. Reed built several ships of this type, all of them in the main similar to the Glatton; but he fought strenuously against the idea of building large masted monitors as sea-going ships. He held, and indeed proved, that the low freeboard monitor would be dangerously lacking in stability under sail, and at the time when the Captain was building to the plans of Capt. Cowper Phipps Coles [q. v.], he put forward a design for a large seagoing monitor which should be entirely mastless. This was the Devastation, a ship whose design exercised a greater influence on the course of naval architecture perhaps than any other. Reed's plans for the ship, which was laid down in Nov. 1869, were modified in some, as he thought, important particulars, and, owing to a failure to agree with the admiralty on questions connected with the construction of turret ships, he resigned office in July 1870. The report of the committee on designs which sat after the loss of the Captain (7 Sept. 1870) was in many respects a justification of Reed's views, and directly reassured public opinion as to the safety of the Devastation. On resigning from the admiralty he joined Sir Joseph Whitworth [q. v.] at his ordnance works at Manchester; in 1871 he became chairman of Earl's Company, Hull, and in the same year began practice as a naval architect in London. He designed ships for several foreign navies, including those of Turkey, Japan, Germany, Chili, and Brazil, and of these three, the Neptune in 1877, and the sister ships Swiftsure and Triumph in 1903, were bought into the royal navy. In Oct. 1878 he visited Japan at the invitation of the imperial government. He was also consulting naval engineer to the Indian government and to the crown colonies. Reed was a keen advocate of technical education, and while at the admiralty used his influence in favour of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, which was established in 1864. It was also in great measure due to his appreciation of the value of the work, and to his recommendation of it, that the support of the admiralty was given to William Froude [q. v.] in his model-experiments on the resistance and propulsion of ships. In 1876 he was elected a fellow by the Royal Society; he had received the C.B. in 1868, and was advanced to the K.C.B. in 1880, besides which he held several foreign decorations. From 1865 to 1905 he was a vice-president of the Institution of Naval Architects, and in addition was an active member of other technical societies.

In 1873 Reed attempted unsuccessfully to enter parliament as liberal candidate for Hull, and in the following year was returned as member for the Pembroke boroughs. From the general election of 1880 until 1895, when he was defeated, he sat for Cardiff, and was a lord of the treasury in the short Gladstonian administration of 1886. In 1900 he was again returned for Cardiff, but did not seek re-election in 1905. He served on several important parliamentary committees, and was chairman of the load-line committee of 1884, and of the manning of ships committee of 1894. He was for many years a J. P. for Glamorgan.

Reed's contributions both to general and to technical literature were numerous. His published volumes include 'Corona, and other Poems' (12mo, 1857); 'Letters from Russia in 1875' (first printed in 'The Times' 1876); ' Japan, its History, Traditions, and Religions : with a Narrative of a Visit in 1879' (2 vols. 1880); and a further volume of 'Poems' (1902). In 1860 he became editor of the 'Transactions of the Institute of Naval Architects,' to which he continued to contribute to the end of his life, his papers in vols. iv. to x., issued while he was chief constructor, being of especial interest. In 1869 he wrote 'Our Ironclad Ships,' which was in great measure a vindication