HMS Holland 1

HMS Holland 1, also called HM Submarine Torpedo Boat No 1, was the first submarine owned by the Royal Navy and the lead boat of the five-boat Holland class. Ordered from the inventor John Philip Holland, she was built at Barrow-in-Furness, assembled in a building labelled Yacht Shed so that the work stayed secret, and launched on 2 October 1901. She dived for the first time in an enclosed basin on 20 March 1902 and began sea trials the next month. The Admiralty used her for anti-submarine trials and as a target, and she formally commissioned only in early 1903, after Holland 2 and Holland 3 had entered service. She was decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1913 for 410 pounds, then sank off Eddystone Lighthouse while under tow with nobody on board. Found in 1981 and raised in 1982, she was conserved and now stands in the Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport as part of the National Historic Fleet.