Ships Cover for the Barham class third class protected cruisers HMS Barham (1889) and HMS Bellona (1890). The documentation covers a significant amount of the preliminary planning and design correspondence for these ships, including comparisons of contemporary British designs (including the Barracouta class) and the French Forbin and Troude class protected cruisers. The rest of the paperwork mainly relates to statements of dimensions and weights, stability claculations, screw pitch and diameter graphs, proposed hull form lines, mast and yard arrangements, allocated armament and ammunition, coal bunker capacities, cost estimates cross-referenced with actual building/fitting expenditure, crew complement, and correspondence with various contractors. A fair amount of documentation is devoted to trial reports, particularly in relation to the efforts to achieve a high speed with this class. There are also occasional reports of vessel performance at sea, including a May 1894 statement from Barham's commander following her encounter with a gale in the Mediterranean. Details of alterations made to engines, armament and general improvements are also present, as are late (20th Century) condition reports for Barham. The papers begin in August 1886, well before the designs being discussed crystallised into the Barham class and end in May 1913 with Barham being put on the sale list (Bellona was sold in 1906).